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Pat Trembath has chaired the Sydenham Society for
fourteen years. 1994 was a baptism of fire with the first Bell Green Inquiry.
Pat and the Society wanted housing. The owners wanted a massive retail park. It
was a titanic battle. The park is still to be built but if and when it does it
will have a significant residential component.
Pat has lived in Sydenham most of her life. She was
educated at Sydenham High (then a direct grant school). She returned in the
1960s and stayed.
Battling and campaigning have marked her style in
defending Sydenham from the worst excesses of misplaced planning. But there is
also the positive side. The cajoling of reluctant developers and retailers into
'trying' Sydenham. The support that helped Sydenham Music prosper and establish
its International Music Festival.
Other success included improvement in planning
guidelines and winning the campaign to get Conservation status covering the
most sensitive parts of our town. This helped save the Greyhound from
demolition and Pat will be active in helping to bring the building back into
use.
Perhaps most notably Pat encouraged local architects
and planners to come up with the concept of the Sydenham Gateway. This was
built on the earlier success of campaigning for the East London Line extension
to Sydenham and the subsequent defence of our London Bridge trains. This in no
small way inspired Lewisham and TfL to press ahead with the Sydenham Road
Regeneration Plan that is due to change the streetscape from Kirkdale to Mayow
Road.
Pat is chair or committee member nearly everywhere. She
helped the LDA get to grips with the problems and the people involved with
Crystal Palace Park. A Sydenhamite planners and councillors sometimes fear but
always respect.
Finally Pat was midwife to the birth of the Forest Hill
Society modelled on the success of the 1,100 strong Sydenham Society. Taking
over one society Pat now leaves two strong civic societies to make West
Lewisham a better place to live, work and play.
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Tim Lund succeeds Pat as the new chair of the Sydenham
Society.
Tim came from Oxfordshire to Peckham bringing a bit
of the countryside with him.
After reading Maths at Oxford Tim went into the City
stockbroking - and a local allotment. His twin track career went to Credit
Suisse and changing Southwark's transport policies.
He was a prominent player in the early days of
Transport 2000 south London activities. Harvey Sherlock of the CPRE was a heavy
influence in the concept of how cities could be broken down into working and
enjoyable communities.
A concept Tim explored and documented in the form of
the Dulwich Community Website «www.dulwich.co.uk» one of
the first in the country and one of the inspirations for our Sydenham Town
Website. It also signalled a change of career for Tim as he developed the IT
side of City business and adopted a more relaxed lifestyle.
Growing vegetables made Tim look south to Sydenham for
a larger allotment and as his family grew they finally decamped to a larger
home in Silverdale in 1999.
Success in the City doesn't mean Ferraris and Porches.
Quite the opposite - Tim doesn't have a car. Well not his own but a Streetcar
is his desire «www.streetcar.co.uk» and
a bicycle.
Old habits die hard. Tim couldn't resist building
another website for the Kent House Leisure Gardens «www.klga.com» and has another in
the pipeline.
His resolve not to return to community activism lasted
a little longer. It ended with a chance visit to one of Chris Best's
Regeneration meetings.
That and his report of the first Sydenham Assembly
«here» caused Tim
to fall into the clutches of Sydenham Society's Executive Committee Head
Hunters.
From which there is no known escape
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