I find it hard to believe that trained survey companies are cold calling children and asking parents for information about how many kids of certain ages there are in each household. Only children over 17 get declared; there is a reason for this- child protection.
If they are doing this really needs reporting to the Council as it is putting children at risk- no strangers should be asking about childrens details and asking to speak directly to them and parents should not be giving out such information.

The best way of soliciting childrens views is surely to visit the local schools to speak to local children in a supervised environment.

PS I do think childrens views are valid as much as they are in any public consultation however in this case the question is a little more abstract .However it would be useful to gauge how often children like to go swimming and where they go now, whether they walk , go independently with friends, or are taken by their parents. All of this is relevant I think to looking at current and future use patterns. I don't think we can criticise the Council or Continental for wanting their views, just not best achieved by cold calling.

I was called and the survey was terminated when I realised that the questions were identical to the questionnaire.
My feedback that the first question should be, 'have you already completed the questionnaire' has clearly been ignored.
It is not just incompetence. It is aggravated incompetence.

My surveyor was only interested in the views of children over the age of 13 by the way, which, probably more by accident than design, is a reasonable decision.

...and, what would be determined from the answers of young people over the ages of 13? If they dont want to go swimming (cos Facebook and Xbox etc are more interesting activites) does that mean the Council needs to do more to encourage swimming for young people (like making sure there are more local pools and education on the benefits/fun element of swimming) or does that mean the Council assumes there is no demand for swimming amoung young people and therefore no demand for local pools? I'm sure for some kids the lack of accessibility has limited their experience of swimming. I know I go less often than I used to!

I received this from Keep Swimming in Forest Hill campaign group. Unfortunately I cannot go along on Wednesday evening, but others may wish to attend.

Post 1030

For the last month or more we have been developing plans of how best to use Willow Way. Yesterday I sent an email to the Mayor or Lewisham, local councillors, and council officers, explaining what we believe is the best way to return swimming to Forest Hill in the shortest possible time. The text of the letter can be viewed on the Forest Hill Society website, along with sketches of the proposed use of the site.

I have not included the financial estimates on the website, but they are compelling and I am happy to provide them to anybody who wishes to examine them. They show that a live/work + residential development on Willow Way could easily achieve ?2m surplus for the council, quite possibly more. I will leave the rest of the points for you to read on the website.

I welcome feedback on this proposal on this forum, on the FH Society website, or by email: michael@foresthillsociety.com

Michael, as I understand your proposals, there woud be 'live/work' units (on just one floor?) each with a flat (sold or ?rented quite separately) above it. That suggests that the 'live/work' unit would be some sort of workshop with a flat (much smaller than the one upstairs) behind it - is that right? What sort of businesses do you envisaging buying (or renting?) such units? Are you confident that there is a market for them and that they would command a high enough price to raise their share of the ?1.5m?

You say in your letter: 'Unfortunately Willow Way cannot completely cross-subsidise the estimated cost of the pool if it does cost ?12.5m, with a shortfall of ?5m from the funds the council have earmarked for the Forest Hill pool. We believe that most of the remaining ?3m shortfall can be addressed by the reduced cost of building over that [the?] last two years [i.e because you assume building costs will have fallen in a few years time?] and by careful consideration to reduce costs on the site.' (My emphasis) Can you reassure us that you are confident that this latter can be achieved without deleterious effects on the specification and quality of the building?

Robin,
The main group of live/work units would be split with the work element on the ground floor and the live element above (connected internally). You can see a number of such units on Havelock Walk. On the 2 floors above the live/work units could be more live/work units, or purely residential units.

The type of businesses looking for live/work include artists, architects, designers, photographers, and a variety of other creative industries that Lewisham Council is keen to attract to employment areas within Lewisham. Again, Havelock Walk is proof that this can work well and Jeff Lowe, who developed much of Havelock Walk, as well as being an artist, helped us to understand the requirements of such business and how they fit together.

Is there a market? Yes, we are pretty confident. The recession is actually driving increased demand for live/work as small businesses look for ways to reduce overheads by combining live and work into a suitable location. For many businesses this can be the difference between success and failure.

The problem with live/work is that there is very few good quality live/work developments in London, this means that when a good development is built (and we have ensured that this does meet the criteria for good live/work) there is substantial demand for the properties which are remarkably good value in terms of floor space (we could make twice as much profit by developing only residential, as was outlined by A&M in their initial submission as one of the three options in February).

Regarding the reduction to facilities in the existing pools location, there are some obvious bottom lines - two pools, an attractive building (not a warehouse), with dry leisure. To be honest I am not sure where savings can be made, but the pool that was proposed in 2008 on the site of the existing building and Louise House would have cost ?9.5m rather than ?12.5m, so with reduced build costs and some careful considerations I think a saving of ?3m is possible.

I do not claim that this is the perfect solution to all our problems and that no further work is required, but I do believe that this is a realistic and financially viable proposition which is right for Willow Way, for this area of Sydenham and for Forest Hill. More to the point, I believe that this is better than either of the options presented for consultation and could be the easiest way to get swimming back in SE23/SE26 at the earliest opportunity - something which has always driven me and the Forest Hill Society in looking at these issues.

I'm not convinced that WW is the best location for live/work or residential flats - there are already plenty of empty premises and flats immediately adjacent - so I'm just not sure that such use is really viable.

However, my other big concern is that your proposal requires ?3m to be shaved off the cost of the existing site build - this is a quarter of the cost. By making such a large reduction to the quality and content of the new pools would really diminish their attractiveness and long-term viability.

ps - The images link directs to a Sunderland Rd objection letter.

Thanks for your comments Gaz. I have fixed the links.

The reduction in costs is not impossible, afterall they appear to have increased by a similar amount since 2008. However, I suspect a larger amount can be shaved off the funding gap by waiting a couple of years before building on the Willow Way site to allow house prices to recover (exactly what the council are proposing to fill the funding gap with housing on the pools site). Our estimates of property values in 2009 are on the conservative side, we do not want to be accused of overstating the financial viability of our proposal.

It is probably also worth noting that the square metres of the proposed pool on the Willow Way site (option 2) is 10% smaller than the proposed pool on the existing site (option 1), so there may well be possibilities of providing leisure facilities comparible to option 2 on the existing site. But we do need the council to reassess the costs of building both pools in the current market conditions, and to make sure best use is being made of all aspects of the site. We have not done an analysis on what costs could be saved to make a substantial difference, but if an architect was given a brief to produce a pool that cost ?Xm then I bet they could do a good job. This was not done for the previous designs as the architect was given to believe that they would be able to cross-subsidise from residental on Willow Way, so maximised the design costs of the pool (I would expect no less from a good architect). But the A&M design for the pool on Dartmouth Road is twice as good as the designs for the pool on Willow Way, so I believe some compromise should be possible. (Sorry, it is all a bit complicated and I know I may not have explained all of this very well).

I don't think you are right about Willow Way not being the right location for the proposed development. The quality of the building we are proposing is substantially better than some of the empty properties on Kirkdale and the live/work units would be desirable places to live and work, aiding the regeneration of this particular site. Additionally we have addressed parking issues which were never addressed in the option 2 proposal of the pool on Willow Way, which would have a detrimental effect on the businesses and on the viability of the pool on this site.

To those who are concerned that it is not possible to shave money off the proposed building costs for a Pool on the Dartmouth Road site:

Capita Consulting prepared an options report for the Council dated August 2005. This report considered no less than 15 options - all of which retained Louise House. The public were consulted on the very cheapest of the all the options considered.

The most expensive option in August 2005 was to retain the existing Pools frontage and provide a new 25m pool and a learner pool - essentially the same as we are currently being offered although the layout was different because it was not going to use the park area. It provided 19 parking spaces in front of the building. This option was expected to cost ?7.43m at Summer 2005 prices and ?8.31m by the time the pool had been built in 2008.

The Mayor and Cabinet paper of February 2009 gave the cost of building new Pools on the existing site as ?12.2m at 4th quarter 2010 prices and adds this comment:

"Construction tender prices are currently falling and early tendering may produce lower prices than indicated, but there remain considerable uncertainties and the costs shown (above) are considered to be prudent".

Inflation (as measured by RPI) from summer 2005 to the present has been about 10% (index has gone from 192-211) so the previous building should not cost more than about ?8.2m at current prices. (OK, so building costs may have gone up by more than RPI but it can't be that different). Building costs are likely to be falling at present. So how can anyone seriously believe the ?12.2m price? Either the previous consultants were wrong, or the present ones are wrong. Capita who prepared the previous price had recent experience of building Swimming Pools. The current price is based on "estimated costs of construction per m2". Why should we believe the present costings?

In my view, cost savings on the ?12.2m should be easily achievable but no-one in the Council seems interested in looking for them. Why?

This is a question that could and should be answered by councillors. Perhaps one of them could post it here????

A firiend of mine, who lives locally sent me this message today!?

"I was opposite the pools today talking to a trader who is having some issues due to the water boards activities outside the pools. Interestingly the area manager for the water board informed this trader that the council had intructed them nor to put in a new water mains into the pool site. This might suggest that the council have no intention to redevelop the pools. What do you think"?

? ?? ?

I guess the water main requirement will depend hugely on whether the pools are reopened as pools, or whether the site is developed for housing. Since the decision has yet to be taken it would be pointless putting in a water main to suit either form of development.

And let's face it, there's not been a lot of thinking ahead in the utilitiy departments on the roads around here.

The rumour seems to be out now that people voted for jam today rather than jam tomorrow in the great swimming pool vote.

I think it was an inevitable vote. Very few people wanted to vote to wait 6 years to swim locally.

So Willow way gains a swimming pool and Forest Hill gets 2 x 7 storey tower blocks.

Hardly surprising I am afraid but believe we should fight tooth and nail and large devolpment on the old site.
How dare they assume they can just put tower blocks up without the consent of the people

So the vote went the Council's way? Hm.

A case of repeating the vote until it comes up with the 'right' answer?

It has been clear from the outset that the Council is only interested in building blocks of flats in Forest Hill. The numbers of new flats already is huge, and it would appear to based around the train line development. This implies a policy to turn Forest Hill increasingly into a dormitory for young city workers.

But I do wonder about this vote. Was the 'electorate' widened? Or was the vote counted using that special method seen most recently in Iran and a while ago in Zimbabwe?

The stakeholders group was informed of the consultation results on Thursday. I am checking that the details can be made public, but I know that there should be some information coming out at the ward assembly this Wednesday.

The results were very close but overall came out slightly in favour of the option that offered early swimming (at Willow Way). I will be posting as much information as I can as soon as I know that I can share the presentation from the stakeholders group

We expect the mayor to make a decision on how to proceed on 15th July at the town hall in Catford, where the public can attend to hear the decision.

From the results I have seen the outcome is not that clear cut.

Some groups (telephone, online, postal, focus groups) preferred one to the other. E.g. telephone voters slight preference for option 2 (willow way), but online voters strong preference for option 1 (Dartmouth Road).

However, digging into the information a much higher proportion of those supporting option 2 said they wouldn't use the facility and most of the reasons they gave for supporting it were on timing grounds? Of course all of this was on the (spurrious? tenouous?) basis that it can be delivered by the end of 2011? How those people will feel if it can't/isn't delivered then we don't know.

From the short presentation I have seen I am not sure that these results help the Council make a decision either way? So its back to finances and whose version of the planning issues you go along with......