This forum and the Sydenham Society

[marymck]

Dorian:

There's an Events sub-committee, a Roads and Transport sub-committee and a Planning and Conservation sub-committee. I am a member of the latter.

We regularly have individuals or representatives of groups of householders who come to our sub-committee meeting to ask for help or to talk to us about their planning concerns. In fact, that's how I got involved. I came to a meeting asking for help. I received tremendous moral and practical support and advice, as a consequence of which I and my neighbours were able to successfully oppose inappropriate over development in a conservation area.

After sitting in on several of the sub-committee's monthly meetings, I eventually joined the group.

It's very time consuming - with lots of paperwork and information to digest, courses to attend and quite a steep (and never ending!) learning curve. I work freelance, so I can't always give as much time as I'd like to. Everyone in our group is very sincere and we all do our very best. I'm sure that goes for the other sub-committees also.

Sydenham Society's website http://www.sydenhamsociety.com gives more detail on the sort of work the society does. I'm sure we'd be very, very grateful for any help people can give.

There may or may not have been a decision as such, but it would be easy to identify a time when the number of posts from the SydSoc regulars I identified fell off significantly. This was presumably a set of individual decisions, rather than just accidents. We can be fairly sure these individual decisions were co-ordinated, since it happened at a time when I was the Chair of SydSoc, and it was suggested to me strongly that this was not a good place to post. I don't have SydSoc Exec minutes to hand, but I don't believe any such decision was ever minuted, but I think we have nonetheless good enough grounds for saying a decision was made.

Tim: Well all I can say is that I never heard of any co-ordination (group or individual) or suggestions that this wasn't a good place to post. I post irregularly ... sometimes that's due to pressure of work, but sometimes I get very, very hurt by some of the things that people say on this site, such that I have to take a breather to lick my wounds.

[mummycat]

Oh how silly.

Of course there's not been a decision not to use this forum. Members of the Society (including the Chair) post information and publicity on this site all the time.

There may or may not have been a decision as such, but it would be easy to identify a time when the number of posts from the SydSoc regulars I identified fell off significantly. This was presumably a set of individual decisions, rather than just accidents. We can be fairly sure these individual decisions were co-ordinated, since it happened at a time when I was the Chair of SydSoc, and it was suggested to me strongly that this was not a good place to post. I don't have SydSoc Exec minutes to hand, but I don't believe any such decision was ever minuted, but I think we have nonetheless good enough grounds for saying a decision was made.

Tim, I think you're being quite silly here, not to mention making potentially libellous comments about SydSoc. Of course no-one co-ordinated such a request from the Executive Committee. Not only did I attend all the Executive meetings that you did, but I left after you and I can assure you that nothing like this was agreed. I continued posting on here until after I moved (a year ago tomorrow), didn't I? For personal reasons I have now deleted everything I have ever written on here since May 2007, but I continued to use it for discussion and promotion of Mayow Park until I left Sydenham. Nobody stopped me and if they had, I would have rather stepped down from the Society and continued doing what I believed in. Maybe I have a different way of communicating than you do?

I have only come back to the forum to set the record straight, as it popped up on a Google search I used to have...

[Tim Lund]

Mummycat:

I don't think what I wrote was remotely libellous. I know suggestions were made to me that it was not sensible to use this Forum, and I'm sure you heard such suggestions too. I'm delighted that you ignored them, and very sorry - though understanding - of why you have apart from this recent posting - ceased to use this Forum. There is also the testable evidence of the fall off in use of the Forum by those others I mentioned.

[Tim Lund]

Dorian:

There's ... a Planning and Conservation sub-committee. I am a member of the latter.

We regularly have individuals or representatives of groups of householders who come to our sub-committee meeting to ask for help or to talk to us about their planning concerns. In fact, that's how I got involved. I came to a meeting asking for help. I received tremendous moral and practical support and advice, as a consequence of which I and my neighbours were able to successfully oppose inappropriate over development in a conservation area.

After sitting in on several of the sub-committee's monthly meetings, I eventually joined the group.

It's very time consuming - with lots of paperwork and information to digest, courses to attend and quite a steep (and never ending!) learning curve. I work freelance, so I can't always give as much time as I'd like to. Everyone in our group is very sincere and we all do our very best.

I think SydSoc's planning sub-committee is on balance a force for good, but there's a danger in making out that planning is something difficult, which needs lots of specialised knowledge. At one of the last SydSoc meetings I chaired, when Tony Burton, CEO of Civic Voice spoke at the Golden Lion, he said that commenting on planning applications was easier than using a PC. He exaggerated of course, but the point was well made, and the point is that planning is based on policies which are clearly in the public domain, with a transparent process whereby anyone affected by planning issues can express those concerns with reference to these policies. As such, I think it is a model of how power can be effectively devolved - not just to community groups such as SydSoc, but individuals and businesses.

Obviously experience in planning issues helps, but I doubt if it really requires going on courses. There are people - and not just SydSoc members - on the Forum who will sometimes help on planning matters.

[marymck]

OK Tim - I've counted to ten and counted to ten again.

I was not implying that one needs to go on courses to comment on planning applications. In fact I believe I specifically said that anyone could comment. There are, as you well know, certain criteria that are legitimate reasons for comment: over development, density, conservation issues, etc. And, as you well know, certain criteria that are not: devaluation of adjoining property, disruption during what can be long-drawn out development work, etc. Until I became involved in the process for instance, I did not know that the value of one's property could be decimated by a proposed adjacent development and that this was not a legitimate reason for objection and therefore would not be judged as such by the Planning authorities.

However I would consider myself negligent if I sat on a planning and conservation sub-committee and did not get myself fully informed on the ever changing planning legislation. That's where the reading and courses come in.

All this however is digression. The point of this thread is dropping off of postings by Syd Soc members on this site. Perhaps some are put off by the constant nit-picking and sniping that occurs when they do post.

[Tim Lund]

I was not implying that one needs to go on courses to comment on planning applications. In fact I believe I specifically said that anyone could comment. There are, as you well know, certain criteria that are legitimate reasons for comment: over development, density, conservation issues, etc. And, as you well know, certain criteria that are not: devaluation of adjoining property, disruption during what can be long-drawn out development work, etc. Until I became involved in the process for instance, I did not know that the value of one's property could be decimated by a proposed adjacent development and that this was not a legitimate reason for objection and therefore would not be judged as such by the Planning authorities.

It's these sorts of fundamentals of planning that should be pointed out more often, and would be understood more generally if SydSoc and others with planning experience chose to share more of their experiences on this and other sites.

However I would consider myself negligent if I sat on a planning and conservation sub-committee and did not get myself fully informed on the ever changing planning legislation. That's where the reading and courses come in.

It's sometimes hard to know when you are fully informed, and realistically all anyone can do is their best given the time they have available and their experience. When the planning system works properly it will take into consideration people's comments if legitimate, regardless of how well informed they are. Obviously being well informed helps you to focus your comments, and avoiding disappointment when making comments which are not valid planning concerns.

All this however is digression. The point of this thread is dropping off of postings by Syd Soc members on this site. Perhaps some are put off by the constant nit-picking and sniping that occurs when they do post.

I'm sure that's how they see it, but this is a public space, as is also the world of planning. As I wrote in another thread recently, you will find in it fellow citizens who express views you don't like, maybe in language you don't like. The way to deal with it is not to take offence, but carry on putting your own views as persuasively as you can.

An example of what might be thought nit-picking is the reaction to Annabel's posting here of SydSoc's objections to 24 hour trading at Bell Green, which I believe Annabel did find distressing. However, what she posted was a submission to the planning process, so in the public domain. Anyone who takes part in the planning process must accept that their participation may be the subject of public comment. It does no good to "get very, very hurt by some of the things that people say on this site". Feelings matter, of course, but one person's outrage at what someone else says can hardly be measured against the other person's outrage at the idea that they should not have been able to speak their mind freely and vice versa. That's why it's better to settle matters by reference to principles.

What SydSoc could be doing is publicising planning cases which do come up, explaining why it gets involved in some, and why it takes the positions it does. I think it would be a good, proactive thing for it to use this Forum for this, but it could also do it on its own web site. A starting point would be a search on Lewisham's Planning portal such as I have just done for: "Application Dates From: 01/01/2011, Ward Named: Sydenham". As things stand, it could be time consuming, which is why anything encouraging ordinary people to get involved should be welcomed.

However, it is surely only a matter of time before web developers get round to writing code which will be able to 'scrape' such pages to automate such tasks, and so identify cases which groups such as SydSoc might be expected to get involved with, and those it does.