Robin,
Thanks for your comments. I think you speak for many people who voted for Willow Way who will be more than happy with the pool where it should be as long as it does not lead to a delay.

The facade will stay to please those who campaigned for the retention of the frontage. But the building behind will be based on the fantastic design from A&M (who build the Horniman extension). I am sure that with ?12.5m we should get a pool of which Forest Hill can be proud.

Gingernuts,
I believe that the report to the mayor in February under-estimated the planning problems with moving swimming to Willow Way and deliberately weighted the scores by financial rather than what was easiest from a planning perspective. It was only when the Forest Hill Society looked in detail at the planning regulation that some of the relevant issues became clear. This included contributions on this forum relating to London policies on swimming that I had not previously read.

At the same time the case for developing Willow Way for employment was extremely important, not just in benefitting the council financially, but because it made a strong case that swimming would not generate maximum employment on the site, making the planning issue much harder for the council to fight.