Regeneration of Forest Hill

Local talk
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The potential regeneration of Forest Hill, especially the town centre, is frequently alluded to in various topics here and previously on other forums. But I’m unsure whether this is something generally understood as a project that might be managed centrally or something that might happen by chance in an ad hoc way if entrepreneurial and commercial interests see opportunities in the area.

If regeneration is to be a managed project, who will manage it, and how extensive will the changes be? Will it be seeking to change aspects of the infrastructure that have inhibited regeneration, or merely encourage cosmetic changes?

If the leadership for regeneration is to come from within the Council, which office or person would drive changes? And if not the Council, then who? Within the areas covered by Lewisham Council, Forest Hill has to compete for attention and resources, and could only succeed if we have councillors and an MP who are single-mindedly driven to make things happen locally. A supportive attitude may not IMHO be sufficient, unless there is leadership from elsewhere.

Rather than have references to regeneration on the sidelines in many topics, I thought it’s important enough to have its own Topic.

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I agree that it is a big-enough subject to warrant a Topic of its own.

I’m sure it would need to be centrally managed but, as all of the previous schemes/ideas would’ve needed big funding, which was never forthcoming and would be even bigger today, so I’d be interested to hear what the chances are of getting anything off the drawing board?

Here’s one tiny thing that I’ve brought to previous regeneration talks that I believed should’ve been done to make a massive difference, but which has been totally ignored -

The ridiculous pedestrian bottleneck that’s caused by a little ‘nib’ of about 1 metre of the front ground-floor corner of the William Hill betting shop at the start of Dartmouth Road…

It should’ve, and still should, be acquired to allow pedestrian flow, even with a side-by-side double-buggy.

The g/f commercial premises would lose virtually nothing, and the upper floor would remain intact, except for the doorway and a slight reduction in the size of the display windows immediately either side (for new supporting piers) after engineering a cantilevered steel frame to support what would be a small overhang.

How many years since I’ve brought this to supposedly the ‘right’ people in these regeneration panels have the residents of FH had to squeeze through that little gap.

So, if they can’t get their act together to do something that’s SO simple, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t hold my breath on anything of any scale, let alone WASTE my breath talking to whoever it is who’s holding court on the subject.

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Completely agree. What a disgrace that someone wheeling a buggy and holding a child’s hand would have to go single file through this point in a ‘town centre’. Meanwhile there’s plenty of space next to William Hill for loitering, smoking, spitting, and playing loud music.

This is not even ‘managed decline’, it’s basic neglect.

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I think this is probably an example of the council’s lack of attention to detail with projects, they spent £1.5 million in 2017 to improve Dartmouth Road which on the whole has been very good, new bus stops, took away the issue of the buses being delayed by a shop delivery van and generally made it a lot more pleasant street to walk down but as you say they missed a bit.

I think we need some kind of oversight on the council that we give them a snagging list before and often afterwards so they don’t just say job done and leave loads of issues behind.

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I think we need a Community Governance Review [Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007] for Forest Hill, with the aim of creating a Town Council. The status quo doesn’t work.

Under the 2007 Act, local electors throughout England can petition their principal council for a community governance review to be undertaken.

It can be done - these guys are an example

https://queensparkcommunitycouncil.gov.uk/about-us/

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Thanks all for this topic, and demonstrating the strength of feeling around the topic

I will not be sharing details of our latest plans yet, but I would like to let you know that the Forest Hill Society is working specifically on this issue, and will actually be meeting Lewisham Council about it very soon.

Once we have an agree programme, we will share more details, but as has been mentioned before, this is something that we started 10 years ago and have been lobbying Lewisham, TfL, National Rail and Govia about in the intervening years.

here’s some of the original content: https://www.foresthillsociety.com/post/challenge-launched-to-create-a-vision-for-future-development-of-forest-hill-town-centre

Things are starting to change, and we are therefore creating a dedicated Town Centre Development Committee to work on this

If any members would like to commit to being on this or any other committee to help us achieve these goals, please get in touch!

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I’m pleased, but not unsurprised, that you’re on it, for which I’m grateful; and I’m sure that I speak for all of my residential and commercial tenants, their neighbours and associates too.

I’m not committee member material, but I’ve got lots of local and practical knowledge, from living in FH from 1971 until 1995 (and my son still does) and from owning and being very proactive in renting commercial and residential properties along Dartmouth Road to over 100 tenants (coming and going) since 1986 and counting, which probably gives me a different perspective to anyone else, and which I’m happy to share in the hope that it can be of some benefit here, however small that may be. So please contact me if you want.

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Thanks John - indeed, local businesses and property owners are one of the stakeholders we’ve identified and will definitely be in touch at the right time to get you involved.

The earlier stages are more practical, and once we’ve got this done, we aim to have a more open debate and discussion so we can make the most of the opportunities opening up for Forest Hill

#watchthisspace

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This is great to hear. What sort of time commitment would be involved in getting involved? Unfortunately I work shifts so a regular commitment could be difficult. But I remember the palpable sense of excitement around the gatherings that happened with the earlier project a decade or so ago.

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timings are unknown at this stage I’m afraid, but we are happy to involve people who can’t make all meetings, but have something to contribute when they do.

It will be particularly useful in a while (i.e. not urgently) when we hope to take this discussion out to the community in some way again, and we will want to think of creative ways of involving everyone.

I’ll be in touch :slight_smile:

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I hope that the meeting between the Forest Hill Society and Lewisham Council (Planning Officers? Mayor?) goes well.

If it’s disappointing, then let’s consider the following as a Plan B. I didn’t know this was possible until very recently:

Community Governance Review [Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007] for Forest Hill, with the aim of creating a Town Council.

Under the 2007 Act, local electors can petition their principal council for a community governance review to be undertaken.

It can be done - even in London - this area within the Borough of Westminster is an example

https://queensparkcommunitycouncil.gov.uk/about-us/

I would be interested in any views about this possibility , which for me is a very recent discovery.

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It is an interesting idea, but probably not practical

These are essentially Parish Councils (branded as Town Councils) and the bureaucracy of running one is no small issue. For a relatively small area with a large turnover of residents in rented accommodation, running regular elections and meetings and actually getting this to be any more representative of the whole area would be tricky.

It would also mean (AFAIK) that Lewisham would effectively have to raise the local taxes for anyone living or working in the area covered by the Town Council to pay for the amounts it then delegates to the Town Council (which then quickly disappear in staffing, finance and audit costs). It would be hard to justify this additional tax burden on local residents in the current world.

I do understand that there are some who are keen to get things moving, and we are too. However, any redevelopment is ALWAYS going to take a very long time and a lot of money to get it to happen, so spending effort on creating new structures is only going to distract from that.

We have no reason to think that local councillors and the current Lewisham administration will not support our existing plans, so no Plan B is necessarily required (yet).

However, if you want to do research of this kind, what makes more sense (which we have explored in the past but not had the specific reason to carry out), is a Neighbourhood Plan. There are no structures to create or taxes to raise, but it would convert (assuming a majority of residents agree) the “vision” for the future of Forest Hill into an approved plan that Lewisham would be required to support.

Getting this set up is easier than the Town Council, but still quite involved (as our friends on Sydenham Hill will attest to, I’m sure). However, it is something the Forest Hill Society would be in a good position to lead if needed.

At this stage, we are working on moving forward with the collaborative approach and have a good feeling that this will be the best way to get long term support from Lewisham.

We will know more soon!

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As an example of how long it takes to get things done. The plans to demolish the arcade at Peckham Rye station have been going since 2008! The work is finally being done now.

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