I agree with Biscuit, why dont Lewisham ever do the right thing, they seem to grant the opening of Chicken shops, Bookies and all these unethical businesses that make the high street look cheap and miserable and if it continues this way Sydenham's future will be jeopardised immensely whether the ELL is believed to make a difference or not, These types of shops including crappy pound shops are the reason why people dont want to live here and why we are all on this forum moaning about it.
parker wrote:Why don't Lewisham Council care? Why has the borough seemed to have missed out on the 'boom years'? A town like Sydenham should not look as scruffy and as empty as it does despite the fact it may have more shops open now than it did 5 years ago, Sydenham has so much potential and Lewisham should have done more before now ...even Downham is in a desperate state, some of the worst ive seen in London, like where the Tiger's Head, The Green Man Beefeater and Courts the furniture store used to be, why arent businesses wanting to open up or develop housing in Lewisham to the extent and as quickly as they do in boroughs like Wandsworth?
Why cant Lewisham Council control this better, why dont they want to improve our borough, cant they see that Bookies are a root of evil and chicken shops attract the hoodies. It will get to the point that there will be too many of these places opening up and decent companies like M&S, Caffe Nero, Pizza Express will not want to be surrounded by them whether there are vacancies among the high street or not.
Noangel, you have a good point in mentioning that the residential areas of Sydenham do look somewhat posh, they really do. Take a look at some of the house and indeed the cars around the Thorpes area too and Vener Road. I believe that the more these kinds of shops open such as bookies the more people will think its undesirable.
Now, i understand the opening of new shops are what we refer to as Economic Progress but in this case it looks like for every Bookies that opens, the less likely a Coffee Shop, or trendy wine bar will want to open, there seems to be no logic between what Lewisham Council are doing and what the typical house-owner, tax-paying Sydenham resident requires. Im not trying to say we should turn all the shops into a high street full off Coffee Shops, but it would be nice to buck up the quality of services in the high street and turn the high street into a shopping destination where businesses complement eachother and work in tandem with eachother if you like.
The typical house owner wants to live somewhere that has a wide range of shops on the doorstep that can serve the typical person with a house that has a reasonably high disposable income, isnt that the clientelle we want to attract to Sydenham, cant Lewisham Council try and at least attempt to model themselves on other boroughs like Bromley or Wandsworth where the majority of residents, infrastructure and types of services provided are what we would like to reflect on Sydenham.
If shops like Bookies continue to open in the high street, it will carry on the way it has been going for many years leaving beautiful buildings like the HSBC vacant and falling apart when a nice restaurant would trade well there if the high street looked better without these ghastly shops attracting the less savoury characters that reside in our town.
This Bookies cannot open, it would just be another reason to stop people moving here and one less unit for a better class company, ie Blue chip company that would use it once the ELL and the regeneration of the high street takes affect. The ELL and regeneration of the high street can only do so much to change the area.
