27 January - From flicks to flats
If
you read the constant stream of planning news that is published on
The Murky
Depths website you will know that the eyesore at the junction of Station and
Hurst Roads in Sidcup is going to be flats. 26 of them, none affordable.
Hardly news, everything in Bexley is going to be flats if our Council gets its way. 31,000 of them eventually.
The building pictured here looks like a cinema, and that is because it was until sixty years ago.
Oscar Deutch who founded the Odeon chain of cinemas opened it in October 1935 only
to see a German bomber put a big hole in the roof nine years later. It was ten
years before it showed another film but it survived for only seven more years.
Then along came Bexley Council and converted it into a swimming pool (Lamorbey
Baths). It was there from 1967 until 2008.
Bexley Council tried find a developer
then but nothing came of it until in 2012 The Rose Bruford College offer of £750k. was accepted.
It was reported they had a plan for it but if they did it too came to nothing
and they put it up for sale at £1·9 million. A million pound profit. Rose Bruford were obviously well
advised and Bexley Council wasn’t. Which is a bit odd because the people involved bore
a
remarkable similarity to each other.