I saw the Piplings leaflet at the weekend and was glad the Tewkesbury Lodge letter followed to address the balance in the name of fairness.

I found it quite uncomfortable that 'friends of Pilings' have been obtaining support for their cause by frightening home workers, people who are probably in many cases a lone trader or whose core business is run outside the home (such as painters, plumbers, garders etc). Their homes still being classified as residential, with neighbours knowing that if these businesses ever became a nuisance there would be legal redress.

The key issue here is less about whether you are a home worker, or even whether the Piplings could run a great little nursery in Forest Hill, but more about the protection provided by the covenant when the council can't be trusted to do the right 'democratic' thing – (how many initial objections?) - covenants are the place of last resort and incidentially what protects much of the open park land we enjoy in Forest Hill - preventing councils and government bodies from selling off or building roads etc though parks and allotment areas.

Should Piplings sell up and move on, a less desirable proposition could be put forward by the new owners and just waved through. ‘Oh, but this is unlikely’ I hear you say. Not so, once a precedent has been set it is so much easier to make amendments. This should concern anyone who lives on the estate.

Then what next – weekend operation? Change of hours, an application for a new frontage - (remove windows and main entrance to provide easier access for the disabled), neon lights advertising the business? A change of use from Nursery to primary school? Change of use to small boarding school, to hotel? The house next door then puts an application in for change of use to a private gym and a few exercise classes. Why shouldnt this be allowed? Next door to that, a jam making factory with small shop at the front. Hey presto the estate is changed forever.

Had the Piplings retained the status of their home as residential and took in a few children as a small childminding concern, I doubt if anyone would have complained, but this operation is a full blown business, clearly a nuisance for the neighbours and no longer a residential property, in what has been for many years a very quiet street.