Next SEE3 Town Team meeting 7pm Tuesday 18 November

[Chris Best]

Get involved in our bids! We need your ideas, enthusiasm and time. Come and have your say and help improve your area.

We had a great turn out for the meeting on Thursday 30 October at the Here For Good Centre. I started the meeting with a recap of SEE3 initiatives, achievements, learnings and our legacy. We then moved on to report back on the Forest Hill Urban Design Workshop, the Kirkdale Neighbourhood Planning Group Report and the Sydenham Arts collaboration. Here is the recap:

Forest Hill Urban Design Workshop, report from Michael Abrahams
Michael said the workshop in July had drawn on the part implemented Supplementary Planning Guidance from 2003, Neighbourhood Plans and a useful Street Clutter Report commissioned by the Ward Assembly. Four development zones had been identified.

1. The Station front and London Road: There was potential to develop the area in front of the main entrance to the station. New trees could be planted symbolizing Forest Hill, a piazza built and mixed use made of the rest of this important area, while maintaining drop off access to the station.

2. Perry Vale and to the east of the Station: A new crossing over the railway line would link what felt like a separate area to the rest of the town centre and encourage greater use of the Perry Vale car park. Also, there was potential for the north end of Perry Vale to be a pedestrian area with a street market.

3. Dartmouth Roadspaces: Themed public spaces could be developed, making better use of what was already there.

4. Dartmouth Road/railway links: The area to the immediate west of the railway line had seen several new unconnected developments. Improvements could be made to the footpath to make this area more accessible on foot and by bicycle.

The report could be the basis for a submission from Lewisham for money from the new Greater London Authority (GLA) High Street Fund. This would be in addition to the Council’s successful bid for £600,000 from Transport for London to improve the north end of Dartmouth Road.

Report from the Kirkdale Planning Group from Pat Trembath
Pat presented the report that had been handed to Lewisham Planning Policy officers who have said they will give it serious consideration when the formal review of Lewisham’s Strategic Development sites takes place over the next twelve months.

The Future of Kirkdale Planning Group (part of the SEE3 legacy) is formed of some 20-plus of those interested in improving the area of Kirkdale and represents members of the Forest Hill and Sydenham Societies, traders and local residents. We have been working with architectural Post-graduates from Kingston University, as part of their “live” project course work.

Over the past 6 months we have met on a number of occasions to discuss how the area defined as the Willow Way Triangle with a boundary consisting of Willow Way, Dartmouth Road and Kirkdale could be developed to provide regeneration to this area and solve a number of unpleasant street problems including poor architecture, empty shops and the clutter of waste bins littering the pavements.

The identified key site is the Lewisham owned former Neighbourhood Office on Willow Way. This now long term redundant site and is currently being used as a decant site for children from Adamsrill School, while the Nursery and Reception classes are rebuilt on the Lower Sydenham site to provide an extra class at entry levels. This site is currently designated for future Industrial and Employment use.

Discussions with local residents and traders identified a shortage of other local infrastructure thought to be necessary for the regeneration of this area. This includes a possible Doctors Surgery (none within Forest Hill ward) as well as educational needs, together with residential units. After several workshops we believe that, to a large extent, all could be accommodated within this site as part of a new urban block which would also offer new useable public amenity space. We have worked up a formal submission to Lewisham Council for a change of designation of this site to “Mixed Use”, which was presented to the July Forest Hill Assembly in Draft form, and the finalised version was presented to the September Assembly. The response on both occasions was very favourable.

Sydenham Arts collaboration with SEE3
Jonathan Kaufman (Sydenham Arts Director) spoke about the changes at Sydenham Arts Festival and building on its success as a well-loved and admired creator of annual festivals in its Sydenham and Forest Hill home. It is now a registered charity – Sydenham Arts – and will be spreading its wings and increasing the range, depth and quality of its arts programming with some very exciting new developments, including:

■ Seasonal, themed ‘mini-festivals’ eg. Classical Music, Theatre and Film
■ Touring theatre shows in schools
■ New partnerships with Brockley Max, Horniman Museum and Crystal Palace Overground Festival to increase community engagement
■ Creating a permanent venue for performance and exhibitions

Jonathan talked about the plans in the New Year for a quarterly magazine, listing the very best in events, businesses and activities in the area including:
■ High Street Happenings – in collaboration with SEE3, regular entertainment alongside the monthly markets
■ Mr Tibbetts’ Old Time Music Hall – a delightfully vintage recreation of Victorian variety show, Livesey Hall 8 Feb 2015
■ Sydenham Arts Word Fayre – a 10-day festival of Literature and the Spoken Word in March, featuring authors Alan Johnson MP and Xiaolu Guo
■ Home Fires – touring our WW1 play in schools
■ Sydenham Arts Summer Festival – Don’t miss the glorious American-style Street Celebration on 4 July, the incredible story of Eleanor Marx and 7 Jews Walk, the intrepid explorers of The Astounding Ascent of P4 and dare you enter the amazing Sydenhamaze?

Jonathan explained he was putting in funding bids and wanted to collaborate on a creative arts bid for the £20k pot of the GLA High Street Fund.

The focus of the Town Team meeting on 18 November will be agreeing the bids that need to be submitted by 1 December. Some great ideas were put forward and have been developed.

We also want your views on the events and happenings in 2015 as well as any help you can offer to continue with the work started by the pilot. As Louise has said she is stepping down the Core Team and her work in looking after comms and marketing - we now have a volunteer to look after our web site and we need help to bring more traders to the Sydenham market. So plenty to discuss and agree - do join us on Tuesday - 7pm at Here For Good, 17 Sydenham Road.

Keep checking for progress on our web site - and subscibe to our eNews - http://www.SEE3.co.uk

[Tim Lund]

Can you record an apology for absence? There's another meeting in town I want to go to this evening.