Survey about your opinions on Forest Hill

Good evening! My name is Adam and this is my first time posting on the SE23 forums so please forgive me if I sound quite weird.

I am currently doing an investigation on whether regeneration has negatively or positively affected the lives of residents for my college work but due to unseen unfortunate events (COVID-19), going up to people and asking them questions may not work as it will break social distancing regulations so I’ve decided to put the survey online!

I would highly appreciate it if you could fill out the survey if you have the time; the survey will not require any personal details and only your opinions.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfEdk1ItaXiref_FARgfkymZilc77upNWL9v36Ccv-v2Y7thQ/viewform?usp=sf_link (should take around 2~ minutes, only 10-15 questions)

Thank you in advance!
Adam

Done! Good luck!

Thank you so much!

Yep very quick, easy & no personal data needed. Readers click the link & give your answers it’s multiple choice selection.
Good luck!

Regeneration?

I echo @DevonishForester

What do you mean by regeneration - regeneration from what to what?

I’ve been around Forest Hill since 1971 and I haven’t seen any regeneration in all of that time. The pools and the pavements along Dartmouth Road have been improved a bit and we’re now on the Tube map (at the expense of losing fast trains to London Bridge and through trains to Charing Cross) but no ‘regeneration’ as such.

I guess the station forecourt and area in front of WHSmiths could be ‘regenerated’ - there were some ideas posted about about it before: FHSoc: Prioritising Pedestrians at Forest Hill Rail Station

Indeed, there are in fact much bigger ‘Renewal’ plans on paper over at Discourse Architecture

http://www.discourse-architecture.com/A1s.pdf

…and we’re looking at the possibility of getting this moving again now.

Done!

Done. Please do share the results when you’re finished

Done !

John,you had Lewisham Council regeneration money for one of your properties in Dartmouth Road.

Yes, and for the context of this thread can you tell us when that was, what those grants were for and how much ‘regeneration’ of the town was achieved.

It was in the time of Jennifer Taylor (the 1st FH Town centre manager) you received the grant so I assume you know what it was for. As for how much regeneration of the town was achieved with your grant I would say none.

So we’re talking 15-20 years ago I had a grant to clean the brickwork and re-pointing above 57a an 79 Dartmouth Road. Nobody else did it, but probably took the money, so no regeneration

They were also giving out cash for shopfront shutters - but, clearly, that was a popular one. Again, no regeneration there either.

I think the regeneration over the last 15-20 years on Dartmouth Road has been the Pools and the flats. The old Pools building was uninspiring and had a poorly used park/scrap of land beside it which wasn’t inviting. Rebuilding the pools made the building more inspiring and the land was used to create the small linear park/walkway in front of the pools.

Between Dartmouth Road and the tracks, a lot of flats have been built adding more population, not to mention the wider pavements. DA was a bit shabby and it has cleaned up nicely.

I understand what you’re saying, but I see it very differently.

Regardless of the appearance of the pools, they still used to be busy until their forced closure due to structural defects - and I’d much rather have that uninspiring adjacent strip of land than a place where drunks sit and shout quite a lot (according to my tenants who live opposite).

The flats fronting the railway along Clyde Terrace have taken the place of Crown Printing Works, Ski Europe, a chocolate distributors, a large joinery works and various other workplaces, which used to employ hundreds of people, all of whom used to spend money in the shops and hair salons etc in Forest Hill at various times during the day - and even after work - and the place used to be buzzing. Now, the loss of all of those people, together with the recent closure of L&Q’s offices with 55 staff in Kingswear House on Dartmouth Road, has made the daytimes especially feel very different because most of the residents of all of those shiny new flats are out at work.

So, for me, I don’t see the new flats as positive regeneration.

@AdamM I don’t think your link is working any more. I clicked on it just now and all I could see was a thank you. Maybe I was a bit slow on the uptake, but @Anotherjohn’s post prompted me to try to complete the survey. I heartedly agree with John, the loss of employment to make way for flats is short sighted to say the least. I’d like to see Lewisham Council do something with the sites it owns across the Borough - including the Willow Way former depot site, which has lain derelict for many years, despite interest from local businesses. Ring fencing for housing sounds all very laudable - but actually businesses wanted to use that land, which “enjoys” Local Employment Area status. Lewisham just wouldn’t engage. Once employment zoned land is handed over for pack em in, build it high, residential property speculators, no business could ever afford to rent the land again.

Is the survey still open? Because when I click on the link I just get “SE23 Survey Thank you for your contribution”.

As for Forest Hill Pools, Lewisham’s original plan was to build a new swimming pool in Willow Way (off Kirkdale). Presumably the current site would have been cleared and new flats built.

Interesting to hear that drunks (or should that be ‘street drinkers’) use the open space near the pools. I know some locals are very keen to transform the car park in front of the station into a pocket park and I had wondered if it would attract street drinkers in the same way as the pedestrianised area in Catford next to the town hall. But I’ve never seen street drinkers in FH so wasn’t sure if we actually had any.

Hi @marymck, I’m encouraged by your agreement with my sentiments on this.

I don’t know if there’s anyone who might like to pick up on this idea, but, with the new norm moving towards working from home or remote locations, I think there a great opportunity for a hot-desking enterprise in one of the large newly-built units at the station end of Clyde Terrace.I know that Forest Hill has its fair share of people who work in the media industry and I think this unit could prove to be a really hot hub for them.

I have mixed feelings about hot desking. If the unit already exists (like Clyde Terrace?) maybe they would work. But Regent’s House at Cobb’s Corner is currently subject to (two!) planning applications for change of use to residential. A few years back, when this was first mooted, I had suggested to the developer that the building would make a great media hub, the likes of which we see all the time in Soho. Perfect location, near the station. Really interesting building, with central courtyard. I got a very cold “this isn’t Soho” type reaction. More profit and quick returns in residential, presumably.

Then we have the Windmill pub, which another property developer completely refuses to fit out as a pub - despite the fact that he only got planning permission if the pub were retained at ground floor level. He wanted change of use to use for hot desking and cited a co-op in Brighton that were interested. So I wrote - twice - to the Brighton co-op. No response. The thing is, you wouldn’t need change of use to have part of the pub as a function room - as the old Windmill had - and use that area for hot desking. So I think it was just another step in the way to turning it all to residential. Certainly the ground floor ceiling height is designed with residential in mind. Currently the building is subject to three planning appeals, on all quite contradictory proposals - including the addition of a fifth storey of yet more pokey flats.

Lewisham doesn’t celebrate its employers enough, in my opinion. There are some great industries on Willow Way. But I fear for some of them as residential creeps in more and more to the designated employment zone. We’ve already had one long established light industrial business off Kirkdale that has had to close because of complaints from an incoming resident, who had moved into another former light industrial unit next door that had been converted to a flat.

You obviously know this subject very well so I have no doubt that you’re completely right.

Unfortunately, I think the only interest shown in the units so far has been from a day nursery and a(nother) gym.

I’m curious about ‘hot-desking’ - would this be to tempt me out of the house (lockdowns aside) to hang out with others, to get better internet or what? I get the WeWork concept up in town where they have nice meeting rooms, coffee bars etc. I wouldn’t want to just sit near other people in an office so I can chat - I do get the collaboration angle if it’s say media focused or whatever, but how do you guarantee that?

I had heard the hot-desking idea discussed in relation to maybe a local pub or cafe. I am genuinely curious though - would be interesting to see how we could make something work perhaps in conjunction with cafe’s or delis delivering…

I think the appeal of hot-desking space is for people who either don’t have a suitable working environment at home or like having a space to go to, as a way of separating home/work. Think of how many people used to spend hours in cafes with their laptops.

One step up from hot-desking space is small office space. There was an initiative in a neighbouring area (Anerley or Penge?) where the business model for keeping a historic building (library?) going was to rent out some of the rooms for either single workers or people with small companies. I think something similar was mooted for Louise House before it was taken on by V22.

I don’t think hot-desking would be popular in the current Covid climate.

To be honest, I don’t know how it all works so I was working on pure instinct. I get what @blushingsnail is saying about the current Covid climate but my thoughts were for the long term. Even though I respect @marymck’s thoughts on the matter, I would be all over this if I hadn’t taken my foot off the property investment gas. Another comment related to making use of old libraries and Louise House, which I think is admirable, but this could be a place where people would WANT to operate in; and with collaborations with all of FH’s bars and eateries, maybe on a rotation system, I think it could have a wider benefit for the town.
Too old to invest but still young enough to dream!

Found it: the Anerley Business Centre at Anerley Town Hall.

It’s run by a Community Trust and I imagine the economics are very different from someone trying to set up a similar product on a purely commercial basis.

Thank you, that’s interesting.
I absolutely agree with the economical/profitability argument, and as with @marymck, you are probably right but my stupid pipe-dream idea is so much more businesslike and attractive than that place; and I would have wanted it to be more of a co-operative than a normal setup.
As I said, it’s never likely to be anything more than a dream but my instinct for the area is telling me that there’s a wasted opportunity here.

@AdamM I’d be really interested in the results - it would be great if you can share them when they’re ready. Thanks!