The Windmill has closed down

[JMLF]

It's Eaton Green - http://www.eatongreen.com/commercial/index.htm

[Tim Lund]

It's Eaton Green - http://www.eatongreen.com/commercial/index.htm

?

[biscuitman1978]

It's Eaton Green - http://www.eatongreen.com/commercial/index.htm

?

Presumably an indirect response to your earlier question:

What is the phone number or address for the 'us' any estate agent should call or email?

[JMLF]

Sorry, got wires a bit crossed - thought tim was asking who the estate agent/contact was.

[marymck]

The estate agent, the owner and the owner's solicitor all already have my contact details. I will not have them put online for public view because that attracts abusive calls and spamming.

[JMLF]

Side note to your earlier response Mary - just walked past fig and pistachio and had a cheeky peak through the window. It's looking great Met the guys at 161 a few weeks back who were lovely and it all looks promising there too but doesn't seem to be moving as quick as the aforementioned deli. All exciting and positive stuff

[Tim Lund]

The estate agent, the owner and the owner's solicitor all already have my contact details. I will not have them put online for public view because that attracts abusive calls and spamming.

What public standing do you have that the owner and his agents are required to deal with you? As such, is there publicly available contact details should anyone not currently in discussions with the owner wish to make planning enquiries about this property?

From whatever such position of public authority, can you answer my previous questions

Will anything other than a pub be allowed? What are the possible parameters for a pub - e.g. pricing (so as not to exclude the less affluent), availability for use for community events, etc.?

[marymck]

The estate agent, the owner and the owner's solicitor all already have my contact details. I will not have them put online for public view because that attracts abusive calls and spamming.

What public standing do you have that the owner and his agents are required to deal with you? As such, is there publicly available contact details should anyone not currently in discussions with the owner wish to make planning enquiries about this property?

From whatever such position of public authority, can you answer my previous questions

Will anything other than a pub be allowed? What are the possible parameters for a pub - e.g. pricing (so as not to exclude the less affluent), availability for use for community events, etc.?

Oh Tim, get over yourself and give the rest of the world a break. Do you practise being vicious? Or does it come naturally? You push and bully for me to publish my contact details, then you say I've no authority while at the same time claiming for yourself the authority to insist I answer your interminable, pointless questions. Except of course they are not pointless. Your point is to undermine me, SydSoc and anyone else who you see as some kind of threat to your Kingship.

I know you wanted Sainsburys to take over the Windmill site. It hasn't happened. Please don't be such a sore loser and please stop lashing out. It's ugly and destructive.

[Tim Lund]

Mary - planning is meant to be open and transparent. The way you seem to want to do it is anything but. If you want to be the go to person for developers in Kirkdale, or wherever else, you should either get elected to the Council, or become a professional planner, with appropriate training, and subject to professional standards.

[marymck]

Mary - planning is meant to be open and transparent. The way you seem to want to do it is anything but. If you want to be the go to person for developers in Kirkdale, or wherever else, you should either get elected to the Council, or become a professional planner, with appropriate training, and subject to professional standards.

If elected officials and "qualified" "professionals" were the only people allowed to try to influence, do or say anything about their local community and its assets what would you find to do all day? Apart from undermining those "qualified" or elected people that is.

Didn't notice your name on any ballot papers BTW, but I look forward to you posting your qualifications on housing, social engineering and all your other areas of "expertise".

[Tim Lund]

Mary - the difference is that I don't claim to represent people, but you do.

So, for future reference, who should we, as members of the public, contact to know what is happening with the Windmill? The owner and the owner's solicitor all already have your contact details, so presumably you have theirs. Can you share them with us, and if not, what gives you a special right to hold this information of general public interest?

[marymck]

Mary - the difference is that I don't claim to represent people, but you do.

So, for future reference, who should we, as members of the public, contact to know what is happening with the Windmill? The owner and the owner's solicitor all already have your contact details, so presumably you have theirs. Can you share them with us, and if not, what gives you a special right to hold this information of general public interest?

Jon has already posted that info.

I'm not going to post any more updates on here anymore. I'll leave that to others, if they choose to do so. Unlike you, I don't need to feel in charge of everything. Your vendetta against me is making me sick and I'm not going to put myself on here as your punching bag anymore.

[Tim Lund]

There's curious document on the Lewisham website on assets of community value

Curious because the Windmill is listed twice, once as being successfully nominated as an ACV by CAMRA, 20th December 2013, but also for being unsuccessfully nominated by the Sydenham Society, 23rd May 2013. In the latter listing the following reasons are given for the rejection:

The evidence provided was insufficient to demonstrate that the asset is currently being used to further the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community. Although the asset is currently used as a public house there was not sufficient information provided to demonstrate how the asset is used beyond being a venue for the consumption of alcohol and activities associated with the consumption of alcohol. No evidence of any other community use of the asset was provided. There is also a question about the financial viability of this asset’s continued use as a public house.

The current owners have been marketing the public house since 2008 and have failed to find any brewery or publican interested in acquiring it. No community group has expressed any interest in purchasing or leasing the public house during this period.

So what changed? Probably the change.org petition organised by 'Save the Windmill', triumphantly concluded here



and on looking down through the list of signatories, various familiar names will be found, including this



but which readers of this Forum know is an alias.

There's also one giving location as Bournemouth, and another, giving London as a location, who I have good reason for thinking does not live here any longer.

So, this is democracy. A local government officer looks at the proper planning considerations, and miscellaneous collection of signatories means it was all for naught.

[Tim Lund]

Unlike you, I don't need to feel in charge of everything. Your vendetta against me is making me sick and I'm not going to put myself on here as your punching bag anymore.

I have no need to feel in charge of everything - I just want to live in a fair and open society, where properly qualified people, subject to the control of democratically elected representatives, can make appropriate decisions for people as a whole, and not be driven around by the whim of an articulate minority.

There is no vendetta - it's just what you get from your claiming a role as representative of the community, and it hurts because you can't justify yourself.

[leenewham]

Mary's passion for Kirkdale is no different from your passion about building more homes Tim. You write about experts 'wasting their time in the first 14 pages of a report until the last 2 pages' which you think are good because you agree with them.

Mary is entitled to her opinion as much as anyone else. I'm not sure why you think she represent's Kirkdale, because she doesn't and I don't believe she claims to either. She represents a group of people who want a pub and oppose Sainbury's opening there. That's not everyone and I've yet to see Mary claim as such.

I was part of a group that wanted to save Forest Hill Pools, while other wanted it knocked down and didn't care about what it looked like, I was part of a group that wanted to save Sydenham Library. Others wanted to save the Greyhound while some think otherwise. If the people that wanted to get involved in such things no longer live in Sydenham but want to get involved, does it really matter if they have moved to Bournemouth?

Planners are not perfect, some are very good and some are awful. Some planning decisions have been disastrous, as I"m sure you will agree, and the system is slow, underfunded, understaffed, complicated and unfit for purpose at present. I think communities should have more of a say in their local communities.

I think you are being unfair on Mary Tim. I often disagree with Mary (the Woodsman!), but please debate the points, don't attack the person.

What is great is that this forum highlights that people give a damn. I may not agree with either of you on various issues, but it's great that you are both fighting for what you believe in.

I wish more people would. But I wish more people would also support those that do get involved rather than just criticising all the time. It's boring and puts people off trying to make a difference.

[Robin Orton]

An excellent post, Lee.

[Tim Lund]

Lee - this is the key part of what Mary wrote:

No, not just me, Eagle. And not just SydSoc. This was (and is!) very much a team effort by a wide cross section of the local community. We have been hampered thus far by the owner's lawyer instructing the estate agent not to talk with us. Hopefully, now that Sainsburys have withdrawn (and will I hope be concentrating their efforts on the plot behind the Greyhound), the agent and owner will engage with us and we can move forward with some exciting proposals that we have been working on.

She is saying the owner and his agents should 'engage with us', and my question was, who is the 'us' to engage with and how should this be done? I have no objection to Mary having a view and expressing it as she wishes, but I do have an objection to someone, without proper democratic mandate, saying they should be the person who should be contacted as representing the community.

It does matter if people have moved to Bournemouth, Kent or wherever, because it's so easy today with social media to broadcast a petition site, and get people who have not had a chance to see the entire picture to respond to a one-sided presentation of the case, that it is dangerous to take 100 signatories as representative.

Politics is rough sometimes, because it's about things that matter.

My passion for building more homes is more about wanting to see people living in better conditions, and not having to scrimp all their lives, and postponing the joy of having children. I also feel fairly passionate about the idea that the availability of alcohol is necessary for social vitality, which seems implicit in claims that pubs are assets of community value. There are so many other assets which I'd suggest are of greater community value. As I wrote in another recent post

Tim - I'm not misguided, I'm passionate about pubs. Imagine if someone decided to turn your allotments into houses?

I wouldn't be caught special pleading, or trying to get the local authority to change planning rules for my benefit. I prefer to make an effort to reach out to the local community, e.g. with helping guide groups of school kids round our site. Do you take school kids on pub crawls?

Or a local park where people can meet? Or a local cafe used by the community? Or a library? Well to me it's the same thing.

G-Man

It's hard to compare intensity of your passion for pubs with my commitment to parks - they are both rather subjective. But I would argue that parks deliver the greater public benefit. They are open to all, not just those with enough money to buy a drink, and they are also open to sections of society who will not go into pubs, for religious reasons, or because they are children, or caring for children. Spending time in parks does not have the adverse health effects of consuming alcohol, and provides the opportunity for all sorts of positively healthy activities, as well as just being there, either on your own, in your own mental privacy, or socialising with friends. So I just do not accept the moral equivalence of parks and pubs.

Pubs are businesses like many others, including cafés, but because of the downside of associated alcohol abuse, requiring special regulation. They should stand on their own two feet, and have absolutely no reason for special protection.

[Eagle]

Tim

I know you are a honest and sincere person but I do not know why you seem to be calling Mary's efforts into question.
She , and her team , have achieved a major victory in deterring yet another bland supermarket .

I hope they manage to reopen a decent pub and communal meeting place in the site.

[Tim Lund]

please debate the points, don't attack the person.

Would you like me to repeat the various points I have made on this?

What is great is that this forum highlights that people give a damn. I may not agree with either of you on various issues, but it's great that you are both fighting for what you believe in.

I wish more people would. But I wish more people would also support those that do get involved rather than just criticising all the time. It's boring and puts people off trying to make a difference.

Does my advocacy of more house building, which you will acknowledge constitutes a fair proportion of what I write, count as 'just criticising all the time'? Or is what's boring and off putting rather a well sustained argument against what you first thought of?

[Eagle]

Tim

We all know you are demanding more housing. Many of your points I agree with , many not.

However the argument about this Pub is nothing whatever to do with housing. It is the survival of a vital community meeting point.

I know MWAV mentions alleged tax evasion in every post whatever the subject and you are in danger of over excitement about property.

Please give Mary support for her endeavour for the community.