Great that Daniel Egan has responded. Wonderful community response from all involved and special thanks to SE23nic for powering the effort and handing in the over 5000 strong petition this evening to Lewisham Council.
Really fantastic. Hope we keep our green space green.
Those photos of the seven flats, surrounded by landscaped greenery, demonstrate how we could actually have nicer surrounding under the proposal than we do currently.
The current patch of green is like a scrap of waste land by the road - no-one in their right mind would sit there reading a book, have a picnic or bring their children there to play (especially with Blythe Hill Fields a 5 mins walk). I don’t see what the big deal is with losing this scrap of land (which, by the way, has always been private land with no public’s rights over it).
Not all green space needs to exist solely for our use. And I’d hardly call it a ‘scrap of waste land’, it’s full of mature trees.
I think the proposed flats look quite nice.
It’s not really a “used” space as mentioned a few posts above. We do have plenty of actual parks around.
Couldn’t the council insist that the 6 (approx) trees there must be replaced elsewhere (such as Blythe Hill Fields) by a multiple of 2, 3 or 4x mature trees thereby increasing not decreasing trees in the vicinity? I’d have thought the cost of this (say £20k) would be worth paying for the developers and would achieve some equilibrium environmentally.
Have you seen the size of Duncombr Green? There is no way they could actually fit 2 blocks of flats and all those trees on that space.
My thoughts too.
The green space, while much better then flats, could do with some development itself - but keeping it as a green space. So some flowerbeds and low hedges with perhaps more trees or minor monument as a focus of interest.
Clearly the new owner doesn’t have that in mind, and their underhand tactic of putting up the large hording quickly and without permission on a Sunday was a poor start. And they’ve not acted on the very clear enforcement notice yet either.
In a ideal world the council would have purchased the land and then taken on upkeep and planting as that area really benefits a bit of green space much more than any flat would. But I guess the council just doesn’t have the budget.
The Council is making £9 million cuts with more on the way. Sadly it is unlikely to want to purchase the land and take on the annual cost of the upkeep.
Who maintained the land before? Someone must have mowed the grass regularly, doubt it was the advertising company, would imagine it was the council running a mower over it when the did the other grass verges so wouldn’t think it wouldnt cost much to do. Personally I don’t think it needs landscaping it serves a purpose of breaking up the street with a burst of trees, similar to street trees but bigger
Campaigners are asking for pictures to be drawn and messages posted on the fence in advance of the public meeting next week. Budding urban artists welcome.
The Facebook group is now on Twitter too.
@DHGreenSE23
https://twitter.com/DHGreenSE23/status/1102765190465097729?s=19
Forest Hill PROP SITE PLAN.pdf (176.2 KB)
Forest Hill PROP 1F PLAN-1.pdf (92.4 KB)
Forest Hill PROP 2F PLAN.pdf (92.7 KB)
Compare to the original rendering:
Looks like there are some trees with a confirmed TPO standing in the way of those plans…
Still, having paid £120k for the plot, plus fees and the architect, I’m guessing it will take a lot of pictures from children on the fencing before they give up on this ‘investment’.
Interesting… their artistic rendering of the development last week (with a very interesting interpretation of both scale and perspective), had two separate blocks with a gap between them. The site is pretty small and it would be challenging to fit one block, let alone two on it. Their hastily drawn up architectural plans seem to have the two block jointed up - and include a living wall and they clearly hope that by adding a tree at the side they can bypass the TPOs.
And they don’t seem to have any dimensions on them, apart from an overall square meterage of each flat.