Abi asks:

I have been thinking about the Hotel recently approved.

I wondered if any of your followers know which of the 70-odd “design and access statement” attachments relate to the plans for pedestrians and cyclists during and after construction?

Good heavens – that’s a hell of a lot of red tape. One almost wonders whether the sheer amount of documents submitted was deliberately done to stop people with real life/jobs from reading them. I certainly don’t have time today – but has anyone else actually waded through this lot?

Adam asks:

What’s going on behind the Dartford bound platform at Greenwich station – are Southeastern building a lovely garden?

Yes, Adam, I expect that’s exactly what they’re doing It’s a little-known fact that their managing director is a gardening nut. I believe he holds the National Collection of petunias; perhaps he wants to bring a little horticultural sunshine into our humdrum lives.

Truth? I’ve no idea. Surface-to-air missiles?

Lucy asks:

I wonder if you or any of your followers know of a good van hire place near Greenwich/Lewisham? It’s rather urgent as we’re moving on Saturday!

I’ve never had to hire a van, so I don’t know of any but I’m sure someone here can suggest something. Has anyone tried that StreetVan scheme, for example?

I know there’s a problem with school places in the area, but I’m stumped on an Ask The Phantom I got over the weekend.

I’ve been working on a friend’s house over in Cobham for the last week, with one day when he left me in Weybridge, with time to kill, while he went to attend a meeting.

Purely by chance I came across a reference to a place called Hatchford Park – a real huge country pile from the Victorian era – and asked at the desk if it still existed. I was not only told ‘yes,’ but was also given a file with various press clippings about the place, on the assumption I might be interested. From the late ’40s to the early ’90s it was a special needs school.

Surprise #1 was finding a letter from a recently redundant headmaster, to the museum, saying “I am being asked by Greenwich to let the estate agents have [various research papers about the building and surrounding land] to show to potential buyers. I am not inclined to do this as no one will ever see them again if they go there.”

Ummm. Greenwich? Greenwich what!?

Surprise #2 was digging a bit further and finding that the school had indeed come under the charge of Greenwich Council, in 1990. (Until its closure just three years later.)

Hmmm. Not quite sure how a school in Surrey could come under the auspices of Greenwich Council, but apparently it did. Could almost make one wonder how many other assets they might’ve got – or might’ve once had – outside the borough?

I have absolutely no idea why Greenwich would effectively ship-out special-needs students to Surrey (and to be fair that headmaster wasn’t clear on the idea either). I’ve had one of those Monday-morning-real-work-beckons-cursoy-glances and all I can really find is that it’s luxury flats now and that it was once a Dr Who film location (for the 1970 Spearhead From Space/ Planet of the Spiders, when the Doctor was in his Jon Pertwee form if you’re interested).

Clearly Greenwich Council also thought better of the idea of exiling special needs pupils to the other side of London too, as it didn’t last long. But I have no clue whether they own any other random assets outside the borough. I know that Greenwich Hospital does (a post on that coming soon…) but the council?

Maybe someone else knows? Just to add oddness to the mix, The Phantom Webmaster tells me that in some of the old censuses Greenwich was referred to as “Greenwich,
Surrey”. Makes no sense to TPW either, but might be a line of enquiry they had some very odd county boundaries back then?

Darra has a very odd ‘problem’.

The oddest thing was happening today in Greenwich town center and the adjoining area (I checked). Small white flower petals were landing all over my back patio and the adjoining locality . These petals fell infrequently, but constantly, and judging by the number on the ground this had been going on all day. I’m living down by the market, backing onto it. To say I am puzzled would say the least. There are no flower plants or trees to be found anywhere at the moment as you would know, but they continue to fall. Where have they come from Phantom?, and has anyone else noticed this? Maybe I am going mad? Help.

I’m all out of ideas, unless there’s another Bollywood movie being filmed in the location. Can anyone else reassure Darra that the Cuckoo’s Nest isn’t singing its siren song?

I Say asks:

Are local dog owners going to be instructed to get their act together before the Olympics? The area around The Royal Standard is dreadful; in the last week I have seen 3 full plastic bags of dog poo left at the side of the pavement, what/who do the dog owners expect to remove these? I have given up looking at the sky as the pavements are often fouled,  with the pavement immediately outside Simply Food in Old Dover Road being a regular target. When the park is closed the Heath and surrounding roads and pavements will become even worse…

The Phantom replies:

I confess I hadn’t really noticed the area around the Standard being particularly bad for dog mess but it does seem to be an issue all over the town. In West Greenwich vigilante groups have been painting signs on pavements and neighbouring Lewisham have even had entire events based around this antisocial practice (though I have to say that, being a puerile Phantom I found the local paper’s listing rather amusing – soz…)

Thing is, I suspect that the people reading this post are not the people who are allowing their dogs to foul footpaths. If you’re interested enough in your area to read a blog about it, it’s unlikely you’re going to mess it up.

What’s the answer?

This sort of thing normally goes in the Parish News, but I thought I’d ask here, just for the hell of it, because it’s my blog and I get to choose. Mwahahaha.

Stephen asked me (yes, yet another Stephen – there are so many here…) if I know of a local writer who’s looking to collaborate on an idea he has for a Greenwich-based film/novel. He tells me it’s a strong idea, with ‘lots of hooks’ though I know nothing else about it – blimey – someone more cloaked than me….

He has a treatment ‘of sorts’ but confesses he’s not a writer and he’s now looking for someone  to polish the treatment and write the script. In true artistic tradition there’s no cash up front, you’re looking at a partnership against future gains but hey – it might suit someone who’s going through the dreaded block just now.

If you’re interested, pop me an email and I’ll pass you on.

Guillaume asks:

I’m a manager of a luxary hairsalon in Mayfair. I try to open a small beautifull hair salon with a nice French touch and French beauty products from Provence. I have been trying to contact to Greenwich Hospital Estate but every time they tell me that they dont want more beauty or hairsalon in Greenwich. But I think the quality of hair salon here are not very impresive ( bad service, unfriendly staff ). Can you tell me if you know someone I can contact for try to pass these useless people from the Greenwich Hospital Estate. I saw that the Dirty Paws shop had been refurnished It will be a perfect tiny hair salon for me. If you can maybe tell me where to go or ask for try to rent this shop.

The Phantom replies:

I have never had more comments on any thread than that on hairdressers – it certainly seems that people have strong opinions – in both ways – about Greenwich salons. And yes, there are dozens of ‘em to choose from, especially in Trafalgar /Woolwich Road, though admittedly fewer in the actual town centre.

I agree it must be frustrating to see empty shops in the centre of town, but I can, for once, sort of see GHE’s point of view. If they’re trying to get people to visit the centre for casual shoppers, then filling it with services may have the effect of making it a destination only for people who are already booked, rather than the browsers that make the market vibrant. Every street needs variety – that’s why the Royal Hill Lovelies do so well – there’s something of everything which makes people want to go there.

Whatever you think of the quality of what is here already GHE will be taking businesses on numbers, not quality. I can’t see that anyone would be prepared to kick out an established business because someone else says they can do a better job and ‘changing use’ opens up a whole minefield of issues.

I don’t think you’re going to have much luck with the centre of town – GHE aren’t really ‘passable’ – as a bunch of us found out recently when we tried to stop them bulldozing that cute little florists in Durnford St for a trash compactor. The only body you could talk to is Greenwich Council and I know for a fact that they are not keen on monoculture in the town centre either – witness the recent closure of several cafes because there were already a bunch of eatieries there already (and believe me if you think the hairdressers aren’t much cop in the centre, don’t even think about trying some of the cafes. One or two are fantastic but a whole bunch are dire. Quality does not come into it at all…)

Of course not absolutely everything in the town centre belongs to Greenwich Hospital Estates. You might want to check out other places as they come available – some are controlled by other landlords, though you will probably have to conform with the council’s regulations on what can go where (if you were trying for a bookies you’d probably have better luck – I only found out the other day that they come under ‘financial services’ which is how they find it so easy to open up in old banks etc…)

You could cast your net a little further, of course. I can’t think of an empty shop in West Greenwich that would be suitable (don’t even think about that ‘spare’ one in the row at the foot of Royal Hill – there’s a reason why there’s no one in it…) but maybe someone else knows of one.  But every other shop in Trafalgar Road seems to be a hair salon, of varying salubriousness. No one seems to care what goes there. I keep meaning to take a headcount of them, just for my own personal interest. Perhaps you could hook up with the excellent little French deli, L’Artisan, near the Arches and start a Quartier Français…

This weekend’s mailbag has mainly been on two topics. Firstly, and happily, the Cutty Sark re-mast-ered (below.) Secondly, rather less happily, this:

From Victoria:

Do you, or anyone who reads your (marvellous – aw, gee, blush – TGP) blog, know why the council have murdered all the trees along Creek Road between the junction with Norman Road and the Magic Bookshop?

From Martin:

Do you know what has happened to the big trees at the end of Bardsley Lane next to the bookstore?  I went over there yesterday and all that’s left is a humongous pile of chippings and several stumps.  Is some deranged giant chipmunk on the prowl in Phantomland or is something even worse afoot?

The Phantom replies:

Martin – how dare you refer to our illustrious leader as a deranged giant chipmunk?

Actually I don’t even know why I’m joking about this. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about the photo above was taken by David Herbert, the owner of ‘the Magic Bookshop’, whose long-running (though ultimately victorious – huzzah) battle with the council to keep his home and business (if you missed the saga, just google his name in the site search engine…), who lived next door to said trees. When he went to bed on Friday night, it looked like that.

On Saturday morning it looked like this:

I’m actually amazed he managed to sleep through anything that could do that overnight, but hey.

Here’s the view looking towards the bridge:

He is, naturally, pretty upset about this. Apparently it’s for a new road scheme, which also raises the ugly head of his place being in the firing line again.

Anyone else feeling just a little bit less World Heritage Sitey? Gain three masts, lose five trees. As David himself says, so much for Boris Johnson’s ‘Plant a Tree’ scheme…

No – nothing to do with the last post at all – Mike’s painting and decorating job is somewhat smaller – a one-bed flat. Still, he’s been left in the lurch by a cowboy who disappeared and is now looking for someone he can trust to actually finish the job. Ideally, next week.

Any thoughts, chaps?