I agree, I just read the Sydenham Society's objection and honestly I think that there is one major flaw that comes from a well meaning but nevertheless very strong bias towards conservation.
The flaw is that they propose to settle for a reduced provision of sport and leisure in order to retain "a distinct group of buildings which reflect the Victorian's enthusiasm for education and health reform".

In their ow words:
"The Sydenham Society believes that a fourth option should be put on the table ? one that retains the current streetscape and is not dependent on high-density housing for funding. The facilities may not be as ?highspec? as those on offer in options 2 and 3 but they would allow for the retention of the streetscape and not lead to the domination of Dartmouth Road by a leisure complex and housing shoehorned into an inappropriate space"

I really cannot subscribe to this. To think that we should have about half of what the Victorian built to serve a much increased population is wrong. To do it to celebrate Victorian's enthusiasm for education and health reforms is wrong and illogical.

Those buildings have some historic merit but not so much as to bar the erection of modern buildings to serve the same purpose they were designed for in the first place.

I don't think that the Council's proposals were so horrible, at least option 2 with the pool on the road side and the houses behind. The pool is not a particularly high rise so I don't think that the objection to it as dominating the streetscape really stands either.

A few post above Koza outlined how a leisure centre would sit with the old buildings retained and it's a very nice vision, and he asks how much would that cost. The answer is that it would cost much more than the new building, so much that it would be unaffordable and to make it affordable it would have to be greatly reduced as the Sydenham Society proposes.

The difference in cost would be ?2.5m in loss from receipts from housing plus all that would be spent in restoration, that's difficult to say but would be a serious amount. On top of this there is the issue that the Council is more inclined to invest if they can match fund somehow, so to make money go further, in this case it would be from housing, so take away the housing and you risk to have the Council being much less inclined to put so much money in.

If the retention of those buildings would go ahead and a pool is provided there it would be a very basic one, there surely wouldn't be a teaching pool that allows much more flexibility as it allows general swimming whilst lessons to groups of children (schools and normal lessons) take place. A teaching pool is also normally kept at a warmer temperature so to serve people with mobility issues on top of small children.

I think that the Council should go ahead with either option 2 or 3 and brave the listing status of Louise House, all those that want to have a good swimming pool and leisure centre built there rather than a reduced one should support it by writing to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as Roz suggested a few posts ago.