I am getting the feeling that no-one like Option3, and on this thread there is probably a majority in favour of option2 (or similar). At the stakeholder's meeting, it was obvious that the council officers felt that one message from last years consultation was "build pools quickly". They think option 3 can be delivered more quickly, and this is one reason for them favouring it. So we need to be able to answer the question Aileen Buckton posed at the meeting: are Forest Hill residents prepared to wait longer for an option 2 proposal?

Any thoughts?

I know that a number of people prefer option 1.

All three options have difficulties (in terms of funding, planning dsignations etc) but I think that it is worth reinforcing again that option 1 is simply unworkable.

Those people who were at the Stakeholders Meeting are absolutely clear that council officers indicated that this was an option that they simply would not recommend to Mayor and Cabinet.

In fact, many stakeholders were left puzzling as to why this option was ever put forward if it was a non-starter.

Option 1 requires the site to be pre-sold to a developer interested in building housing on site. In the current economic climate, officers calculate (quite correctly) that this would be impossible for at least the next 5-6 years.

The choice is therefore between 2 and 3 - and Option 2 (in my view) is simply the best choice by miles. Does anyone actually believe that moving the pool from FH to Sydenham is what they want - or is right for the future development of FH and Dartmouth Road?

Option 2 would of course require LBL to re-designate the Willow Way site for residential use rather than commercial/employment use. Change of planning use is happening all of the time, so shouldn't prove insurmountable. To take two recent examples: To accommodate the upcoming housing at Bell Green, part of the site once zoned as "industrial" has now been turned into residential and the new Tesco Express to be built round the corner in Kirkdale is being built on a site once designated as "business" - has now been redesignated as "retail" site to accommodate Tesco! (I'm fullly in favour of both these schemes by the way)

Planning designation can be changed - all it requires is the will on the part of the council (with our support) to do so.

The poll seems to suggest that option 2 is favoured, of which i am all in favour of. The council may have had the impression that the people wanted a "get pool quick" option but that is only because of the length of time this has dragged on for and was born out of pure frustration.
If we have to wait a few months extra to get our pool back which includes the current frontage then so be it as far as i am concerned.

In reply to Aileen Buckton....

Well luv,
In 2000 there was a speedy consultation so a replacement for Ladywell Baths could be ready 2003. So far all we have is an empty sight and a promise the new pool will now be built by 2012.

I think the onus is on you to answer a few questions rather than us.

(Your Ref: A5930, Date of Letter: 22 Feb 2000 Signed By: Aileen Buckton)

Can anyone explain why Option 2 can be financed by housing on Willow Way, but Option 1 without the housing on top, as shown on page 10 of the presentation, isn't put forward as a clear proposal? Without the high rise housing, a Leisure Centre making fuller use of the available site than is possible in Option 2 would be attractive to many more local people. The Cost Summary (on Page 34) shows a 'Low' land receipt from Willow Way for Option 1, the same as Option 2. So why does Option 1 need all the additional housing on the Pools site which is one reason why the option may be less acceptable? I'm assuming that since all the options are only preliminary at this stage, there is no reason why A&M couldn't be asked to come up with an Option 1 design - so we aren't trying to decide between different architects, just different ways of using the site(s).

I should have added that if Option 1 did not have the housing on top then it would not need to be pre sold to a developer. The development issues would be the same as Option 2 and the principle issue is whether the resulting Leisure Facility would be sufficiently better than Option 2 to justify losing the old Pools frontage.

Well said!
How much more than ?7.5m are needed to build that one and how quickly can that be done?

The Council press release has the following.......

And this means that there are ?2m in between the cheapest and the most expensive, which in the current economy are not little money and could mean the difference between having a basic pool soon and a basic pool with Victorian frontage a few years down the line.
But it's all academic, isn't it? It really seems that the end of this story will be that Forest Hill Pools and Louise House will be luxury flats, for those few left with the money to buy them and people will go swimming in the backstreets.

This is turning into a true public sector procurement spectacular, in the best of British tradition.

This has now developed from an idiotic unwillingness or inability to maintain a building, through a long period in which nothing productive happens and in which no-one can actually do any swimming, but during which designs are produced, then scrapped because they are too expensive, then the goalposts moved, more designs produced, the goalposts moved again, etc etc...

The next phase to watch out for is a solution which fails to meet the original need, starts late, is delivered even later, runs massively over budget (several times the cost of any of the original options and ooh, who knows, anything from 10 to 100 times the cost of the original repair and maintenance works), is widely derided and then has to close again, either shortly after opening for various repairs and/or for good 15-20 years later.

In response to Forest Gump, that is indeed what the press release says. However, this does not agree with the more detailed presentation of the 3 options, which makes no mention of Willow Way under option 1, whereas it is specifically referred to under options 2 and 3.

So a scheme presented in Nov 2005 as requiring ?4.7m, then grew to ?7.5m is now set to cost possibly ?12-13 million.

Has this Leisure facility grown considerably in size and importance?

PSJarrett, yet another question for Aileen?

I'm going to work on the assumption Willow Way will partly fund options 1 and 2.

As Willow Way is cheaper by ?1-2m, it would mean the Forest hill site with Louise House will raise ?4.5m.

I'm not sure why a pool already partially built would cost the same as a totally new build that has to support flats above it and allow for flats at the rear as well.

Well, if they think that they can raise ?4.5m from the Louise House/Forest Hill Pools site then it's no wonder why they want to move the pools somewhere else.

It's a compelling economic argument isn't it? If you move the pool it's affordable now, if you don't it's not and the future is uncertain.
I hope you don't mind me restating things told and retold but I think that clarity helps focusing.

Option 1: possibly ?3.5m funding gap.
The option for those that believe that the pool should remain there and are at ease with the delay and risks that pursuing an option with a ?3.5m funding gap brings.

Option 2: certified ?5.5m funding gap.
The option for those that believe that the pool should remain there and the Victorian frontage is very important and are at ease with the delay and risks that pursuing an option with ?5.5m funding gap brings.

Option 3: affordable. The option for those that wants an end to this pain and are ok with moving the pool a few hundred meters and are at ease with the risk that this will spell death for the the Bridge.

I cannot see the logic of building one pool at WW and closing another The Bridge.

If money that short why not improve the Bridge at much less money.

This is a sorry saga. I do not want to go through all the arguments yet again but living in the area all my life and using the old pool througout but especially as a child I cannot see many , if any , reasons for the retention of the Old Pool or Louise House.
This has muddied the issue and given LBC chance to do nothing. Only my very humble opinion.

I used to swim at Forest Hill every morning a few years ago but it did get tedious avoiding the cock roaches that had died in the water overnight

it's a mucky old place so i say build a swich new one with all mod cons

I go to Beckenham now if I want to swim because the bridge is a pretty unappealing place as well

I don't think that they are that hard up but the Council must square the budget on pools that as everyone knows are not cheap to build and to run.

The Bridge is not ideally located and is rather small, but it's currently an important facility for many. The problem is that its presence had been used in the past as an argument to shut down Forest Hill Pools and the current policy of 5 pools for the borough (a policy only introduced in 2005) is the great victory of the years of campaigning of the Friends of Forest Hill Pools.
Now I don't think that it would be possible to envisage the Bridge as a substitute for FHP, because its catchment area leaves too many (former) users of FHP out, but you can surely see how moving FHP closer to it opens up to an argument that the Bridge is redundant and having 4 instead of 5 pools means a lot of revenue budget savings. And as the Council must shave ?10m off its revenue budget each year then it would be only a matter of time before it closes.

So, if FHP has to move to a site that would mean closure for the Bridge then let's face reality and let's open the debate that the sale of the FHP site and the potential savings generated by the likely closure of the Bridge means that a much better spec facility could be affordable and that maybe 4 good pools are better than 5 of which two have a largely overlapping catchment area and of these two one is a small pool in the back of beyond and the other is a basic one stuck in a backstreet.
And I think that it's better to have this debate because the way things are going it's likely that we'll end up 4 pools instead of 5 anyway, whether we want it of not.
And if 5 smaller ones are better then the Council must recommit to it in the light of the new arrangement.

The Bridge generally is on a very good site
Lots of room and a car park
FH doesn't have much room as i remember

Lewisham has a car park

What happened to peckham?
Don't think there was parking there either

not that everyone drives of course

Yes exactly, it's not just that not everyone drives, it's that one shouldn't encourage driving and pools should be where people are, that's where they're most accessible. Although some car park for disabled, those that really need to drive for whatever reason and schools' coaches should be a minimum requirement really.

Max,
I understand your argument about the economics of four pools rather than five, but I think you are taking the wrong approach. The Bridge is remarkably close to the borough boundary, with Beckenham pools not far away. While Forest Hill is closed lots of people like BB have been travelling to Beckenham, going right past The Bridge.

What makes sense is to have a new pool that best caters for the residents of Lewisham. Building on the Willow Way site, close to Crystal Palace, does not do this, nor does the site make much sense. It is further away from a train station and in down a back street in the middle of a commercial estate. It would be preferable to have the pool close to a town centre and tube connections (a much more frequent service than Lower Sydenham station).

So if you are resigned to the closure of The Bridge, the answer is to build the replacement pool on the existing site of the Forest Hill pool. This will better serve people in Lewisham including Honor Oak, many parts of Sydenham, Forest Hill and possibly Brockley. The Bridge is hardly needed by Lewisham residents for dry leisure as there are dry leisure facilities in Bellingham, Downham, and one day maybe in Forest Hill too. Wouldn't The Bridge make an ideal site for housing?

Of course I do not want the pool to be built at the expense of other local communities, but I do not feel that your argument in favour of the Willow Way site is an honest one. The difference in distance from The Bridge to Forest Hill compared to Kirkdale is less than 0.1 miles (as the crow flies).

btw, I am not in favour of closing The Bridge to finance Forest Hill Pool. I know many people in Lower Sydenham would be appalled by the suggestion, I am only contemplating the idea to make my point to Max who seems to want the closure of one of Lewisham's pools after he fought so hard and admirably for Ladywell pool.

I don't want the closure of one pool at all, I just notice that the manouvre of the Council leads there.
The link between the Bridge and FHP is an historic one, it was Council's policy until 2005 that the two pools are too close to one another and as FHP is older it should be dis-invested and eventually discontinued, as in fact did happen.

There is also one striking fact that's never been mentioned, that the 5 pools policy although stated is an "aspiration" only but it has never been implemented, and that means that LBL has never actually paid for 5 pools in one financial year, this in turn means that if they really had 5 pools they'd have to increase their revenue budget for running pools of about 20%.
So I think that it's only realistic to think that if a pool is built in Willow Way then the Bridge is at high risk, and we're entering a downturn, how likely is it that they increase their revenue budget for pools of 20%? If the Council is determined to move away from the site and build a new pool closer to Sydenham I think it's better to be realistic than to be run over by events.

But I'm not advocating closing the Bridge, what I am saying is that this may well be the Council's long term plan, so it's better not to bury the head in the sand but to ask them to either re-commit to 5 pools or plan for an appropriate 4 pool policy that can satisfy the needs of Lewisham's swimmmers and a 4h pool that is adequate if that's going to be the case.

As I said I support option one. It's cheaper than option 2 and as such more likely to bring something within our lifetime. We're in a downturn, money matters more then ever did.
And I don't support Willow Way in any way, it's a terrible choice and I agree that pools should be sited in or very near town centres and transport hubs, but apart from the specific site location the Council's proposal is that of moving the pool away from where it is now and sell the site for housing and the Mayor and Cabinet papers are heavily biased towards that option.