And now let's look as the substance of Michael's lastest response.
Identifying these larg-ish in the area is welcome - I'd no idea about Brent Knoll School moving. But by the very fact of identifing these sites, it presupposes any solution to the housing shortage as requiring larger scale development, which is precisely what I want to get away from, but which Michael characteristic exaggerations - 'nothing but towers', 'bull-dozing whole streets' - suggest is how he thinks.
we already have less employment in Lewisham than most other parts of London, so it is not really housing we are missing.
This is nonsense. Ours is part of a general London housing shortage, reflected in house prices and rent being historically high. That it might be slightly less a problem in Lewisham than other boroughs is of little comfort. Using regulations to specify business uses seems a bit of a relic from when planners thought living and working should be kept separate, but we now accept the idea of live/work units, and some of us - e.g. myself - work from home. Mentioning employment in this context is just another way of trying to confuse the issue.
to meet the national housing shortage a larger project of house building is needed - new towns in areas that are currently have very low density levels but good transport connections.
This is again nonsense. Building new towns might be a solution, but not the only one. You can't say they are needed until you've looked at the other options. The one I'm advocating is making it easier for habitable rooms to be added here and there, according to where there is demand for them. I'm not saying this is needed - it's just one of various possible policy changes, e.g. allowing seriosuly high rise residential developments close in to the centre of London.
Forest Hill is not one of these locations but there are plenty around London and there are even more in the north of England.
This is wishful thinking. What growth there is in this country is centred in London. This sort of sentiment suggests concern for these other areas, hoping that they too can share in London's prosperity, but actually condemns their young people to idleness at home, or homelessness here. At heart, it is heartless.
If such a policy really was necessary I would advocate starting [bulldozing streets] in Dulwich or Hampstead where density levels could be increased but smashing up fewer houses with massive gardens, or maybe golf could be played on 15 hole courses rather than 18 holes
Another characteristic debating shimmy to the Left. The point is obvious, but the Dulwich and the 'Heath and Hampstead' Societies are not going to allow it. Is this how the FH Soc wouldl like things to be round here? Maybe that shimmy to the Left conceals an actual move to the Right. In the meantime, let's ask again what makes a gradual increase in density in Forest Hill such a problem. Why is it a threat, rather than an opportunity? For more work in adding those habitable rooms, for more customers for local bars, cafés, restaurants and shops, and more Community Infrastructure Levy.
Search
Help
| 
