As everyone in the Forest Hill, Perry Vale and Sydenham Wards should now have received a copy of the Council's consultation questionnaire on the pools I think it is worth noting the concerns I have about some of the information that isn't included in this as background. In particular this is about the relative timing of the delivery of the two 'options'.

The only thing the questionnaire says about planning is that housing is not possible on Willow Way. It fails to mention that getting permission for a pool on the Willow Way site may not be that easy and is 'technically' contrary to Lewisham's Planning Policies. They would also need to justify moving the pool out of a 'town centre' location which is against another of their planning policies. However, although the Council have had advice that says it should be possible to achieve this it is not a given and is another significant hoop that would have to be jumped though before they could "build on Willow Way now". I am not saying these things can't be achieved, just that we should be aware of some of the difficulties that are not set out in the questionnaire that has been distributed.

Also the leaflet doesn't mention that live/work development may be possible on the Willow Way site within existing planning policies and could be used to cross subsidise a pool on the existing pool site earlier than 2015. It may not meet all of the current funding gap but could well go quite a way towards closing it.