I believe that Orange has made a fair point. There is not the malice in the post that there is in the subsequent response from Cellar Door.

Like Perryman from the green and pleasant Vale of Perry I am ambivalent in the matter and am not taking sides. I do not have children of nursery going age, neither do I live close to Piplings. I do however live within the TLERA area. I have watched the development of the thread with increasing concern. It seems that the whole of the community is being tarred with a brush wielded by Piplings and its supporters in pursuit of their objective. I notice that only a few of the “objecting” neighbours have posted. Maybe, having made their original protest and thereby putting the cat amongst the pigeons, they are now keeping their heads down. I think that it is sad that a legal dispute has arisen when it need not have done, but when one runs a business, as I do, legal disputes come with the territory. That is the way business is. From what I have read Piplings is an extremely well run nursery with all of the necessary accolades from the authorities and from the parents. I wish them luck in their enterprise. I also feel that neighbours must be free to object to a business in their immediate vicinity if they feel that it adversely affects them. They have objected. The objections have been ignored and planning permission has been granted. I read on the EDF forum that the nursery is open for business and has not been forced to close. Is this true? If so, clearly the covenant has not been enforced, so just what is hoped to be achieved by all this nonsense? The pro camp is clearly hell bent on nothing other than bringing down the TLERA in retribution, the anti camp are on a hiding to nothing.

The bile and vitriol expressed against the residents on the hill is unbelievable. I do not live in “Zimbabwe on the Hill” or “Royston Vasey” nor am I a “Child Hater” of the first order. I will not move out of my home of 20 years and into a retirement complex as suggested by a poster on the EDF. (FGS!) I am just a resident of a pleasant area of Forest Hill who wants to live and let live. I do not have a hidden motive and I support my residents association as I have for the past 20 years. I rely on them to do the best for me. That is why I pay my subs. I vote for a Government that rarely acts in the way I would wish. I do not however promote a revolution to bring it down. I intend to support the people who give up their time to provide a service to the residents of this lovely area. Having followed the Piplings related thread on the EDF I am relieved I no longer live there!

Oh, and by the way IWAF it's my drive and I'll park if I want to..... or not as the mood takes me.

Cellar Door,
I only asked a question. I didn't ask you to get on your high horse and whip me together with other bullies on this forum, as you are all doing to everybody who may disagree with you!
If some people have made themselves "persona non grata" in the area where they live, it is by their own making.
I only want to find out why half of Forest Hill is going "bonkers" on this.
Perryman was right! It is very entertaining, better than EastEnders! So far Nil Points on both sides! Next episode, please!
Apart from this, I am not "gingernuts", do not know any of piplings' neighbours, do not know piplings, do not know the others, do not live there. The thread is a democratic debate and as such, no one expressing different views should be attacked.

So is the nursery not closing? I have lost track of what is happening.

Then why are you doing it to me?

Why wouldn't you though? I mean for stops longer than popping in and out where I can agree that it is often easier to park on the road. Otherwise it is just needlessly exacerbating the overcrowding of the roads isn't it?

Anyway, we digress, Admin will move us onto our own thread/driveway if we continue

Despite costing over £70k, those involved fight on. Parents and many many supporters on the hill and beyond have expressed wonderful support and passion that the Nursery is part of the community and that it try to resist the attempts to force it to close.

Thus Piplings Nursery Forest Hill remains open, in the hope of a positive conclusion that many work towards.

ummango - talking of tarring people with the same brush, SE23.com is not the EDF and I haven't seen vitriol and malice directed at the TLERA here, only reasoned, if sometimes also heated, argument. I don't know what has been said on the EDF as I find the need to scrub my eyeballs with carbolic soap after looking at that website.

I have no personal interest in Piplings or TLERA, I don't live in that part of SE23, and I can only comment on what I have seen on this thread. There are two separate issues - the thread started as an objection to Piplings, but what it is about now is the actions of the TLERA. They are not the same issue. You could object, in theory, to both.

As an objective outsider, I have read the posts by those supporting the TLERA and most (not all) are illogical, unreasoned and sometimes plain barmy. They are also hypocritical - any harm done TO Piplings can only be petty and easily dismissed, but any harm done BY them justifies any means, foul or fair, to close their business. That's what I get from the supporters of the TLERA. Not doing yourselves many favours, chaps.

@ IWAF

You are right. No malice intended!

In response to Ummango....

As I have stated before, the residents association is not the target of activity in this issue, Piplings Nursery is the target, and has been for 2 years now, by the TLERA committee including its road reps and a few neighbours they have swayed, swept up or cajoled into the campaign.

It’s a great and positive thing for an area to come together and make themselves into a residents association and long may TLERA continue - but the committee is NOT the residents association. This committee must be held to account for their involvement in a 2 year campaign that is bringing an Outstanding nursery to its financial and spiritual knees based on continuous circulation of untruths and fuelling and stoking legal action.

I agree too that businesses should be held to account if they create nuisance. This nursery does not. And is the target of a long vindictive campaign.

I also do think you mistake the tone of some previous posters - many of them are intended to be light relief and humorous.

"Thus Piplings Nursery Forest Hill remains open, in the hope of a positive conclusion that many work towards"

Why does the press coverage state that the nursery will close on February 17th? Why were, as I believe to be the case, the parents given four weeks notice that it was going to close?

Is that not a little disingenuous?

disingenuous? No.

Things have moved on considerably from when the press last covered the issue.

ummango - it is TLERA itself that has chosen to become deeply involved in this debate.

Friends of Piplings distributed a flyer to the local area (not restricted to the Estate) asking for support for the nursery in the face of the action being taken by the neighbours.

This was followed within days by a 2-sided document from TLERA, apparently stating "The Facts" (but in reality anything but),which really attacked the nursery, and this action has been followed up by vigourous campaigning and mistruths being spread door-to-door by a few members of the committee, as well as further carrolling (sp?) of neighbours into submitting objections to the covenant amendment, in a way that made it much easier for said neighbours to object without consequence to themselves.

This post was last modified: 07-03-2012 05:47 PM by ladywotlunches.

The nursery was to close on Feb 17th according to the press, even though the legal action was several months away. Presumably the legal action is still ongoing, or the majority of this thread would be redundant.

The legal action concerns the enforceability (or not) of the restrictive covenant. Campaigning by either Piplings or the TLERA would not appear to materially change the outcome of this.

It is difficult to see how things have changed.

@ Piplingtoo

It appears to me that there is indeed a concerted effort to unseat the present committee of TLERA. Many residents on the hill have been, for the most part, unaware of Piplings until recently. Why would they be, if not having children of nursery going age or living in the immediate vicinity. Also, we haven’t until recently been aware of the activities of the TLERA in connection with Piplings. No doubt this will be made clear at the meeting. I cannot speak for the general population on the hill, but I believe that most are not against the nursery, per se. It is clearly a well run business providing a much needed service to those needing places for their children. It has been proved not to be a nuisance to the neighbours in general. It appears that the parties are Piplings, and a (?) neighbour (supported by TLERA??). Nobody else. I sincerely hope, having been on the wrong side of serious litigation myself, that a compromise can be found. Else it is going to be very expensive for one or other party, or all involved. My real concern is that two community fora have been exploited, together with the press and radio to paint the residents of the hill as a whole as rather unpleasant people. As a result a SGM has been triggered with a confidence vote attached, which could, if it turns out that way, mean the loss of an association that has looked after the interests of this neighbourhood for half a century or more. This will not resolve the matter between the parties. It will just leave us with no residents association.

@ rshdunlop

So that’s why my eyesight is getting a bit ropey. No carbolic!

The terms “Royston Vasey” and “Zimbabwe on the Hill”, however, did not emanate from the EDF (Vide previous posts)

Most people probably aren't against the nursery which is why there has been so
Much concern about the undemocratic stance of the TLRA. The residents and membership needs to decide whether they have enough confidence in the committee to continue or choose to re elect other individuals. I can't see how this threatens the Residents association itself. I would have thought that this might inspire an increase in membership and a change of direction.

Ummango - I agree it is tempting, looking at these posts, to conclude that the Tewkesbury Lodge estate is full of unpleasant individuals.

It is inescapable that the committee (or certain individuals) has decided to pursue a legal technicality to close a much needed service, despite planning approval and no evidence of real nuisance, and this has inevitably led to a reaction.

As I understand from the last newsletter, several of the committee are looking to move on from their roles: I am wondering whether TLERA might be better served by a newly elected committee with better judgement and a family oriented agenda reflecting (I assume) that of the general membership. A vote of no confidence doesn't mean the end of TLERA - it could be a fresh beginning.

Les-
It is the neighbours that are pursuing the legal action. If 29 out of 40 local neighbours wanted to support the Covenant, I don’t think whoever ran TLERA could persuade them to desist. Unless of course the current committee are actually hypnotists.

Piplings knew the covenant (legal technicality) existed when they opened the business but they chose to ignore it then. This is the problem they have and they need to solve.

It is a business. It is a much needed service to a certain section of the community (most people don’t even know it exists) who are very vocal and who feel their requirement for “real” convenience outweighs any “real” nuisance it might cause.

No it is not a chemical weapons factory but if you bought a house in a residential area should you have to accept living next to a business because your neighbours have the undoubted skills to run one. If they didn’t continue to run it so well, or they let it create a greater nuisance, would it still have that section of the communities support?

The Planning approval was by politicians. I didn’t realise they are infallible.

@888mate

You are wrong on a number of fronts.
I will correct you tomorrow morning.

While I have been on the naughty step awaiting correction I have speculated:

Did your lawyers advise your best hope to remove the covenant was to
1 send a confusing legal letter to your neighbours asking them if they wished to enforce the covenant hoping that they would not object and thus marginalise the neighbours who were trying to enforce the covenant?
2 Discredit or replace TLERA so that their support of the objection would also be removed?

If you want to understand how TLERA-led objections to a nursery Planning Application turned into expensive legal action between neighbours, here's how:

First, almost 2 months before the Planning Meeting, here is a Sept 2010 email from Andrew Reid of the TLERA committee to fellow committee members and other 'active' TLERA members with some ideas for a new legal strategy:


  Andrew Reid email to TLERA commitee members 15 Sep 2010 - 2nd para is important_Redacted.pdf (Size: 77.69 KB / Downloads: 512)

In Nov 2010 the nursery successfully received Planning Permission with a large majority of councillors voting in favour. Our happiness was to be shortlived. Just two months later, in Jan 2011, we received a letter from a solicitor, TGBaynes, acting for 3 of our neighbours: our TLERA road reps, the B*s at No. 10; the M*s at No. 7; and the F*s at No. 3.

The first 2 had to drop out of the case because of title-date issues, just leaving the F*s. Here are key excerpts from that letter, where their solicitor answers questions we had posed previously about why it had taken the F*s this amount of time to enforce Restrictive Covenants...and from this letter now we understand who started all the legal action against the nursery (some of you may not be surprised) :


  Excertps from TGBaynes solicitors letters to Mr and Mrs Lee.pdf (Size: 670.02 KB / Downloads: 463)