There is of course nothing I can say that will satisfy Tim. He has his agenda which includes encouraging us to split up our houses and live in smaller units, and where possible to rebuild old houses with new low-rise blocks of flats.

There is also clearly a dissatisfaction with any involvement by amenity societies, although I have yet to see a single example provided by Tim of an objection by the Forest Hill Society that was not (in his opinion) appropriate to the site we were referring to.

I think I have provided plenty of answers on my personal views on the various ways housing (and employment) can be expanded in Forest Hill and across London. But with the only retorts repeated time and again being 'nonsense', 'wishful thinking', deliberately confusing issues, or debating tactics of some type, I am no longer prepared to continue this dialogue with Tim. Some people may think that I should have taken that decision a while ago, like the original post on this thread, but I generally welcome public discussion of such issues even when started in such a provocative manner.

I hope others on the forum will forgive me for now withdrawing from this thread and other threads of a similar non-specific nature on housing with Tim.

completely fair enough michael.

Perryman said:

The Garthorne Road Nature Reserve is at least a site of scientific importance. It is also regularly visited by local school children, so performs an important civic function on many levels IMO.

Not something you could say about a golf course though.

If the local schools owned the Garthorne Rd Nature reserve,
it would have been sold for housing long ago!

Actually given that there are no parks on this densely populated side of the tracks in SE23, there is a better case to make this a public breathing space.
But the private golf course is the biggest waste of land resources in the area. Get building Tim!

Garthorne Road Nature Reserve is owned by Network Rail IIRC and at least one local school I know of uses it regularly. Public access is restricted by the licences. There are rare species that need protecting there - it is possibly a remnant of Oak of Honor Wood.

As for other parks on that side of the tracks, what about Blythe Hill fields?

Am not sure if the reservoir under the golf course would support the weight of Lund Towers but I won't stand in his way.

Blythe Hill fields is not in SE23

Can I add the Cemeteries to the wasted land list?
Respectfully line the walls of the station subway with the bones of our SE23 ancestors to solve 2 problems at once.

The Forest Hill Catacombs - I like the sound of that.

I was interested in the picture of the garages "returning to nature" on post 35 of the thread as I lived in the related block of flats up until 5 years ago. I recall that the block never knew what to do with the garages - too small for cars, too expensive to repair or demolish. Judging by the pic, no use now for lock-ups, though could become a nature reserve. I suspect other blocks of flats built in the 70s have problems re external garages.
Where I live now Honor Oak - they have replaced the old garages / "stables" behind HOP into houses (Sienna Place etc); nice looking houses BTW though for 3 bed houses, the titchiest garden (not much bigger than one of the garages in Michael's photo

Good points squashst. I do agree about Sienna Place.

Perryman said:

Oh no - not more postcode pedantry Some of the birds in Horniman Gardens, and none on One Tree Hill, get their post from the Forest Hill Delivery Office! However, a lot of people who do have a Forest Hill mail delivery use these spaces. As it happens, Blythe Hill Fields does appear to be in SE23, though the concept, for a green space, is pretty meaningless IMO. See here: http://www.free-postcode-maps.co.uk/

I stand corrected, I think.

But that is an odd map:

It has a middle part of Dacres Rd including the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Church in SE26. I think they like to be thought of in Sydenham, but it has an SE23 postcode AFAIK.

And 90% of Wood Vale is now in SE22, whereas I thought the boundary ran up the middle of the Road. I'm happy to be corrected on that.

SE23 has supposedly expanded east to the other side of Perry Hill, which may be historically correct as the road originally ran further to the east, but we got to go back quite a few years.

But Forest Hill Library now being in SE26?
That is not pedantry. It is an outrage!
Where is that nice Mr. Grindlay, our boundaries expert?

The Lewisham borough website gives the address of FH Library as Dartmouth Road SE23 3HZ. The Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Kirche's website gives its address as 50 Dacres Road, SE23 2NR.

The borough boundary runs up the centre of Wood Vale. The road is maintained by Southwark but it is SE23, just look at the road signs.

Hmm - some of the various editions of boundary maps are notoriously inaccurate.

So 'fess- up" time - one published version has my house firmly in SE23 and I have a post code of SE6. Another published version has the boundary line just behind the rear building line of the house.

However I think the most accurate version has the line pass through the unadopted lane to the rear of the property.

In all circumstances however, unless I take the mobile device or the laptop to the rearmost aspect of my property, I frequently and rather fraudulently masquerade as an SE23 correspondent.

Can you tell from my tone how I feel about this masquerade ?

So cutting to the chase, if it is to be the case that my opinions here on SE23 are fraudulent and are to be deemed unbelievable and thereby I am to be drummed out of the brownies - can it at least be done over a beer.

My preferred establishment for the ceremonial ripping off of the epaulettes would be All Inn One. I will of course accept the forum's majority opinion on who will perform the task. Perhaps five years on one forum is a little too long.

Naturally I will expect the nominees to buy the beer - and for my many friends and acquaintances.

The venue has a distinct advantage in that we can of course then take the opportunity to collectively don our breathing gear and visit the subway to see what a bodger's mess the authority and their contractor has made there.

And it still remains inexplicable why the paint had to be removed.

I will of course have to take my proposals for zero emission vehicles to another and more receptive audience.

For the avoidance of doubt, I have intentionally used this link on boundaries to make the point.

Almost interestingly the Royal Mail web site (http://www.royalmail.com/postcode-finder lists the library at SE23 3HZ,
but draws its location further up .... in Sydenham!

I think the RM database (which also supplies the free-postcode-maps website), is batching a bunch of mixed postcodes into rough locations maybe of 100m radius, and the RM website map just points at the centre of this zone for a given address.

I suggest the free-postcode-maps site in turn plots the SE23 boundary around these larger zones and hasn't got a clue where the real boundary is.

My A-Z shows Blythe Hill outside SE23, but it is old. Google maps shows it partially inside and so perhaps FH Soc could indeed approve of tim tower being located there.

Or those that can should dig deeper http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/nov/09/billionaires-basements-london-houses-architecture

Perryman - I am sure you are right about the mapping.

My point really was that any map that suggests a green space is in a postcode area is to be taken with a pinch of salt. The concept is nebulous at best!

point taken lacb and it is certainly bizarre when the postcode boarder supposedly takes a meaningful and eventful path across open park space.

Why? Would it also be thought "provocative" to draw Michael's attention to this piece in the latest Economist about the consequences of a height limit dating back to 1899 in Washington DC?

Michael should study some economics, not shut his eyes to it.

Tim,

No, not provocative just comes across as more obfuscation.

Why are you being so personal? You have had lots of opportunity to explain why you think a particular local society should direct the supply of housing but, at least succinctly in a way that I can muster, have not done so.

AFAICT, economics does not come into this (seems more political to me) but, assuming that my own knowledge of the subject is also insufficient for your argument, will allow for the possibility that it does - in which case I respectfully submit to you that this may be the wrong forum for such a discussion.

Sorry. The point is that there are economic consequences of limiting how high people can build houses, and this example includes estimates of the magnitudes.

The main reason is what I would say is Michael's position as a local leader of opinion - his views and actions matter far more than other people's. I also chose not to let misrepresentations of what I think to pass without comment. Is that being personal?

I don't particularly think a local society should say where housing could go - if this is what you mean by 'direct the supply of housing', although what Michael has written on the matter is welcome. The original question was "Does FH Soc want more affordable houses?", not where. I thought it was a straight forward enough question. A simple yes or no would have done.

Economics is about how much people spend on what, so has to come into a discussion of how much people should spend on houses, or any restrictions of where people can spend money building houses. If this Forum is relevant to real life in SE23, then it's the right place to raise the economic consequences of decisions local politics. I have no privileged understanding of economics, and the economic arguments I am making are not controversial; they come from well the established 'micro-economics' of supply and demand.

Putting aside any personal issues, please remember the big picture, which is that there are hundreds of thousands of young people in London without a decent place to live, or paying excessive rents, so unable to save for their futures. Amenity societies are not particularly to blame, but they could play a part by asking their local authorities to presume in favour of conversions and upwards extensions - without specifying where.

If you don't think a local society should say where housing could go, upwards or otherwise, why does it matter what type of housing they might want? You then contradict this by saying that they should be

All of the rest of the econominc argument seems to be pointless until you resolve this.

Below is Tim's 'simple yes or no' question, and 'not where'.

Does anybody else think this is a simple yes or no question?
Whether you do or not, it is not one I intend to continue debating with Tim for the reasons I have already mentioned.

According to the FHS constitution:

So the answer to the question is, from my reading of the FHS constitution, neither "yes" nor "no". I don't see why the FHS should be forced to take a position one way or the other since the question lies outside, or at best on the periphery of, it's aims.

Of course members of the FHS may have a personal opinion on this matter and are free to elect officers according to their position on any topic of importance to them.