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West Norwood news, chitter chatter and gossip

West Norwood Snooker Club is closing. Last party there next weekend.

They posted this on their FB page:

IT IS WITH SADNESS THAT WE HAVE TO ANNOUNCE THE CLOSURE OF WNSC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THIS IS DUE TO THE SIGN OF THE TIMES ( MORE BUILDING OF FLATS)
SO AFTER 3 DECADES OF WORKING & PARTYING & SERVING THE COMMUNITY WE ARE CLOSING OUR DOORS.

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE PAST & PRESENT ALSO PEOPLE WHO ARE NO LONGER WITH US FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND IMPORTANTLY THE FRIENDSHIPS WE HAVE MADE.

SO WITH SADNESS PAUL & LIZ ASWELL AS ALL THE STAFF WOULD LIKE TO SAY THANKYOU & GOODBYE ON SATURDAY 27 SEPTEMBER AT THE SNOOKER HALL
THE VERY VERY LAST DANCE WILL TAKE PLACE !!!!!!
£2 DANCE SPECIAL
 
From the Friends Of West Norwood LIbrary page on Facebook:



A council spokesperson says....
"The Council and the Picturehouse expect to complete the legal documents by the middle of October 2014. A public announcement will be made when this has been done. There will also be local publicity.

A detailed costing of the redevelopment will be undertaken once the legal agreements are finalised. This will take approximately 12 weeks as it involves getting a better understanding of the design and materials to be used in the redevelopment. This information will be put alongside the existing information about the structure and condition of the building to come up with the cost.

Subject to completion of the business development and planning process, that we aim of have the building open and operational by Autumn/Winter 2017. "
 
I really thought the library/cinema would be open much sooner than this. It's good news that it's still going ahead but I'm disappointed by the delay.

In other news, the South London Theatre closes soon for 18 months and then reopens in 2016 after a full refit, including opening up the front of the building and creating a foyer/cafe. I went on the tour on Open Day Weekend, and the plans sounded exciting. Such an amazing building, will be great to see it spruced up.
 
boohoo said:
I overheard whilst wandering the Jumble trail concerns that West Norwood was going to become like East Dulwich... maybe? :D
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I've certainly never seen change so rapid in an area. I don't think we'll go the full East Dulwich, but WN's definitely tidying itself up a bit. Let's face it, it was long overdue. As long as the new places are run by folk as nice as those at The Floral Hall rather than the grumpy snobs at Beamish And McGlue, I'll be happy. We'll see...

I went on the Jumble Trail and really enjoyed it. It was a great way to wander round the local area, meet the neighbours, and pick up some bargains. I hope they do another one soon.
 
But yeah, in the four years from 2013 to 2017, West Norwood will have gained a health and leisure centre, a library/cinema, a redone theatre, two new pubs (Great North Wood and Knowles), a record shop, plus a variety of bars and cafes. Amazing really.
 
boohoo said:
I enjoyed meeting local people and I love wandering up and down the hilly back streets.
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Yes, us too. Some of the houses on Julians and the roads around there look amazing. And we met such a variety of people - we had our kids with us and so it was very easy to get chatting to the people on the stalls who were generally parents too. About half way through we nipped out to Feast and it suddenly seemed busy and impersonal, so I was happy to get back to the backstreets and having random chats with the stall holders.
 
boohoo said:
I overheard whilst wandering the Jumble trail concerns that West Norwood was going to become like East Dulwich... maybe? :D
Click to expand...

I think WN might overtake East Dulwich. I went to a bbq at some mates of mates in ED about 4 years ago and they were all complaining at the rubbish schools in the area. WN now has much better schools and better transport links, on top of all the other improvements listed above.

I haven't compared house prices between the two areas, that might be some sort of indicator. Wouldn't be surprised if the gap had reduced between the two.
 
ringo said:
I think WN might overtake East Dulwich. I went to a bbq at some mates of mates in ED about 4 years ago and they were all complaining at the rubbish schools in the area. WN now has much better schools and better transport links, on top of all the other improvements listed above.

I haven't compared house prices between the two areas, that might be some sort of indicator. Wouldn't be surprised if the gap had reduced between the two.
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Judging by situation of a friend who lives in ED, prices there have risen a fair bit more than in Brixton and schools now much better.
 
ringo said:
I think WN might overtake East Dulwich. I went to a bbq at some mates of mates in ED about 4 years ago and they were all complaining at the rubbish schools in the area. WN now has much better schools and better transport links, on top of all the other improvements listed above.

I haven't compared house prices between the two areas, that might be some sort of indicator. Wouldn't be surprised if the gap had reduced between the two.
Click to expand...

The train in East Dulwich is actually quite a bit away from the commercial centre, taking that to be focussed around the Co-Op in Lordship Lane. The buses are slow due to the traffic queuing to get round the roundabout at the bottom. West Norwood you've got Tulse Hill and West Norwood stations right there, linking you to Clapham Junction, London Bridge and the Thameslink stations.

But I can't ever see West Norwood getting a Jojo Maman Bébé or a butchers like William Rose. Not in the next few years anyway.

Maybe poor transport links is a good thing if you are a stay at home mum who spends her days taking the girls to and from JAGS in the Range Rover Sport while your husband cycles his £1,500 bike in to work in town. Keeps the outsiders out.
 
Whats the best Dr surgery in WN? Is the one that's moved to the sports centre any good?

Deerbrook has been awful from day one but have outdone themselves now. Wasted two days getting blood tests because they only have 2 doctors and you have to turn up and wait around for hours hoping to see one. Now I've rung them and found they've had the results for a week but didn't tell me and they won't give me the results. The Dr is never in so I can't speak to him to get them. He won't call anyone back or post/email them to me. The receptionist told me she expects the results were OK or I'd have heard something, seemed to be a bit of a waste of time to her :mad:
 
ringo said:
Whats the best Dr surgery in WN? Is the one that's moved to the sports centre any good?

Deerbrook has been awful from day one but have outdone themselves now. Wasted two days getting blood tests because they only have 2 doctors and you have to turn up and wait around for hours hoping to see one. Now I've rung them and found they've had the results for a week but didn't tell me and they won't give me the results. The Dr is never in so I can't speak to him to get them. He won't call anyone back or post/email them to me. The receptionist told me she expects the results were OK or I'd have heard something, seemed to be a bit of a waste of time to her :mad:
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I haven't visited them since they moved to the sports centre, but I've been with them for a while, & seen them a few times. They've always been fine as far as I've been concerned. All the doctors are nice & seem good, and I've not had trouble getting appointments. The only off-putting thing about them was that their old premises were a bit scruffy, but that'll obviously not be the case any more.
 
grosun said:
I haven't visited them since they moved to the sports centre, but I've been with them for a while, & seen them a few times. They've always been fine as far as I've been concerned. All the doctors are nice & seem good, and I've not had trouble getting appointments. The only off-putting thing about them was that their old premises were a bit scruffy, but that'll obviously not be the case any more.
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Cheers, might give them a go
 
I took my daughter to the new leisure centre today and really enjoyed it. They've got 10m cordoned off and it's 80cm in height. It was fairly quiet for a Saturday afternoon and the staff were all dead on.

only complaint is no family changing. My daughter freaked out a bit as I took her to a cubicle in the gents' and an older man was getting changed in the central area.
 
Might go and check it out.

Almost went today but the person I spoke to on reception was totally useless - couldnt tell me when there were and werent classes or if there was a shallow bit to take a baby, was as though she'd never been to the pool let alone working there. Was worried we'd go and find it crammed with lane swimmers or lessons so we went to Crystal Palace. (Not an unmitigated success - nice training pool but was a bit chilly)
 
Yeah,I tried to find out about classes. Found out that they are fully booked, but it took a lot of work to find out what times they are on at.

The pool could definitely do with being a few ° warmer.
 
They only put classes online if there are spaces available. It's annoying. I missed out on a Thursday class - online one day but gone the next. Went to Crystal Palace instead.
 
Smick said:
I took my daughter to the new leisure centre today and really enjoyed it. They've got 10m cordoned off and it's 80cm in height. It was fairly quiet for a Saturday afternoon and the staff were all dead on.

only complaint is no family changing. My daughter freaked out a bit as I took her to a cubicle in the gents' and an older man was getting changed in the central area.
Click to expand...

There is family changing. It's immediately to your left when you first go in. There's four cubicles.
 
We had a rather nice West Norwood day today - completely impromptu. We decided to give the family swimming a go and it was nice - mostly because it was very quiet. As the end we had both sections of the pool just to ourselves. This made it relatively stress free. Then, we decided to treat ourselves to lunch. We looked at Otter which looked lovely but gaijinboy was seduced by the Italian food at The Garden - which really was very lovely. Otter looks much more family orientated but we still had a good time with the kids at The Garden. I'd like to go there for a date really - it is quite cosy, low key, excellent food and they have nice drinks I think. Gaijinboy was made up with the best tiramisu ever (he's got a thing for them). Then we called into the Portico Gallery which had this Open Works thing going on - the kids did some pottery with clay (O made "woman with chickenpox") and I did a completely random drumming workshop. We got given a free jar of chilli jam and went to the playground outside the leisure centre which is in the process of getting some swings to add to the rather vertiginous climbing pyramid. There's so much going on everywhere, it's great.
 
gaijingirl said:
We had a rather nice West Norwood day today - completely impromptu. We decided to give the family swimming a go and it was nice - mostly because it was very quiet. As the end we had both sections of the pool just to ourselves. This made it relatively stress free. Then, we decided to treat ourselves to lunch. We looked at Otter which looked lovely but gaijinboy was seduced by the Italian food at The Garden - which really was very lovely. Otter looks much more family orientated but we still had a good time with the kids at The Garden. I'd like to go there for a date really - it is quite cosy, low key, excellent food and they have nice drinks I think. Gaijinboy was made up with the best tiramisu ever (he's got a thing for them). Then we called into the Portico Gallery which had this Open Works thing going on - the kids did some pottery with clay (O made "woman with chickenpox") and I did a completely random drumming workshop. We got given a free jar of chilli jam and went to the playground outside the leisure centre which is in the process of getting some swings to add to the rather vertiginous climbing pyramid. There's so much going on everywhere, it's great.
Click to expand...

Excellent. Do you think the gallery stuff will be on tomorrow, we might follow your lead?
 
nagapie said:
Excellent. Do you think the gallery stuff will be on tomorrow, we might follow your lead?
Click to expand...

i'm not sure - I don't think so. They gave out a newspaper about it and there was a whole page with a schedule on it and it's all for today. They had loads of 30 minute taster sessions in all kinds of things - there was a singing thing going on when we arrived. Other stuff was, "how to fix a bike tyre", "how to knit", "photography basics", "simple sourdough", various language classes etc. This is part of some skill swap/barter project. There seems to be lots of other projects going on too - sharing fruit from the back gardens as there are so many fruit trees round here. Some people have made a bee friendly garden outside the bus garage. There's a public play/play streets project, a cooking thing where people get together to batch cook meals and take home portions for the week. A sewing workshop. www.theopenworks.org It all seems very well organised and professional - I wonder where the funding is coming from? I have noticed this stuff happening on the perimeters of my thinking but you know what it's like with kids, work etc...
 
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gaijingirl said:
There's so much going on everywhere, it's great.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I love about West Norwood.

It feels like the area has been suddenly given permission to try out whatever it wants and it's just going for it. There's so many bizarre, random things going on, it's almost hard to keep up. I was vaguely aware the Open Works stuff was going on and I didn't really understand what it was all about, but it felt good to know that yet another initiative was having a go.
 
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gaijingirl said:
i'm not sure - I don't think so. They gave out a newspaper about it and there was a whole page with a schedule on it and it's all for today. They had loads of 30 minute taster sessions in all kinds of things - there was a singing thing going on when we arrived. Other stuff was, "how to fix a bike tyre", "how to knit", "photography basics", "simple sourdough", various language classes etc. This is part of some skill swap/barter project. There seems to be lots of other projects going on too - sharing fruit from the back gardens as there are so many fruit trees round here. Some people have made a bee friendly garden outside the bus garage. There's a public play/play streets project, a cooking thing where people get together to batch cook meals and take home portions for the week. A sewing workshop. www.theopenworks.org It all seems very well organised and professional - I wonder where the funding is coming from? I have noticed this stuff happening on the perimeters of my thinking but you know what it's like with kids, work etc...
Click to expand...
It seems to be a Lambeth Council initiative. Fair play to them.
 
Ms T said:
It seems to be a Lambeth Council initiative. Fair play to them.
Click to expand...

They did mention Lambeth was involved but I was a bit surprised to see the extent to which this was happening. I remember a while back they took over an empty shop in WN to discuss things - I think that was the same thing - like clandestino says, so much seems to be happening at once, it's difficult to keep up!
 
Also, I must say, with regards to WN swimming pool, that whilst I think the building itself is ugly, it's quite nice swimming in the pool.. at the far end they have two strips of window which run the width of the pool giving views onto leafy trees. It's quite nicely done. Not as good as the entire glass wall at Downham overlooking commonland but still pretty nice. Also they are putting more stuff into the playground there.. I chatted with the contractors and they're currently putting in swings and thought there might be more to come.
 
Anyone ever get a Chinese takeaway from the place opposite the fire station? I'm in on my own so unlikely to spend the £10 minimum to get delivery so planning to head out on foot.
 
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