Eid Mubarak!

Today is the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Fitr which marks the end of Ramadan. This is the major Eid festival of the Muslim calendar; there is another Eid celebration (Eid-al-Adha) on 8th December.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to wish Eid Mubarak to all Putney's Muslim constituents!

For anyone wondering about the image I'm using opposite, it is an Arabesque carving on the Qul'at al-Hambra in Granada, Spain.

Free fire tests for electric blankets

Residents who use an electric blanket can have it tested at a free safety check-up next month.

The fire brigade says faulty ones cause around 5,000 fires every year so trading standards officers have arranged for an expert to carry out free safety tests at Wandsworth Fire Station in West Hill on Wednesday, October 15.

Similar checks conducted in recent years have revealed high levels of safety failures. Around half of the blankets tested have been found to be dangerous, with many using incorrectly wired plugs or relying on the wrong fuses. Many have not had an overheating cut out facility, others have suffered scorch marks or been so worn that the heating element has been left exposed. Some have been found to be decades old and therefore highly dangerous.

While the blankets are being tested, which takes very little time and is free of charge, fire officers will be on hand to offer free home fire safety advice.

People can make an appointment to have their blanet tested by telephoning 8871 7735 or by emailing tradingstandards@wandsworth.gov.uk People using email to book an appointment need to provide a contact telephone number.

Don't forget the Putney Society meeting this Thursday

Just a quick reminder that the Putney Society meeting with the developers of Putney Place, Oracle Ltd. takes place at 7.30pm at St Mary's Church, Putney Bridge.

Everyone is welcome regardless of whether or not you're a member of the Society.

I've now sent out almost 2,000 copies of my Putney Place survey - thank you if you've already returned one either by post or online. And if you haven't yet had your say, you can do so by visiting the special Putney Place page on this website: www.stuartking.net/putneyplace.

There's also plenty of time to submit any thoughts you may have on Putney Place - for or against - to the Council and you can find out where to send them to by visiting my Putney Place page. The deadline is 17 October.

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

Tory Roehampton steamroller grinds on

The Tories, in what appears to be an act of exceptional desperation, have now put in an application to their own planning committee to bulldozer Roehampton's green space.

It's almost as if they're hoping they can get their crazy, unpopular and poorly thought through plans through before anyone notices.

Fat chance: around 300 Roehampton residents have now responded to my consultation and as the pile of objections grows the message is being sent louder and louder: no way; not here; no thank you.

There is always something a little surreal about a council applying to itself for permission to do whatever it likes and I can perfectly well understand the cynicism this stokes among residents who, almost to a person, feel this council ignores their views and treats Roehampton as a testing ground for whatever mad idea the Conservatives dream up.

Their planning application is not yet online; there is no link to it either on the Roehampton or planning pages of the council website although the latest in their scarcely-noticed redevelopment bulletins is currently being delivered in the area.

There is time to have your say on this application - which looks unchanged to the plans that were consulted on despite the Tories' assurance that comments "were all carefully considered before finalising and submitting" the application. The Council expects the application to be determined some time in January 2009.

Let me say this loud and clear to the Tories: if you do not listen to Roehampton I will submit every single response I have received as part of the consultation on this planning application which will remove any shred of pretense that this has the support of the public.

Crime down in August

When I was conducting my Southfields survey earlier this Autumn one of the things I wanted to find out was how the reality: that Southfields ward - away from the Wandsworth shopping centre - has one of the lowest crime rates anywhere in the borough squared with residents' perceptions of crime in their area.

The results were, unfortunately, not that surprising: a large percentage of residents felt that their area was actually less safe than when they first moved there. There is very clearly a disjuncture between fear of crime and the reality of it and that's something I think that politicians - especially opposition politicians, who sometimes believe that talking up the threat of crime helps win them votes - the media and the Police all need to work harder to address.

This month's crime figures bear out just how safe an area Putney really is. Crime is down in most categories as you can see from the table below. For the first time this month I've colour-coded the statistics: red means the figure is up from last month, green means it's lower or no change.

The most impressive figures again come from Roehampton. There is a widely-held perception that Roehampton is a notoriously dangerous place. It simply isn't true. Yes, there is still a lot of work to do to make the area an even safer place to live, but from some of the comments I hear levelled against Roehampton you'd sometimes think people were talking about Al Capone's Chicago! I think the figures show otherwise, and I'd especially like to applaud the progress on cutting thefts and handling offences the Safer Neighbourhood team here have been making.

Here's the table for August:

Is FairTrade really immoral? Tories say "yes"

During an extraordinary debate a couple of weeks ago, Conservative Councillors removed any reference to teaching children about what Fairtrade is, why it exists or why it is a good thing. They also struck from their Children & Young People's Plan the need to teach local kids about the importance of reducing our carbon footprint. The suggestion to include these two important issues came from members of the public during a consultation on what should be included in the plan.

In the midst of it, one of their supposedly "rising stars", Russell King (no relation!) apparently described Fairtrade, which ensures some of the poorest farmers in the world get a fair price for their goods and access to international markets, as "immoral".

I don't know why it is that a fairly large part of those on the right-wing of politics have difficulty with common sense ideas like Fairtrade, or reducing carbon emissions; or even recognising that human-accelerated climate change is a reality. Scarily, such people are heavily represented among Putney and Wandsworth Conservatives.

Planet Clegg

In the past week Putney has been attacked twice. The first, as the Putney SW15 website picked up, was by members of a pro-towerblocks website, skyskrapernews.com attacking the area as "boring".

I too have been criticised by that weird little website for my opposition to Putney Place - but frankly who cares as long as we turn back this dreadful application.

But Putney was also attacked from one of its own residents last week: Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. His comments are far more serious because they show a shocking ignorance AND demonstrate how out of touch with real people he is. This is how the Putney SW15 reports it:

"He recently was quoted as saying that the credit crunch was hitting him hard particularly after his discounted deal on the mortgage on his Putney property expired forcing him to consider giving up Ocado for Sainsbury's."

It must be truly inspirational for everyone struggling with the credit crunch to know that the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, on his meagre £61,000 salary (excluding perks, freebies and allowances, his parliamentary pension and whatever his own party pays him), living in his massive corner house in one of the most exclusive, expensive parts of West Putney, has had to forego Ocado to slum it in Sainsburys!

He then proceeded to rubbish Putney Secondary Schools, tell us all how he'll just have to go private - a remark which appears to have even stirred Putney's Tory MP to complain. And let's not even start on his belief that the State Pension is "about £30 a week".

I am hardly impartial when it comes to the Liberal Democrats but really - is this what the party of Gladstone has come to?

Restoring the Wandle

I'm passionate about getting the river Wandle, which forms the Putney constituency's eastern boundary, cleaned up. I've written about the importance of the Wandle regularly since being selected, and when there's something to say about it, I'll continue to do so.

I grew up with the Wandle on my doorstep but when I was growing up the river was polluted and very nearly dead. Today, the news is very different, despite the Thames Water acid spillage a few months ago.

Not only is the water cleaner but The Wandle Trust has been organising cleanup events to haul the huge amount of trash that has been dumped in it over the years. This isn't just about aesthetics: rubbish in any river raises the water level - and that worsens flooding, so it's important to keep the Wandle clean AND clear.

The Wandle will never return to being the vital channel for industry it was in Victorian times: servicing 90 mills along its length, but it can once again be a proud and important river no longer buried by planners or polluted by fly-tippers. That's something I hope we can all welcome.

If you'd like to get involved with one of the cleanups call the Wandle Trust on 0845 092 0110.

Watch out for the loan sharks

I've just heard on the grapevine that a firm of sharks has been going round Roehampton trying to sign people up for loans with an interest rate of 66%.

No doubt their parents are proud of the scum delightful individuals from whichever "business" this is - I'm in the process of finding out and you'd better believe I'm going to name and shame them when I do - who pray on those who can least afford such inexcusable repayment rates.

Of course, this only emphasises the need to bring banks, building societies and credit unions to Roehampton: an area that has been free of such institutions for years and years. I can tell the Council this for free: a bank is in far greater demand in Danebury Avenue than another branch of Waitrose - and the Conservatives should get their priorities straight.

In the meantime, please be on the lookout for these loan sharks and - however desperate your plight - don't accept any money from them, because you'll only end up in far worse financial problems than you are now.

If you've already borrowed from them you're under no legal obligation to repay the debt: this is a company that operates outside the law - contact Wandsworth Trading Standards who can help. They're on 8871 7720, or tradingstandards@wandsworth.gov.uk.

If you do need help with debt or personal finances, visit Roehampton Citizens Advice Bureau at 166 Roehampton Lane. They're open Monday to Thursday - exact times can be found here.

Roehampton survey: 230 replies and counting

I'd like to thank the 230 Roehampton residents who have taken the trouble of responding to my survey on the council's redevelopment plans. And there are still another 11 days before the deadline for replies, so I'm confident that we'll have many more before my consultation closes.

What's really gratifying is the amount of time and consideration most respondents have invested in their survey answers. As well as answering the questions honestly, the majority of those who have returned surveys have added additional comments, and I'll be publishing a few of these over the next few weeks.

Of course, 230 replies is more than ten times the number of people the Conservative Council managed to find to support their plans. I'm sure even they, in private, now recognise they made a major mistake failing to consult residents properly and then staging an exhibition hardly anyone knew about at the start of the Summer holidays.

Unfortunately, even when they do recognise privately that they have got things wrong, this arrogant administration rarely admits it in public, so expect them - whatever the results of my far more authoritative survey show - to steamroller on with their redevelopment scheme.

If you haven't responded yet, or haven't been in the area my surveys were delivered to (all of the Alton estate and Roehampton village) you can do so by visiting stuartking.net/consult

My Putney Place page

I've now set up a special page on this website dedicated to the Putney Place planning application. From it, you can:

• Complete my online survey - whether you're for or against the plans
• Read my submission to the council's consultation on the planning application
• Download the Council's planning news briefing on the application
• Visit my news archive on this and other overdevelopment stories
• Sign up for my fortnightly email news bulletin to keep in touch with this and other stories.

This is a comprehensive resource for anyone interested in the Putney Place planning application, so please take advantage of it. The address?

stuartking.net/putneyplace

Articulated lorries

So the Conservative Council, in their inate wisdom, believes they're going to get hundreds of these:



Down here:



...Without widening it!

And before the Tories put 1 and 1 together to make 3, that's not a suggestion to widen Danebury Avenue to send articulated lorries down it: it's a suggestion that their whole plan for sending thousands of cars and hundreds of lorries through the centre of the Alton Estate to get to their planned supermarket is plain stupid!

This photo, incidentally, was taken at about 3pm today - not an especially busy time of day; and this queue is without any of the buses trying also to get into and out of Danebury Avenue.

As you know, I have concerns about several aspects of the Tories' redevelopment plan, but this is the most absurd feature of it.

What's happened to Alton Gate?

When Tony Colman was Labour MP for Putney huge strides were made to get a pedestrian gate from the Alton estate into Richmond Park.

After she was elected Justine Greening, somewhat to her discredit, tried to pretend that the idea had been hers all alone and that she was the champion who would finally deliver a gate.

That was over three years ago. Since then she has stopped talking about the Alton Gate. So have her council colleagues. And the Alton remains along its entire length without access to the park it has such magnificent panoramic views of.

I have today written to the Royal Parks Agency to find out the status of the plans for an Alton Gate to Richmond Park and, unlike my Conservative opponent, intend to keep going until we get the gate we deserve.

Putney at dusk

Putney Place: when a picture speaks a thousand words

This is a "section" drawn by architects of the Putney Place developers of Upper Richmond Road from Putney High Street (on the left) along to Oakhill Road on the right.

It shows the scale of the two Putney Wharf Towers and the overbearing, oppressive impact these two ugly skyscrapers will have, dwarfing the surrounding streetscene.

As someone who opposes this gross overdevelopment, I'd actually like to thank the applicants for this drawing, because - as I say in the headline - this artist's impression makes the case against this scheme better than 1,000 words ever could.

You can click on the image to get a full-size version.

No to Roehampton no-right-turns

Over two and a half years ago, in March 2006, Roehampton's Labour Council candidates and I were raising serious questions about plans by local Conservatives to prevent right-turns from Roehampton Lane into Ponsonby Road and Medfield Street. Here's what we wrote at the time, posing the questions the Tories had no answer to - then or now:



We were concerned that the 460 cars an hour that would be displaced - figures the Tories were bandying about at the time - would only serve to send this traffic up Roehampton High Street and Rodway Road; hardly a good idea in itself nor one that would help deal with the genuine problem of rat-running through Roehampton Village.

Two years later and those plans are back again. Nothing has changed, except of course that the now opening of the 400+ home Queen Mary's Place will add hundreds of extra car movements to Roehampton Lane which cannot cope with them, thus increasing further the number of rat-runners through Roehampton and onto the Dover House estate. And the Tories' supermarket plans for Danebury Avenue will add hundreds more.

There is a strong case for banning right turns into Ponsonby Road: it's very narrow; it contains a school and a church.

Tackling non-residential traffic through the Dover House estate was the origin of the plans to deter rat-running and I agree with the Dover House Residents Association (DHERA) that this is a problem that needs addressing. But it should only be addressed by action that will work. This scheme is not that: it's bureacratic tinkering brought about by political pressure from the Conservative Party.

Unless cars cannot get from Roehampton Lane to Dover House Road they will continue to rat-run, putting unacceptable strain on the roads that have not been closed off. Just transferring the problem from one street to another is not effective action: it is just another example of the "let's be seen to do something...anything" gimmick we have come to expect from Putney Conservatives.

Both Roehampton Village and the Dover House Estate deserve better.

Razing Merton Road's raised crossing

A few days ago I was in Hanford Close, a council estate on the edge of the Southfields Grid at the corner of Brookwood Road and Merton Road - opposite Southfields Community College.

Last year the Conservative Council decided to raise the zebra crossing here, no doubt with the well-meaning intention of making motorists better aware of the large number of school pupils crossing Merton Road here.

These are laudable aims but a questionable way of tackling a problem I'm not sure ever existed.

The consequence is that while cars do slow to avoid any damage as they go over the raised crossing, lorries have no need to do so, and so slam over the crossing at all hours. That creates a huge din loud enough to wake Hanford Close residents in the early hours of the morning.

If the crossing prevents road traffic accidents then that may be a price worth paying for the disturbance. But I doubt there was a problem with the old crossing before it was raised. I find it hard to believe that motorists failed to spot the crossing, the flashing lights and the bright markings when it was flush to the road surface; nor am I aware of any road traffic accidents here prior to it being raised up.

And if raising a crossing has such a dramatic impact saving lives, why hasn't the council raised all crossings around the borough, or even just those near schools and colleges?

I've written to the council asking them to review this crossing, or provide clear evidence that raising the crossing up in itself has produced significant road safety benefits that outweigh the detrimental impact on the residents of Hanford Close of what is effectively a super-road hump.

The residents of Hanford Close and I look forward to hearing from them.

William Gardens: "squatters out!"

Like many local residents, I've been appalled to witness how William Gardens, just behind St Margaret's Church in West Putney, has been taken over by squatters in recent weeks.

I cannot believe that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) - who own the estate and who have been decanting families from the blocks in order to renovate and make them fit for housing Servicemen and women and their families - did not imagine that leaving a derelict estate unsecured would not be a massively tempting target for squatters.

My anger with the MoD is that the legal action they will now have to pursue to reclaim William Gardens will delay the start date for the much needed renovations and therefore the date by which soldiers will be able to take up residence. And the costs of such action will, in all likelihood, far exceed the costs of some secure fencing, barbed wire and a few padlocks.

And equally, while some among those now squatting in William Gardens may or may not have some other recourse to avoid sleeping rough, I find it hard to believe that they are more deserving of space in this development than those who have fought - and in some cases been badly injured - in service to their country.

It has taken the MoD far too long to decant families from William Gardens - the last family left in July but the process has taken almost two years. While families need to be moved to suitable equivalent homes and be supported during the moving process, there is little more soul-destroying than being left behind as your neighbours and friends are moved out and you're left in an isolated estate on your own.

When the MoD decided to renovate William Gardens they should have decanted residents quickly; they should have had a schedule of works ready to commence as soon as the last family left and if that was unachievable they should have secured the site effectively until they were able to start works.

More website improvements

My team has continued to upgrade and overhaul this website. As I mentioned when we launched the improvements last month, it was always going to take a little time to get everything working smoothly as there are hundreds of pages here that need improving.

Today, however, I can announce that the news section is now fully operational: if you hold your mouse over the Issues button you'll see some new drop-down options including a new compilation of my stories on the Conservatives' overdevelopment of Putney.

There is also a new Armed Services archive.

And the menu bar is now visible on every single story in the news section.

The final major stage of the overhaul relates to the campaign section: the main page of this section has been brought into the new corporate look of the site but there remain some pages that still need to be improved. They'll be fixed in the coming days, so again, please bear with us as we make those changes.

Tories press on with Danebury development with just 21 supporters

The Conservative Council - in one of the biggest blunders I think it has made for a long time - is trying to steamroller through plans to redevelop the top end of Danebury Avenue despite the most risible response to their so-called consultation.

In a report being discussed by councillors tonight, they will admit that out of 10,000 newsletters they claim to have delivered to the local area inviting residents to visit an exhibition at Roehampton Library held at the very end of July, just 35 bothered to respond.

Of these, a measly 21 (that's 0.2% of the voters of Roehampton) were in favour, but from the Alton estate itself, only 12 supported the Conservatives' plans. I can't help but pose this question: if the plans aren't supported by the Alton estate, what or who exactly is the Council doing this for?

I've been appalled at the way the Tory Council has handled this matter. I outlined my concerns here.

Now, the Conservatives have taken the very first opportunity after the Summer to steamroller their untested and unsupported plans through the Council. What's the rush? Why the hurry? What are they so afraid of?

Because residents weren't properly consulted by the Council, I've been surveying residents myself. I'm sending out over 3,000 surveys to Roehampton - surveys that set out the Council's plans impartially, then state my views, and then ask local people what they think. And the replies I'm getting - already, far more responses than those the council can cite - are completely at odds with the figures the Conservatives are claiming.

For example, just as the original council consultation found, an overwhelming majority is against building on the green. People want more affordable homes, not less. They want more family homes - under the new Tory plans, not a single three-bedroom council flat for rent will be built. And people are divided on whether or not a supermarket is a good idea, but they're strongly against the traffic access for it being in Danebury Avenue - a residential area that should be the focal point of the community, not a motorway for huge articulated lorries bringing stock to the supermarket and hundreds of customers in their cars every day. And we haven't even touched on the tiny amount of space allotted to community groups, the height of the buildings proposed and the needlessness of building a new library when people love the library they have.

I'll write more about the results I'm getting as surveys come in over the coming days - and once people have had a reasonable amount of time to reply, I'll share the results with the council.

But my message to Conservative councillors before tonight's meeting is this: put aside your partisan desire to railroad plans just because we have a difference of opinion. Think about the consequence of your action. Bear in mind the ridiculously low response you've elicited. Listen to the views of residents - they DO NOT support your new plan. And if you have any question at all that I may have a point all I'm asking is that you hold off a decision until you have all the evidence at your disposal. There's no need to bounce Roehampton into a multi-million pound development. This isn't how Wandsworth got it's reputation for financial prudence.

Defer the decision tonight.

Thanks for voting!

A few weeks ago, I asked you to consider voting for this blog in the Total Politics magazine ranking of political websites.

Clearly lots of you did, because the new list has just been published and we've gone in at N0.91. And among Labour blogs, we're the 15th most popular in the country.

Thank you so much if you took the trouble to register your vote for this site - I really appreciate it. It's important to get the balance between especially local stories which will only interest Putney residents and wider policy stories which have attracted national interest on occasion right and I'll continue to work on that over the coming year.

You can view the top 100 blog listing here on Iain Dale's site.

Housing help with Labour: a good first step

As someone who has made housing my No.1 priority I am delighted with the measures announced yesterday by the Labour Government.

They're a good first step with several more needed. I'm really pleased they build on several of the points in my housing action plan that I presented to Housing Minister Caroline Flint MP at the House of Commons earlier this year.

The level at which Stamp Duty becomes payable has been raised to £175,000. That's not enough to apply to that many homes in Putney and I've said the minimum level it should start at should be £250,000 in high price areas like London. But there are lots of homes in our area that do cost less than £175,000 and this will make things a little easier for those first-time buyers.

Next, the Government, working with major housing developers will provide loans of up to 30% of the value of a property, which don't need to be repaid for five years. This is a variant of the HomeBuy scheme I've been calling for - under my plan the loan would only be repaid when the property is sold but this is a fine alternative.

Third, Councils like Wandsworth will now have the ability to pay off someone's mortgage debt and in return set an affordable rent instead. This is a massive test for the Conservative Council which has more than halved the number of affordable homes for rent in Wandsworth - something that has massively worsened our local housing crisis. I very much doubt the Tories will suddenly u-turn and step in to help those under threat of losing their homes - but they should.

And finally the restrictions on councils being able to build new affordable homes have been lifted. There is now no excuse for the Conservatives to start repairing the damage they have done to affordable housing in Wandsworth.

In contrast, we learnt today that the completely unchanged Tories plan to spare the very richest Inheritance Tax - which will now apply to homes worth £2 million or less.

This is one of the key choices you will face at the next election: help for hard-pressed workers with Labour or tax breaks for the very richest under the Tories. Days like today, and choices like this are what make me Labour and proud of it.

Tell me your housing priorities with my local housing survey.