By Michael
Abrahams (Chair, Forest Hill Society)
The
first Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Forest Hill Society took place on
25th September 2006 in the Quaker Meeting House on Sunderland Road. That means
this autumn, when we will be convening our 10th AGM for the Forest Hill
Society, we will begin our 10th year. At our AGM on 22nd October, we intend to
look back over what we have accomplished as well as look forward to all the
things we have yet to do. We are immensely proud of what the Forest Hill
Society has achieved during these past nine years and hope you can join our
team to make Forest Hill an even better place to live in the coming years.
Environment
Committee
This
past year has been another good year for the Forest Hill Society and for Forest
Hill. Members of our Environment Committee have been busy maintaining the
plants around the town centre: in the planters at Forest Hill station and the
Edible High Road tubs for so many of our local shops.
Planning
Committee
We
were pleased that some of our ideas, developed last summer, for improving the
town centre have been incorporated into the early plans for improvements to
Dartmouth Road. These plans still need to finalised, but we expect construction works to
start in spring 2016. It would have been hard to imagine last summer that, by
the end of the 2014, £600k would have been secured by Lewisham Council to start
turning some of our aspirations into realities for the town centre. On the back
of this, members of our Planning Committee worked with local organisations SEE3
and V22, along with Lewisham Council to successfully bid for additional funding
from the Greater London Authority to improve the streetscape between the Forest
Hill Pools and Library.
Transport
Committee
On
transport, we experienced a serious degradation in evening peak rail services
from London Bridge earlier this year. However, by keeping up the pressure on
Network Rail and Southern Railways through all channels possible, we believe the
efforts of our Transport Committee helped in reinstating the rail services that
had been cancelled.
Along
with other groups we have long advocated for an extension to the Bakerloo line
into South East London. Although such an extension may still be some way off,
96% of people who responded to this year’s consultation by Transport for London
— for proposed routes that would go through New Cross Gate and Lewisham, and
south to Lower Sydenham and beyond — recognised the extension as a useful
addition to the transport network. Hopefully, there will be more news on this
before the Forest Hill Society’s 20th AGM!
Executive
Committee
Additionally,
in this past year, we organised informative talks on local history and climate change, as well as
another excellent Burns Supper; installed a new street piano in the forecourt
of Forest Hill station; worked with local churches to present the annual
Christmas tree lighting and carol singing festivities in our town centre; and
almost managed to organise an election hustings prior to the Parliamentary elections.
Every
year I ask for new volunteers to get more involved, either by joining our
Executive Committee or one of our other committees. I am pleased to say that every year our team
has seen a few more new faces, who bring new energy and enthusiasm to the
efforts we pursue. Nevertheless, once again, I would
ask you to consider joining one of our committees, and seeing if you like it.
The Executive Committee meets every 6-8 weeks to come up with new ideas and
ensure we implement them.
While
we surprise ourselves every year with what we are able to achieve, we know how
much more we would like to achieve if only we had a few more active members.
Whether you have just moved to the area or have been living here for 80 years —
it doesn’t matter — what matters is that you want to join our team to help
‘make Forest Hill an even better place to live’!
