Christmas Walk

How well do you know Forest Hill? One man has made it his mission to walk every street in SE23 by the end of the year and has built up an impressive knowledge of the area as a result. Now, together with the Forest Hill Society, he’s inviting people to join him on 15th December for the final leg of this epic journey.

Rob McIntosh has been pounding the uneven pavements of SE23 all year, taking photos and making inquiries as he goes. He then shares the experience with the wider community through his entertaining blog (online diary) http://se23streets.blogspot.com.

Rob works from home and, as he explains, “sometimes you need an excuse to get out the front door and stretch your legs. Most importantly, I hope to pass on some of my enthusiasm for the area.”

So, if you fancy keeping him company as he completes his task - and sharing a few mince pies along the way - do join us at 11am on 15th December at the corner of Brenchley Gardens and Brockley Way.

We’ll walk down to the Horniman, past Forest Hill Station and finish at the
Rockbourne Youth Club’s Christmas Fayre (41a Rockbourne Road) - approximately 2.5 miles.

The Forest Hill Society will have its own stall at the Rockbourne Christmas Fayre with plenty of information about the Society, and a few SE23 cakes to get you in the community spirit. At 1 o’clock, Rob will give a short presentation about his walks, the best views, the prettiest streets and most interesting places in Forest Hill.

The Fayre is 12-4pm and promises plenty of stalls, food, games and raffles. For more information, contact Cerys or Jane at rockbourneyouthclub@gmail.com or call 020-8699-0163.

Pub Crawl

Around twenty lucky souls met on the evening of September 23rd for a tour of the varied drinking establishments in SE23.

We started with the cavernous Capitol, the Art Deco cinema restored to its full glory. Some of the braver amongst us risked the candlelit ghost tour of the upper circle and beyond, kindly led by “Bean.” As luck would have it, Bean is psychic and was able to point out several ghosts who appeared along our route.

Then onto the Forest Hill Hotel, hidden away off Stansted Road, and, sadly, often overlooked by many of us. It’s a modest and traditional back street boozer complete with a nice array of hanging plants outside.

We then traipsed on to the much talked about The Honor Oak where James and Jamie had laid on a small feast.

Backways past the former games' factory, and the former hemp factory, to the edge of the known SE23 universe and the Blythe Hill Tavern. We just fitted into the cosy snug of this real Irish pub. As ever, the Guinness was near perfect. Thanks to Con for that.

Views on the next itinerary - and the best day of the week to do it - to the editor please!

Hanging on in Forest Hill

It’s Halloween and Mayow Park is pitch black, save for the ghoulish faces of the pumpkins flickering in the cold night air. The children have morphed into witches, devils and worse. And there’s an overwhelming smell of sticky sweets, which they tricked or treated earlier in the evening. We’re all set for a Bat Walk!

It was late in the year for bat hunting. As the insects they eat disappear, the bats start thinking about hibernating. But they made a special effort for Halloween. We didn’t actually see any but we did pick up a couple on our bat detectors – electronic devices, which convert the bats’ ultrasonic, echolocation calls into audible clicks. These were pipistrelles – small, fluttery bats, which are the ones we’re most likely to encounter in our parks and gardens. They may even roost around our houses in summer without us knowing they’re there. They weigh less than a pound coin but they eat up to three thousand insects a night.

Our guide for the night was Colin Higgins, the new warden of Sydenham Hill Wood who works for the London Wildlife Trust. He says we’ve got at least six bat species in Forest Hill out of seventeen species nationally, which is pretty good seeing as they are in decline due to loss of habitat and the overuse of pesticides which kill off the insects they eat.

At Sydenham Hill Wood we’re lucky enough to have brown long-eared bats - one of the more attractive UK species. They normally prefer rural locations, such as farms, but the wood has a good supply of insects and plenty of places to roost.

There is a Woodland Bat Roost Project, funded by the SITA Trust, with extra help and money from Southwark and Lewisham Councils, which seeks to improve the wood as a habitat for bats. This involves surveying the woods with bat detectors and putting up bat boxes to provide extra roosting spaces. There are also plans to carry out building works on the disused railway tunnel to improve it as a bat hibernation site.

The best way to see and hear bats is to go on a bat walk. These are public events held in many parks and public places generally between May and September, when bats are most visible.

And if you’d like to do your bit for bats, you can contact the Bat Conservation Trust at www.bats.org.uk or 0845-1300-228

Rail Campaign in the South London Press

Press Release from Forest Hill Society taken up by the South London Press.

Find us on Facebook

The Forest Hill Society now has a group on Facebook. If you are a member of the Society, or just want to show your support, you can join us on Facebook's Forest Hill Society Group.

By joining the group you can spread the word about the Forest Hill Society to your Facebook friends and help us to increase our visibility and membership.

At this point in time the Forest Hill Society (not the Facebook group) has almost 400 members. If you wish to join you can download a membership form.

A date for your Christmas diary

Keep a little time free in your diary on December 15th 2007.

The Rockbourne Youth Club's Christmas Fayre takes place that day from 12pm to 4pm, and the Forest Hill Society will have a stand to meet and recruit new members and also to raise funds for the Youth Club.

Robert McIntosh will present a short talk on Walking the Streets of SE23, his project to walk every street of this area in 2007, with some of the stories and photos from the attempt.

If you are interested, Robert's final walk will start at 11:00 and finish at the Rockbourne Youth Club in time to for the Fayre. If you want to come along for the walk all are welcome. Meet at the corner of Brenchley Gardens and Brockley Way (you can read more details and get a map of the route here)

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Rockbourne Youth Clubs Christmas Fayre
Saturday 15th December 07
12pm-4pm
Rockbourne Youth Club, 41a Rockbourne Road, Forest Hill, SE23 2DA
Click here for a map

We would like to invite you to our first Christmas Fayre, there will be stalls, food, games, raffle.

If you are interested in getting involved or having a stall on the day please contact Cerys or Jane on 020 8699 0163 or email us at rockbourneyouthclub@gmail.com

Further dates for your diary

All events in this article are non-FH Society events but are happening in the local area. If you would like to publicise events in Forest Hill that are open to all members of the public, please send us details.

Perry Vale ward meeting
There will be a Perry Vale Ward meeting hosted by the ward councillors, Susan Wise, John Paschoud and Alan Till to dicuss how ward members would like the next round of the Localities Fund to be spent. The £10,000 is funded by the Mayor Lewisham, Sir Steve Bullock, and the meeting will take place at St.George's Church (at the junction of Vancouver and Woolstone Roads SE23) on Monday, 29th October, at 7.30pm. All ward members welcome.

Rockbourne Youth Club - 25th Birthday
All members of the community, young and old, are invited to the 25th birthday of Rockbourne Youth Club. With information about the history of the club and current activities plus light refreshments.
20th October, 2-5pm, 41a Rockbourne Road, SE23 2DA
RSVP - Cerys: rockbourneyouthclub@gmail.com

The Lemon Grove - Coffee shop
News is coming in on se23.com that, after much waiting, a coffee shop will be opening on London Road. This is welcome news and we wish all new businesses in the area every success. More details here and on SE23.com as we hear them.

AGM 3rd October

Many thanks to all of you who attended the second Annual General Meeting. There was a really good turn out with over 90 people and, although we did overrun a bit, plenty of people stayed to the bitter end to take part in a useful discussion of Forest Hill issues.

We’re very grateful to our guest speaker, Jeff Lowe - sculptor and founder of the Havelock Walk artists’ quarter- for inspiring us to fight against ugly shop signs, unsightly wheelie bins and filthy pavements. It was quite a call to arms and a real eye-opener seeing our streets through the eyes of an artist!

John Hughes from the Library gave us an update on the refurbishment. It’ll be reopening on 11^th December and it sounds like it’s going to be a real asset to the community. There’ll be much better access and facilities for young and old and did he really mention the possibility of showing FILMS there?

Keeping up the community theme, the Rockbourne Youth Centre appealed for help running the youth facility as it celebrates its twenty-fifth year.

For the remainder of the evening, we got through various bits of Society business including electing (in many cases, re-electing) officers. We’re delighted that Michael Abrahams will be continuing his excellent work as Chair of the Society. And some new faces volunteered to be Committee members bringing fresh blood to the organisation.

So, one year on from our inaugural AGM, things are looking pretty healthy for the Forest Hill Society and we look forward to many dynamic and successful campaigns in the year ahead.

The full minutes of the meeting will be posted on this website very soon and we look forward to seeing you all next time.

Forest Hill Society Response to Rail Utilisation Strategy

Letter to Network Rail in response to the RUS consultation document:

The Forest Hill Society wish to provide some feedback on a number of aspects on the South London RUS. Overall we are disappointed that while the RUS recognises the existing overcrowding and suppressed demand on our line, it fails to deliver any significant improvements for passengers on the Forest Hill / Sydenham line. In many ways we will have a worse service as a result of the RUS than we do at present and we urge you to reconsider a number of key areas for the passengers from Forest Hill.

From the end of last year the Forest Hill Society, in conjunction with the Sydenham Society, has collected almost 1,000 signatures which can be viewed at http://fhpetition.notlong.com/. These are from local residents opposed to a reduction in services to London Bridge. The RUS provides no immediate solutions to the reduction in services that we take effect with the introduction of the East London Line.


Executive Summary of our recommendations:

• No cuts to the existing peak services to London Bridge on the Sydenham line
• Earliest possible introduction of 10-car or 12-car trains on the Sydenham line
• No cuts to services on the Sydenham line to Charing Cross
• We are pleased that the RUS recommends the continuation of direct services from Forest Hill to Victoria. We would like these to be extended to the morning peak [ed. - it is still not entirely clear that this service will continue but there is some evidence in the RUS document that it will still be run]

Option 2.3 – Increased am peak frequency on the Sydenham Line

We are disappointed that the recommendation to have an extra 2 tph refers to the East London Line rather than the London Bridge service. At present there are 8 tph on the services into London Bridge but this will be reduced to 6 tph in the current plans. Replacing these with trains on the East London Line will not make up for the loss of services to London Bridge as the trains will be shorter (4 carriages rather than 8 or 10 carriages) and the destination is wrong for the majority of commuters, who will continue to travel towards the centre of London via London Bridge and the Northern and Jubilee Lines.

The RUS (page 112) makes quite clear that the London Bridge service would be a preferable option to the East London Line option and would reduce crowding on the train services as well as at Canada Water station, which is barely able to cope with the expected increase in passengers changing platform via a single escalator.

Network Rail must look again at the capacity made available for services from Forest Hill to London Bridge and make sure that our existing capacity is not diminished. We do not request more trains than we currently have (although demand would support this), just the same level of service as is currently available on the line. The only issue here is capacity at London Bridge which appears to be being taken away from the people of Forest Hill and other stations in Lewisham.


Option 4.3 – 10-car or 12-car peak services on the Sydenham Line

We welcome the recommendation to run 10-car trains on the Forest Hill / Sydenham line. This will reduce some of the impacts of the proposed reduction in train numbers (option 2.3), but does not address the existing overcrowding and suppressed demand on this route into London Bridge. We would like to understand more about why 12-car trains would be impractical on this route as the phrase 'This is likely to lead to the conclusion that 12-car operation is impractical on this route due to constraints elsewhere limiting the suburban network to 10-car' (page 130, emphasis added). We do not believe that limitations on other parts of the network should hinder the necessary provision of services on a route with such high levels of suppressed demand.

It is disappointing to see that this increase in the lengths of trains shall not be delivered until the completion of the Thameslink Programme. We believe this is an excuse for inactivity and lack of development on our line which is not justified by any Cost Benefit Analysis. Many platforms at London Bridge low-level station are already capable of having 10-car or even 12-car trains, so it should be possible for at least some of the services on our line to be increased to 12-car trains, even if not all of them before the completion of the Thameslink Programme.

The biggest concern for us is that with the proposed reduction in services to London Bridge following the introduction of the East London Line services (and even before that with the closure of the ELL from this December), we will see an increase in overcrowding on the remaining services to London Bridge. The immediate effect of the East London Line for passengers from Forest Hill will be a reduction in services and increased overcrowding. The RUS does nothing to solve this problem until many years after the introduction of the East London Line Extension.

We recommend that work begins immediately to extend all the platforms on the Forest Hill / Sydenham line to allow for 12-car trains and that plans are built into the timetable from 2011 to allow for 10-car and at least some 12-car trains on this route. In terms of passenger demand and economics this plan is more effective than the short-term strategy of inaction outlined in the RUS.


Option 20.4 – Operation of trains from Sydenham line through to Charing Cross

The evening services from Charing Cross to Forest Hill are extremely beneficial for passengers coming home from the West End of London and are 'extremely well utilised' (page 176). Because these existing services operate outside peak times there should not be any issues with capacity beyond London Bridge. We recognise that it is not possible to run these services during peak hours, but consideration must be given to the continuation of these services into the evening off-peak hours.

Again we are not demanding any increase over our existing services (although demand would justify such an increase), but wish to see our existing services remaining during the evenings. There is no justification for the removal of this extremely well utilised service.


Existing Loop Line to Victoria

From the route map on page 203 of the RUS it appears that plans are in place to continue to run trains between London Bridge and Victoria via Forest Hill. This is already a useful service at off-peak times and enables services to run into London Bridge without using capacity south of Norwood Junction. We would like confirmation that the plan is to maintain this service in the short to medium term.

Ideally these services would run into Victoria or Clapham Junction in the morning peak to cater for the large number of commuters in the area heading for west and south west London.


Additional Options that have not been considered in the RUS:

Stopping some Thameslink trains at New Cross Gate

We propose that at least 2 tph on the Thameslink service stop at New Cross Gate after the introduction of the East London Line.

Passengers from the East London Line would then be able to change to these services to London Bridge, Kings Cross, Bedford , Gatwick and Brighton. This would reduce overcrowding on the remaining services from New Cross Gate to London Bridge by adding additional capacity, provide faster travel from Gatwick to Canary Wharf and City Airport, reduce passenger overcrowding at London Bridge station with customers changing platforms (this is recognised as a problem area in the RUS), and it would reduce overcrowding on the Northern Line for a significant number of passengers from South London wishing to continue beyond Kings Cross.

Additionally, there is a need for peak services on the Thameslink route through London Bridge. At present there are no Thameslink services before 9:30am , which adds to the inconvenience of travelling to Luton Airport, Kings Cross (for Eurostar), and other key destinations on this line. We recommend that consideration is given to running at least 2 tph on the Thameslink service via London Bridge.

We would also like to take this opportunity to make clear our opposition to the removal of terminating platforms at London Bridge which Forest Hill services currently use. It is clear from the current Thameslink plans that there will be a reduction from 9 terminating platforms to just 6, this is not enough platforms for all the South London services that make use of London Bridge. South Londoners seem to have been given little thought when developing plans for the Thameslink service.


ELL trains on the Loop Line to Victoria

There are many commuters from Forest Hill and Sydenham wishing to travel via Clapham Junction and Victoria in the morning peak. With the extension of the East London Line there will be greater interchange potential at Crystal Palace to other services to these destinations. However, we would like consideration to be given to the continuation of some of these East London Line or London Bridge service to Clapham Junction or Victoria. This would provide a useful loop for passengers from South East London travelling to South West and West London , reducing congestion at London Bridge and on Jubilee Line services from London Bridge to Westminster.

We understand that there are capacity issues at peak times around Victoria as well as London Bridge , so termination at Clapham Junction, or joining the 4-car ELL trains with other short services to Victoria may be viable options.

It is disappointing that no consideration was given to better use of this service as part of the RUS.


I hope that you will incorporate our feedback and suggestions in the future development of train services in South London.

Autumn Dates for your Diary

Sunday 23rd September: Forest Hill Pub Crawl

Meet at The Capitol, London Road, 7:30pm

Members and non-members welcome

Forest Hill Ward Meeting (non-Society event)

Residents of Forest Hill Ward are cordially invited to the third Forest Hill Ward Meeting hosted by the ward councillors on Monday 24th September 2007, at 7.30pm, Christian Fellowship Centre on Honor Oak Road.

The Meeting is part of a regular series open meetings hosted by the ward councillors where issues of interest to local residents can be discussed.

On the agenda for this meeting are planning & development and how to spend this years' Localities Fund monies

Wednesday 3rd October: Forest Hill Society AGM

Christian Fellowship Centre, Honor Oak Road (opposite Fairlawn School)

Doors open 7pm (meeting starts 7:30pm)

Members and non-members welcome