I thought it might be informative to the debate here if I put up my notes of the Stakeholders' Meeting on 5th February 2009. These are my notes of the commentary to the PowerPoint slideshow given by David Booth, the Senior Project Manager for Lewisham Council and the questions and answers which followed. If other people who were there feel I have made any mistakes about what was said, I am sure I will be corrected.

They are an attachment.

And . . . of course Option 3 presumably allows for the Forest Hill Pools site, which is designated employment/leisure use, to have its planning use changed by the Council to housing. Looks like Option 3 is a wrap on the planning front and that this time round Council officials are doing the Mayor proud.

Tim Walder, are you really so naive?

Don't you think that at LBL they realized that there are huge savings there? At the cost of one pool for the local community.
Don't you understand that that's where this thing is going towards?
Once a pool opens at one end of Sydenham Road the other one at the other end is clearly redundant. That's half a million saved year on year.

And option one doesn't get cross-subsidy from any use of Willow way. Why? Because it would make it possible maybe?

I place my vote and it's for Option 1!

Option 2 does not look bad but it's got a ?5.5m budget gap and a Council unwilling to bridge it therefore insisting on that means delays, and delays and delays.... and a very high risk of losing it all.

Option 3 is wrong for a number of reasons but swimming-wise is an all out disaster and must therefore be opposed strenuously.

I think that the chart of risks should be rewritten and the SFFH should consider looking at it with impartiality rather that closing on Option 1 through a "gasp and a wince at the ugliness of it". We all have preferences but sometimes we ought to raise above that.

Yes I went for Option 1 as only realistic option. Let us face up to it 2 is a pipedream

Yes, Max, of course I realise that. It is implicit in that sentence that the Council would most likely seek to close one or other in time.

My personal view (and it is only my personal view at the moment) is that option 2 is the one to choose. It maintains good quality swimming facilities on the current site and is a good quality design. Construction could also start soon. It is up to the council to find the financial shortfall (e.g. by disposing of Willow Way and other redundant land they are sitting on).

Option 1 is not the dream solution: it is dependent on the flats and therefore needs a developer. That won't happen for the next 3 to 5 years. There did not appear to be any question of it being built without the flats, from my understanding of what was said at the meeting.

Tim I am a bit confused ( not for the first time )

You seem to imply on one hand the council could easily fund option 2 by disposing of land in Willow Way.
On the other you say option 1 would not progress as no devolper would want to build the housing in next couple of years.

Am I missing something . Why would a devolper rush and pay a fortune for Willow Way ( which has always been a down market area ) but not go near Dartmouth Rd ,
As I said I am sure I am missing something. Apologies in advance.

Is the land market so different in 0.4 miles.

Tim, I find that yours is an extraordinarily unfair treatment of the various options.

In your views:

- Option 2 should get cross subsidy from Willow Way and any other development (why not an increase in Council tax to pay for it then?);

Option 1 instead should not benefit by any cross subsidy but only rely on flats built above it. Why this? Because it makes your preferred option sound better than what it is?

And the bottom line? That you guys will oppose a realistic option because you don't like it.
You are denying the obvious.
Option 2 is more expensive, it must pay for conservation and for bridging the new and the old and compared to a site that's a clean slate it puts constraints to what can be done.
Of course it would have been better with an even bigger clear site but that train's now left for real.

Well said Max.

Tim, it it true that your analysis of the options is particularly biased towards your own favoured option. If the council do opt for Option 3 (which would appear to be their end-game based on the information currently available to us), will you and your SFFH organisation fight for the retention of pools in Forest Hill as forcefully and self-righteously as you did for the retention of the Victorian frontage and Louise House?

The current voting including my own on se23 seems to show that nearly everyone is united in opposing Option 3 and divided between options 1 or 2 so I'm sure "conservationists" and "modernists" can unite on wanting to keep pools on the current site. I do feel a little caution is necessary in accepting the LBL scorings and costings etc. though and hope people vote for what they really want.

Quote: "Yes I went for Option 1 as only realistic option. Let us face up to it 2 is a pipedream"

Brian
Option 1 is a pipe dream as it requires a developer to build it who is willing to build a pool and take a big risk on the housing above it at the same time. Developers willing to do this didn't exist in great numbers at the top of the market and are nowhere to be seen now, or for a good long while yet. The problem in particular here is the combination of leisure and housing in the same block, in fact on top of each other.

The view expressed at the stakeholder meeting was that Option 1 was both undeliverable and did not meet the concerns expressed about the last round of options.

It also has a horrible access road from Dartmouth Road and seems to annoy everyone around it in terms of scale and visual impact.

So why doesn't Lewisham Council consider building a leisure centre without houses on top but cross subsidizing with other sites like option 2 that would get it from Willow Way?
And how is it that supporters of option 2 fail to see this blindingly obvious fact?

Lets just be realistic about this, all the options have some aspect of undeliverability about them, none of them are clear cut.

Option 1 can't be delivered until the market/economy completely changes and even then the risk of delivering housing and wet leisure in a mixed use block is still unlikely to be popular with developers.

Option 2 has the problem of getting planning for housing on the Willow Way Site and then it can't deliver the housing on that site until the market picks up. The pool itself could be delivered asap if the funding gap could be met. Alternatively the people of Forest Hill might prefer to wait a bit longer for the pool?

Option 3 has to change the use of the pools site and then can't deliver the housing element to pay for it until the market picks up. So the residents of Forest Hill have an empty polls building/derelict site for another 3-10 years.

I think it would be sensible to find out:
- which option residents would choose if they could choose any (unfettered by the limitations above)
- if the choice was pools now or pools later in order to get the option they want which would it be?

Then we might be in a position to press for what we actually want and can work to find the best solution, as I am quite sure there is some way to go on this yet.

Max
It may be blindingly obvious to you but can you explain what you mean about cross subsidising as I don't understand?

The Council say they only have Willow Way to offer at the moment? Who knows what they may be able to come up with in due course?

is it just me or am i going mad ?
all this seems to need more and more land in order to build what is nothing more then a swiming pool.
i just can't understand why the Victorian's can build a two pool site with all the pumps, heaters, filters needed to run the pool and in 2009 we can't build the same thing in the same amount of land.

does that make sense ? if lewisham really want housing to help support the project well you have a large empty building right next door that would not take a great deal of work to bring it in to four or more flats.
you have the little park right next door to the pool that i am sure people would not mind giving up in order to get a leisure center.

willow way should be sold off as empty land if need be.
this whole thing just seems to be dragging on and on with no end in sight.

Satchers, what I mean is that the Council is willing to consider using eventual revenue generated by the development of the Willow Way site only to fund the gap for Option 2.
Option 1 is not considered for any funds other than those generated by the flats above.

What's this mysterious reason that made the Council decide that they should put Willow Way forward to generate extra revenue for only one of the options?

And the extra-clever thing is that including flats above is also a sure way to raise opposition from one specific side of the community.

Max, I see what you mean. I think they have not assumed they need Willow Way to cross subsidise Option 1 because in theory it may not need it financially (if there were developers to do it, at least) and it is very difficult to get built anyway. As an option it probably didn't need the complication of having to change the use of Willow Way from Employment to residential on top of everything else. Without changing the use I can only assume that Willow Way isn't worth very much.

However, as you say you could assume that option 1 moved some of its housing from on top to Willow Way but that would surely make 2 undeliverable sites until the economy picks up and the problem of planning on Willow Way still exists.

Would you get a better or more deliverable scheme out of it? I can't see how at the moment.

Eddy, Option 3 has around 60 flats and that is around the number that it would appear is needed to cross subsidise the funding gap in the pools (any option).

The park next door is already included, although its loss is compensated for by some form of open space in each option.

There might be better uses for Louise House than flats, which are probably marginal in cost/value terms anyway. There are ideas for an Arts Centre that are being developed at the moment.

Willow Way as it is must have hardly any value at present.

It does seem interminable, however we are a little closer to something than we were 5 months ago.....

So, you are agreeing that option 1, as well as option 2 have not a hope to see the light of day.
Good, because the Council's analysis is a complete pile of piffle there only to justify a foregone conclusion and we should really wake up to this because this foregone conclusion is coming on and fast.

If they can't make money by selling flats why do they waste time and tax money by filling up papers explaining how they're not going to make those money?
As you just explained yourself if you can't raise them for one option then you can't raise them for the other too.

What we should have been told is what ?7.5m can buy, what extra money can be raised now that flats don't sell, how long does that take and work from there.

And Willow Way could well be one of the options but in an honest way, and by that I mean realizing that if built it will spell death for the Bridge and therefore should be planned as a substitute for both pools.

Possibly someone can confirm, when calculating the affect of a new pool at Forest Hill it was estimated The Bridge would lose 50% of its customers.

Can I be cynical and point out the building of a new Leisure Centre in central Lewisham has been 'secured' despite housing being part of the project.

Re Willow Way, could not a pool there kick start re-generation in that area and The Bridge could become an all dry facility with increased numbers of squash courts etc?

To me Dartmouth Road has always seemed to lop sided with shops mainly just on side and seemed fizzle out by the time you got to the pools and Library.

Could not Louise House be retained for community use and the rest of the site be used for retail units and housing, thus addressing the imbalance on that part of the road?

At least we have been offered 3 serious options. Although, I prefer option 2 I now have more confidence that this matter is being taken more seriously. My least favourite option is 3, I do not see why Forest Hill should have to degenerate for the benefit of Sydenham. In any event, the current site is located on the borders of both towns - so we all benefit.