I know that a number of people prefer option 1.

All three options have difficulties (in terms of funding, planning dsignations etc) but I think that it is worth reinforcing again that option 1 is simply unworkable.

Those people who were at the Stakeholders Meeting are absolutely clear that council officers indicated that this was an option that they simply would not recommend to Mayor and Cabinet.

In fact, many stakeholders were left puzzling as to why this option was ever put forward if it was a non-starter.

Option 1 requires the site to be pre-sold to a developer interested in building housing on site. In the current economic climate, officers calculate (quite correctly) that this would be impossible for at least the next 5-6 years.

The choice is therefore between 2 and 3 - and Option 2 (in my view) is simply the best choice by miles. Does anyone actually believe that moving the pool from FH to Sydenham is what they want - or is right for the future development of FH and Dartmouth Road?

Option 2 would of course require LBL to re-designate the Willow Way site for residential use rather than commercial/employment use. Change of planning use is happening all of the time, so shouldn't prove insurmountable. To take two recent examples: To accommodate the upcoming housing at Bell Green, part of the site once zoned as "industrial" has now been turned into residential and the new Tesco Express to be built round the corner in Kirkdale is being built on a site once designated as "business" - has now been redesignated as "retail" site to accommodate Tesco! (I'm fullly in favour of both these schemes by the way)

Planning designation can be changed - all it requires is the will on the part of the council (with our support) to do so.