Hey it still says 999 on the thread menu. Well got it every which way now. I really must get out more.

I have to say I'm not a big fan of swimming, so the issue doesn't affect me that much, but this morning when I read the leaflet I just couldn't believe it. Basically they make you think that if you choose option one nothing is going to happen because they give you the idea that they will probably not find the funds.

For me a swimming pool in the original site would be good to revitalise the town centre, while a swimming pool in Sydenham (the option two) would just be good for the people living around there. If I have to walk 20 minutes to get there I'd rather jump on the train and go swimming to the fitness first in London Bridge or, when the East London is completed, it will be quicker to go to the Seven Island in Canada Water.

I totally agree with Michael, this consultation is a disgrace, but not exactly unexpected. Even after the petition, the council/mayor continue to bulldoze the WW option through, using this pathetic consultation process to prove legitimacy. How do we get through to the council that we want a review of options on the current site, IN FOREST HILL. Oh yes and by the way, how much money will this - waste of time - consultation cost the tax payer?

Yes I agree rather like in old Communist Democratic Republics. You will vote the way we want asm although we have given you alternatives they are not really viable.
What a complete waste of money. I would like to know how much it has cost for this futile attempt at democracy.
How do we find this out ? Does anyone know ?

As usual I refused to fill in my racial origin . What the hell has that got to do with whether I want to use the pool. Lewisham seems to be reimposing Aparteid. What a disgrace.

I really can't understand why it is in the Councils interests to be so blatantly one sided when it is going to end up potentially calling the accuracy and honesty of the whole thing into question? Well clearly they are not bothered!

Its really important that some of the information about the real potential risks and viability of the project is well advertised for those that are completing the questionnaire to see.

- The relative deliverability of the two options is not as simple as the council say in the leaflet
- The pool on Willow Way is contrary to Council Policy (for 2 reasons, the first it being an employment site and the second for moving a leisure use from within a town centre). This doesn't mean it is impossible just that they can't start straight away as they say they can "start Willow Way now" and will need to jump through a number of hoops that are not entirely in their control.
- Live/work development may be possible on the Willow Way site within existing planning policies and could be used to cross subsidise a pool on the existing pool site earlier than 2015. It may not meet all of the current funding gap but could well go quite a way towards closing it.

Gep - I am interested by your suggestion of Seven Islands in Canada Water, near it maybe when the ELL opens but as someone who used to live very near there it is a bit of a dump, was never very clean and has no children's pool...

Brian,
I've tried to ignore you for a while, but 'Reimposing apartheid' is shameful.

I dont suppose Brian was being serious (in any case why is this shameful?) and I agree, what does it matter if you are black, white, yellow, blue? Swimming is a thing we mammals all enjoy.

But responding to surveys might not be...

And why is it shameful? Because comparing an inoffensive question in a questionnaire, which it is entirely his right not to answer, to a system which directly denied democratic rights to 80-odd percent of a country's population and resulted in thousands of deaths is sick, gingernuts.

And of course he won't have been being serious. But it seemed pretty serious to me.

I received my questionnaire about the pools Saturday and saw from the map exactly where Willow Way actually is. Do any of you know this road? It's horrible. Why would anybody want to go there, even if there's a swimming pool there. It's a road full of businesses, i.e. a garage, and in the evening it's very quiet and not an area I feel safe in. The existing pool area by contrast is in an attractive area, where kids could combine a trip to the pool with a trip to the library. I can't understand why the council would even consider moving the pool to such a dreadful area. I think the council are just trying to put any obstacle in the way they possibly can in order to delay any action for as long as possible and we'll all hopefully give up.

I totally agree. Communities thrive in town centres with good amenities, not when trapsing from one industrail estate to another.

I walked along Willow Way yesterday and in the sunshine it was actually very pleasant. I would have thought it would be the perfect place for live-work units. Following on from what Satchers says, if we could have live-work units on Willow Way and a pool where it always was, actually in the main cantre of FH, it would be fantastic.

My question as to why question being asked is quite serious. As Gingernuts says, and I 100% agree surely the important thing is if you enjoy swimming not what ethnic origin you might. Surely we are all residents in Lewisham and that is all that should matter.
I object to all questionaires from LBC trying to label us into an ethnic grouping , surely this is devisive. I always ignore this question.
I agree aparteid was and is abhorent.

Get it built and get it built now!
GIB now!

I'm just wondering if anyone knows if Crofton Park ward will be involved in the consultation at all? It seems like not from earlier posts - does anyone know why? Parts of this ward (including where we are) is SE23 and it seems a shame that we're not encouraged to take part in this clearly important local issue.

What I don't get (if this was covered earlier, I apologise) is if one of the options on the table was to use the existing Forest Hill Pools Facade--why would the listed of Louise House matter.

Surely, the listing of Louise House is only an issue if the plan was to demolise the entire Pools building and construct a modern pool/fitness building. Couldn't a new pool centre be built on this current footprint?

Yes, the original options where to demolish the whole site and rebuild. Willow Way wasnt even a consideration at that time. There has, unfortunately, never been an option (or any thought as far the taxpayer can see) to keep the frontage and the pools in Forest Hill. As soon as the listing was granted, it was as if the council's nose had been put out of joint and the whole project was thrown into the air. I'm not convinced the Willow Way option has been thought through particularly well and I'm certainly not happy about the pools being moved away from the High Street, down some back street in Sydenham. We've been missing our pools for so long now - lets wait a bit longer and the get the development right. The current consultation is a sham. As someone said on this thread, there's no guarantee that pools at Willow Way will be build straight away in any case.

It is your right to do so, Brian. In fact, most issuers expect a fair number of people not to fill in these sections and understand when they do. Leaping to words like 'Apartheid' and 'disgrace' is not really right, however.
That question is often as much about the questionnaire itself as it is about the subject of the questionnaire. If, say, only 1% of respondents are from a particular ethic group, and that ethnic group is 25% of the population in the area concerned, it shows that they either don't give a monkey's, or aren't getting reached by the method in use. Likewise if it's 80% and 25%. Whether this matters or not is another debate, ditto whether other factors are just as important, but it's not just down to everyone liking swimming, don't they.

Brian, the Council needs to monitor ethnicity etc to ensure that it is reaching all parts of the community and that the responses are representative of all ethnic groups in the borough. It is a means of trying to allocate resources fairly and a common practice where public funding is concerned. I believe it is also a central government requirement.

I do not therefore understand why you or anyone else people object to this. Equal opps is no longer the sole prerogative of left wing councils- even the Tories do it.

OK Baboonery perhaps I went over the top but if everyone got a questionairre delivered through their door then up to them whether they bother to reply. Failure to reply should not mean you have a view to be considered.
If say Polish people were 8% of population but 30% of replies were from them ,then good luck to them and about time other woke their ideas up.
Whilst understanding your reasons for ethnic clarification on all council questionairre , I am not convinced this is the way to go.
I certainly will refuse to fill this section in , guess up to others what they do.

When will we all stop dancing around on pinheads?
Louise House is butt ugly! The driving force in getting it listed was to thwart the local council in redeveloping as larger a site as possible to generate maximum income so as to rebuild a liesure centre that would meet the demands of users in the twenty first century. So now the council has to spend our money looking after some ghoulish monstrocity that they don't want and no one cared about until the pools were to be demolised, and from the resultant half space capital income and decent facilities cannot be generated.
The front of the pools does have some merit and it was a pity that they could not be incorporated into the plans of summer 2008 although the listing has stuffed that idea, they are preserved in current plans.
I was a regular visitor to the baths before they closed and there were more cockroaches swimming in the pools than those middle class bleeding hearts who want to see Dulwich Village transplanted in Forest Hill.
My family and many others, including all the local schools, want to see a swimming facility for all built and open as quickly as possible in Forest Hill, and yes that does include Willow Way (it is in Forest Hill Ward no matter what some bandwagon jumping incommers try and tell you).