Tileman House revised planning application

Just a quick note as a few residents have been in touch wondering whether they needed to write in again about Tileman House following the very minor revisions to the plan made by the developers recently.

You don't have to write in unless you want to: the original objections will still count. The only thing the changes do is push back decision day as the council is obliged to hold another consultation on the "new" plans.

If you do want to have your say on the revisions, however, email planningapplications@wandsworth.gov.uk citing the new application number 2009/0595.

Petition in support of Ahmadi muslims

There is - and has been for many years - a large community of Ahmadi Muslims living in Southfields and West Hill. They have a Mosque in Gressenhall Road in Southfields, which boasts being London's first Mosque having been built in 1926.

The Ahmadiyya are a worldwide community with many members living in Pakistan. They are regularly the subject of persecution and, in an attempt to highlight this, members of their community have established a petition on the 10 Downing Street e-petition website. The terms of the petition are as follows:

"The Government of Pakistan is currently keen on moving towards becoming a truly democratic and secular state. It is keen on promoting religious tolerance and rights of minorities in order to remove religious extremism. Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community have faced for decades hatred and persecution in Pakistan.

We call upon the Prime Minister and Foreign Office to actively and urgently engage in mediating an end to the persecution suffered by Ahmadi Muslims in order to save thousands of innocent people including many children and women."

I have added my signature to the e-petition and encourage others to do likewise. At the time of writing this over 1,400 people have signalled their support. You can sign the petition online at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Ahmadi/


More information about the Ahmadiyya community can be found at http://www.alislam.org/

February crime stats

February's crime figures again show good progress; crime down in most categories and in most parts of the constituency.

It's worth comparing the six Putney wards with the London average, because this contrast shows exactly why we are one of the safest parts of the capital:

• Burglaries are lower than the London average in five of six Putney wards
• Criminal damage is lower in four of the six
• Drugs offences are - much - lower in every single Putney ward
• Fraud and forgery offences are - again, much - lower in every single Putney ward
• Robbery is lower in five out of six wards
• Sexual offences are lower in four of the six
• Theft and handling is very much lower in every ward except Thamesfield than the rest of London
• Violent crime is lower in five of the six wards

And the substantial increase in Police and Community Support Officers Putney has recently benefited from should help make Putney, Roehampton and Southfields even safer.

Window dressing?

Yesterday I reported on how the Conservatives were commissioning a year long study into whether there's pollution in Putney High Street (somewhat akin to a study into whether there's water in the Thames, if you ask me) with the stated purpose of funding some "environmental theatre".

Today, they've unveiled their long awaited local economic stimulus. It is - wait for it - to pay landlords of empty shop units to display pretty pictures of the borough! I kid you not - in a news release boldly headlined "Council tackling vacant shops" they say:

"In Wandsworth Town Centre the council will offer grants of up to £1000 for vacant shops to install window dressings displaying attractive images of the local environment."

They go onto highlight another radical, decisive plan:

"The council is also investigating a pilot project in Tooting where a community mural could be painted on a bricked-up shopping parade."

Note: not to get the bricked-up shopping parade unbricked and back into use growing our local economy, but to make it look a little less bricked-up. This isn't action - it's (literally) window dressing.

The third and final intervention the Conservatives are pondering is to use shop front windows as "art exhibition spaces".

At least they'll have somewhere to perform their environmental theatre.

Stuart vs the potholes round 27

I've tried to resist resurrecting my campaign to shame the Conservative Council into fixing Putney's potholed roads after last year's successes, but I'm getting so many complaints again that it's unavoidable.

The Conservatives have just announced that from the next financial year they're increasing the road repair budget by £1 million. Sounds great, doesn't it - except that this is the amount they chopped from it last year! And they weren't maintaining our roads competently even before the now-reversed cut. Still, it's better than nothing, but they've got a lot of roads to repair.

Here are the first few examples I've been sent or come across myself:


Amerland Road



Amerland Road - junction of Valonia Gardens



Daylesford Avenue - junction with Langside Avenue and Lantern Close. Daylesford Avenue has been in a state for a while, but the cold winter we've just had has really finished it off...Langside and Dungarvan aren't in the best nick either.


Dryburgh Road at the apex of the bridge over the railway: one I reported last summer which the council still hasn't fixed! Proof for the Tories that ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away...in fact it multiplies: here's another one right next door to that crater!:



And while it's good to see some of the roads we highlighted last Summer having been properly resurfaced, like Borneo and Blackett Streets off Hotham Road, not doing so well is next door Westhorpe Road!:

Sunset from Sispara

Did anyone else catch the fantastic sunset tonight? I was delivering Putney Papers in Sispara Gardens when this photo was taken.

More on the Town Centre Partnership's Tileman response

For those of you who, like me, struggled to believe that Putney Town Centre Partnership could fail to find anything to say about a planning application of such consequence to our town centre as Tileman House - other than to ask about the future of three trees - here is their submission.

Even confining themselves to the issues of "townscape" alone, does not a 15 storey block affect the townscape? Is the fact it comes right up to the pavement, whereas the current Tileman House is at least set back from the street not worthy of observation? What about the relationship between this building and the adjoining beautiful historic terrace?

If anyone from the Putney Town Centre Partnership would like to explain their incapacity to say something about a major part of Putney Town Centre, I suspect the hundreds of Putney people who have managed to voice an objection to this plan would like to hear from them.

Who represents you best?

Below are two responses to the Tileman House planning application. One is what the council officers have described as a "general comment" from Justine Greening - probably because they can't work out whether she's for or against the application. The other is my response. Which one better represents - and advocates for - local opinion?

Click on each image for the larger version.

Final days to have your say on Tileman House

The deadline for having your say on Tileman House is Sunday 01 March, so you have today and the weekend to get your views in.

So far we've had another huge response to the campaign to halt the fifteen-storey tower on Upper Richmond Road: over 150 local people have had their say using my survey; and a similar number have contacted the council direct.

Barely a dozen people have submitted comments in support of their ; and of these it seems that some come from an address that doesn't appear to exist or are in fact objections mistakenly logged by the council as supportive comments.

If you want to have your say before the deadline, the quickest way is to email planningapplications@wandsworth.gov.uk citing application 2008/5428. Do please copy me - stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk - in on your email as it will help me to better represent local opinion on this issue.

Government forces economic reality on train companies

Following my recent report on the government forcing South West Trains to keep Barnes ticket office open pretty much on current opening times, the news that train companies have been denied their request for further inflation-busting ticket incresaes is also good news for commuters.

Train companies have been allowed to increase fares above inflation for years, partly to get investment back into the rail network after years of undefunding. But with inflation approaching zero, all of a sudden the train operators have decided they want a new formula that gives them increases unlinked to inflation.

That would have meant that while workers struggle with pay freezes or even cuts, travel costs would have continued to escalate. I'm therefore really pleased the government gave short shrift to these greedy and unaffordable dreams by the companies.

It means that if the inflation-measuring Retail Price Index (RPI) is negative - prices are actually falling in the real world - in July (the month ticket price changes are calculated for the following January), then in 2010 ticket prices too will become cheaper.

"About time too" many of us will say. Just as bonuses for senior bankers who have done immeasurable damage to our financial system are an outrage, so too are ever-rising fare prices coupled with ever-poorer services for commuters.

January crime stats: Roehampton joins the sub-100 club

For the first time since I've been reporting Putney's crime figures, the number of recorded offences in Roehampton ward fell below 100 crimes per 1,000 residents in January.

This is a remarkable achievement by Roehampton's Safer Neighbourhood team, and I congratulate them. In May 2007; the first month I reported Putney's stats, Roehampton crime rate was 127.5 - last month it was 97.7: that's a drop of 25% in just over a year and a half.

January's figures also show that there was no "Christmas spike" in crime, as there was over the December/January period in 2008. Crime fell in four of our six wards, and in most categories of crime. There is also no sign of a surge in so-called "economic crime" linked to the recession, yet, although drugs offences rose in Putney, Wandsworth and London as a whole.

Putney Society look set to oppose Tileman House

Last night, while Justine Greening was representing the Conservative Party on the Question Time panel in Bath, I was representing the concerns of St John's Avenue residents - and others -at the Putney Society's Buildings Panel meeting.

The proposed development of Tileman House dominated proceedings. Not a single person spoke in favour of the application and it was clear from the discussion that Putney Society members have a raft of concerns about the application, ranging from height & light, density, overdevelopment and the loss of office space. The other big concern expressed - and one which I have talked about in great detail - is the precedent that the approval of this application will set for other applications along the Upper Richmond Road. I was pleased at how unequivocally the Buildings panel was in calling for this application to be rejected.

The panel's recommendation will be debated at next week's meeting of the Society's executive committee, but all present - including the chairman - seemed confident that the committee would endorse the panel's view. This is an important achievement in the campaign to stop this overdevelopment.

Council block kept empty for years

With the weekend's reports about councils giving tenants £25,000 to move out of their homes; and the BBC's revelations that London Mayor Boris Johnson is going to miss his - incredibly modest - target for new affordable homes; you'd think that we'd have exhausted our stock of existing homes wouldn't you?

Welcome to 31-55 Nursery Close, just behind Ravenna Road in the heart of Putney.

31-55 Nursery Close was custom-made sheltered housing for older people built in the late 1970s. For the last two years and then some, it has been empty - decanted of residents because of plans agreed in 2007 to turn its bedsit accommodation into stand-alone flats.

I've found out from the council that work is due to commence on 16 February to convert the blocks into self-contained units rather than bedsits for the elderly: and that's a good thing. But this work will take a year to complete, so by the time its new residents finally start moving in in 2010, it will have been empty for over three years.

The council could have given its former residents one or two further years of undisrupted stay, instead of moving them out prematurely. It could have been used as temporary accommodation for a few of the thousands on the council's housing waiting list. It could even have been used as a rough sleepers shelter during this exceptionally bitter spell of recent weather. And throughout, it could have been generating rent for the council.

Instead its been left empty. How many other properties are the Conservatives keeping empty?

Old maps of Putney 2

As promised, here's the second of the maps of Putney from Bacon's Up-To-Date Atlas & Guide to London, published probably in the 1930s - click here for the earlier post covering the Southfields and Wandsworth parts. And click on the image above for a much higher resolution scan.

This map covers the majority of Putney and Roehampton. The most obvious difference between today's map is that there is no Alton estate in Roehampton: the only resemblance with Roehampton today is what is now the Alton East: Alton Road and Bessborough Road. But even here the type of housing on either side of these roads was very different; grand houses and smaller cottages.

The rest of the land west of Roehampton Lane comprises the estate of Downshire House, Mount Clare, Manresa House and the Maryfield Convent - all buildings which remain today, just surrounded by an estate, rather than expanses of open land.

Similarly, in the north of Roehampton there is no Lennox estate at the end of Priory Lane, and the crescent-shaped housing block today called Fairacres was in those days called Lower Grove.

Moving east from Roehampton you can see how it was that the Telegraph Pub was such an important inn and communications post for travellers into and out of London. Today the pub is part of a relatively isolated cul-de-sac community in the middle of the Heath but until fairly recently, it was right on the crossroads of major traffic routes: Portsmouth Road, Telegraph Road and Wildcroft Road all of which extended right across the Heath.

And just north of the Heath we again see what Putney looked like prior to the building of huge estates: where the map shows expansive grounds around Exeter House is now the Ashburton Estate and Elliott School. In fact the only one of today's estates can be seen already built: the Dover House estate around Dover House Road.

Roehampton and West Putney aren't the only areas where major council estates were built after the war: West Hill ward - the area east of Wimbledon Parkside has also changed unrecognisably. But as I mentioned in my post on Southfields, you can see reflected in the estates of today several of the historic names shown on this map: Levana Lodgeand Park Lodge in Victoria Drive now Levana Close and Park Lodge now a care home of the same name for example. And many of the mansions on Wimbledon Parkside still remain: Chivelston, Albemarle and Spencer House.

Old maps of Putney

As a local historian, I enjoy looking at old maps of the area. A forerunner of the A-Z maps of London, which sadly doesn't have a date of publication in it but would, at latest, have been printed in the 1930s, is Bacon's Up-To-Date Atlas & Guide to London. Price: sixpence.

Today and tomorrow, I'll publish the local maps from that book on this blog, starting with Southfields and Wandsworth town, below. Click on the image to get a much larger version (which is a 3mb file, so may take a while to open). I've added some observations below the picture.



The biggest changes in this part of the world can be found towards the north of the map where the river Wandle enters the Thames. Have a look at the King George's Park area.

First, note the viaduct that ran across the park, just north of Mapleton Road - it runs from St Ann's Hill across to Merton Road before going underground at either end. And Mapleton Road used to be a through-road to Garratt Lane.

Also, have a look at how much freer the Wandle itself was: where Neville Gill Close is now the river used to form a large pool. It also had a little spur running alongside Buckhold Road, where the new Hardwick's Square development now is.

A more significant branch off the Wandle occurs even closer to the Thames, where it snaked alongside Frogmore to a road that's no longer there: Raft Road, parallel to Sudlow Street (it's now the Wandsworth Council Depot). One of the older members of Putney Labour Party used to live there in the days when the river branched out, and apparently there was quite a scandal when a young girl drowned while playing alongside this section.

It's also interesting that what is now called Ram Street, alongside the Brewery and where the 220 and 270 buses go down, was originally a continuation of [Old] York Road, before the one way system was introduced; and Fairfield Street that runs past the entrance to the Town Hall continued all the way down to the Thames (now that part of Fairfield Street is part of Smugglers Way). There's another member of Putney Labour Party who used to live in Warple Road - which is now Swandon Road which leads to the Wandsworth Bridge roundabout.

On the left-hand side of the map, in what is West Hill ward (west of the District Line to Southfields), you can see some of what the area was like before the large council estates that were built after the war. Whitlock Drive has not been built; instead Edgecombe Hall - after which the estate there is named, and it's acres of grounds - remains.

One of the things that I think is really important is that historic local names survive; in this area in particular a lot of the blocks that now exist are named after mansions, old roads, fields or other historical names; for example "Florys" lives on the corner of Augustus Road and Princes Way lives on in Florys Court; and Allenswood, Ambleside and Fernwood are all now blocks on the Wimbledon Park Estate.

Tileman House consultation problems

A number of local residents have contacted me directly to complain that they have not received the consultation notice from the council regarding the important Tileman House planning application.

In addition, a number of irate residents have posted similar concerns on the local putneysw15.com website. Given the significance and controversial nature of this application I contacted the Borough Planner on Monday to raise these concerns.

I was pleased to receive a very prompt reply from him which I am reproducing in full below as I believe it is important that people have full confidence in the consultation process.

I welcome the acknowledgment that there has been a problem, as I do the action proposed to remedy the situation. I will be doing my bit to help ensure that those residents most likely to be affected by this application are aware of it, and have a full ability to let their views be known.

Here's the reply:


Dear Mr King,

Thank you for your email.

I think it is fair to say that we have had some problems with the company we used on this occasion to deliver the newsletter. Although from the information they have provided to us I hope the number of addresses missed is not as great as suggested.

When we have a major application that is likely to generate more than normal public interest we use a newsletter to notify people in the area. Often, as in this case, the newsletter is in colour and includes visual images from the submission information. So I hope it isn’t binned with other junk mail.

We provide basic details of the application, say where further information can be obtained and invite comments. We adopt a neutral stance, neither in favour or against the application and, in order not to lead respondents, we invite comments rather than objections. Where we use a newsletter, the extent of consultation is wider than would be the norm for most applications where we consult by letter.

For this application I wonder if the boundary of the area could have been more tightly drawn? The map of the area has been posted on the website. In addition, of course, for an application like this we post site and press notices.

We had a number of newsletter drops due to go out around the same time for major applications, including for the Springfield hospital site. Given the pressures this places on using planning staff who often distribute newsletter at the weekends, we took the opportunity to market test and obtained prices from specialist leaflet distribution companies. We received a competitive price from a company and decided to test their services.

We’ve been disappointed with the outcome and it has generated much additional (and unwanted) work for the case officer. She has followed up some emailed complaints from residents that they haven’t received the newsletter with a PDF emailed copy. She has also followed the matter up with the distribution company and has a list of the addresses they concede they have been unable to deliver to. She will try to deliver those herself or put a copy of the newsletter in the post to those addresses, so all the addresses we identified should be covered. On the evidence to date, it seems to me that our market testing exercise shows that our in-house staff are more reliable and do a better job.

If people have internet access then they can get information from the Council’s website. Click on the planning service page, the first thing to come up under planning headlines is "Redevelopment proposed for Tileman House". If you click on that you get:

Redevelopment of Tileman House, Upper Richmond Road
The council has received an application for planning permission to redevelop the site at 131-133 Upper Richmond Road, to construct three linked blocks alond Upper Richmond Road of 12 storeys, 15 storeys and 8 storeys in height, and a 12 storey block to the rear, providing 99 flats plus office and commercial units. For more information contact Helen Keegan on 020 8871 8411. Comments must be received by 1st March 2009.

More information: consultation leaflet

More information: search the planning register and enter application number: 2008/5428

At the moment, I’m keeping an eye on what has happened but, provided the case officer doesn’t have difficulties dispatching the newsletters, I don’t think we will need to either extend consultation or the consultation period.

Please let me know if you need any more information.

Have your say on the Tileman House application

In response to the widespread public concern about not being adequately consulted by the Council over the significant Tileman House planning application I have today launched my own consultation here online.

It contains all the information you need about this application and the opportunity to have your say via my online survey.

The address is www.stuartking.net/tileman - you can also access it from the drop down Campaign HQ menu above - it's the first link.

Every survey you submit I will send on to the council provided that you tick the box giving your consent.

And don't forget that there are two ways to keep up to speed with all the overdevelopment issues facing Putney: by visiting my overdevelopment page in the issues drop-down menu, or by subscribing to my e-news bulletin: as well as the regular fortnightly bulletin I have a special group for anyone especially interested in these overdevelopment threats.

"Economic" crime? December crime stats

I often go on about the high level of crime in Thamesfield ward, which is almost entirely due to the amount of crime that occurs in and off of Putney High Street.

Let me try to put how much more crime there is in Thamesfield compared to the rest of Putney into context. There are more theft and handling offences alone in Thamesfield than the entire amount of reported crime in East Putney, West Hill or West Putney wards.

That's why my campaign for town centre patrollers in the High Street are so important: when they were tested out in Clapham Junction and Tooting about four years ago they cut street crime by one third. And they'll allow the Thamesfield Safer Neighbourhood teams to give more attention to the residential parts of their patch. It's why I'm also campaigning against the £472 million the Conservatives want to cut from the Metropolitan Police, which cannot but mean reductions in front-line police locally.

So-called economic crimes like theft, or burglary - ie property crimes, are likely to rise during an economic slowdown. Politicians always struggle to talk sensibly about such crimes for fear that talking about the reasons why a tiny minority become more likely to thieve and steal in such a climate equals condoning or understanding such behaviour. Of course there is never justification to take someone else's property -period.

Fortunately there isn't that much sign of property crime increasing in Putney - yet. Burglary is somewhat down in five wards and slightly up in one. Thefts did pick up noticeably in December in four wards, dropped in two. Drug offences were down across the board and sex offences down in five out of six wards. There also seems to be a delay in reporting any crimes during the Christmas period in the figures - maybe these will feed through to the January figures due out next month.

Buzz Lightyear...no, Buzz Greening!

Today's Wandsworth Guardian reports that Putney's Tory MP has discovered that Putney has been beset by power shortages - some three months after they started!

I know some MPs get a little absorbed in the Westminster bubble and lose touch with their constituency but even I didn't realise that it takes three months for local news to reach them there. Maybe she should reconsider her decision to close down her constituency office in Putney soon after she got elected - something I pledge I will never do.

On this basis, it'll probably be round about March when she discovers that I've already raised the catalogue of power outages with EDF Energy and had a really positive response from them over two weeks ago, back on 13 January, as I reported here and my original letter to the National Grid, back in November here, and on the putneysw15 website here.

But if 90% of success is showing up, I'm just happy that Justine Greening's standing up for the other 10%.

How high is high enough?

In my earlier post I promised to post some photos I've taken from the block next door to Tileman House, No.125 Upper Richmond Road. These were taken from the 8th floor a few months back. Although at the resolution I'm using to fit them in here you can't see it, take my word for it that you can see the City of London, the Wembley arch, the Post Office Tower and much more from the top of this building.

And just as importantly, you can see 125 Upper Richmond Road - and most of the other blocks along this stretch of Upper Richmond Road - from Putney Bridge. These are highly visible buildings, made more so because Upper Richmond Road is slightly elevated up Putney Hill. In short, the views from and to these buildings is incredibly important. Before too long, we could see at least three high rise overdevelopments in this stretch, to mix in with the sixties office blocks that add so little to the environment.

That's not the Putney I know - and it's not the Putney I want. How about you?

Tileman House planning news

The Council has at last got round to producing a Planning News leaflet on the Tileman House application for Upper Richmond Road near the corner with Putney Hill. You can download it here.

My initial reaction when I opened the file is that we're on course to have exactly the same issues here as residents are having with the Clapham Junction towers consultation (and Danebury Avenue), namely the questionable veracity of the artists' impressions of the impact of the plan.



Take this one: you'd never take from this impression that Tileman House is almost TWICE the height of the brown building this side of it - the Heathbridge Clinic building - 125 Upper Richmond Road. Later on I'll post some photos that I've taken from the top of 125 Upper Richmond Road just so you can see how high this building is - Tileman will be almost doubly high.

The elevations also employ considerable artistic license: the one below is supposedly the "rear" elevation - ie the view as it towers over St John's Avenue. Curiously, all the blocks in St John's Avenue have vanished, to be replaced by lovely trees.



The plans for Tileman House are clearly of a superior design and fit less badly into their surroundings than the Putney Place towers, further up Upper Richmond Road did. They are also an improvement on the current Tileman House. But the fact that they are better does not mean they are the best they can be - and design alone is not the biggest problem here.

That would be the height, followed by the loss of office space, followed by the housing. And I'll write more about each of these in subsequent posts.

November crime stats

Crime fell again in all six Putney areas in November 2008 (remember there's a two month lag between the month they happened and the reporting of them).

As this graph shows, with the exception of December 2007, when crime spiked in the run-up to Christmas, all wards are now safer than they were in May 2007 when I first started reporting these figures. There have been marked falls in crime in Roehampton and Southfields during this period - during which Roehampton has become substantially safer than the London average.



As we saw at the end of last year, it's probably wise to forecast a notable jump in crime in the December figures - but what we also saw was a January fall larger than the December "blip" - so that's also something to watch out for.

Here are November's figures - a reminder that green figures show a decline or the same level of crime as the preceding month; red shows an increase.

Power cuts

I've just received the following reply from EDF Energy to my recent letter about the power cuts that have affected Putney over the past few months. It's really good to learn that as a result of the problems I raised, EDF are now taking action to strengthen the power cable network in Putney, which should reduce the likelihood of outages in future.


Dear Stuart

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the electricity supply in the SW15 area. I was sorry to learn of the power cuts that may have affected both domestic and commercial properties and for any inconvenience this caused.

On receipt of your email I contacted the Lead Field Engineer (LFE) for your area and he has provided me with the following which I hope will be useful.

SW15 is fed from our Carslake Main Substation and in recent months we had four faults on our high voltage underground cable network:

• 17 September 16:56hrs - 256 customers restored in under 3 minutes by remote control
• 10 November 17:54hrs - 1578 customers affected with final restoration at 21:14hrs. This fault affected a shopping centre
• 27 November 06:55hrs - 817 customers affected with final restoration at 10:56hrs. This fault affected Upper Richmond Road including the railway station
• 1 December 19:19hrs - 213 customers affected with final restoration at 20:15hrs

We strive to give all our customers a safe and secure supply of electricity. However, despite our best efforts, interruptions to supply can occur for a variety of reasons. Some of these are not within our control and for this reason we cannot guarantee a continuous supply.

However, I wish to assure you as soon as we become aware of a problem on our network every effort is made to restore supplies quickly so the resulting impact is kept to a minimum.

I can confirm that the above faults are unrelated and we are not aware of any inherent problems with the network in your area but we will continue this area closely and should further problems arise we take the necessary action to resolve them. At the time of writing we have not had any faults on our high voltage network so far this year.

However, in order to reinforce the network which we believe to be vulnerable we are going to replace and upgrade a considerable amount of underground cable. The first 100metre section has now been commissioned and will be in the area of Carslake Road, Westleigh Road and Genoa Avenue.

The above relates to our high voltage network but as mentioned in my message yesterday there may have been more faults, such as the one you mention on 6 January 2009, that we will only be able to look at via specific postcodes.

I appreciate the links you provided but due to company security I only have access to sites regarded as business critical. Therefore I would once again ask for specific postcodes if possible, coupled with dates of the failures relating to that postcode.

Should you have residents who would like to know about specific faults particular top their properties please as them to either email our Customer Relations team at customer.relations@edfenergy.com or write to Customer Relations, EDF Energy Networks, Fore Hamlet, Ipswich, IP3 8AA.

They can also call a free phone number 0800 028 4587.

I hope the information I have provided is useful to you. However, you have my details below and if you require any further assistance please let me know.

Regards,

Mark

Mark Methven
Senior Customer Relations Officer

The planning threats just keep on coming

The Wandsworth Borough News is reporting on a reception held by the council last night to unveil yet more overdevelopment they're championing - almost all in the Putney constituency.

The schemes unveiled included:

• The next phase of the Riverside Quarter development between Wandsworth Park and the River Wandle
• South Thames College on Putney Hill
• Hardwick's Quarter, which is presumably their fancy name for the Cockpen House development
• Southside shopping centre
• The nearly finished Parkside tower block beside King George's Park, which they are misleadingly calling affordable housing

The thing I find most disturbing is the relish with which the Conservatives keep rolling out these plans (just before Christmas, when they think we'll have our minds on other things, note) as if the views of local residents are irrelevent, the character of our area immaterial and the strain these developments will place on local infrastructure inconsequential.

Bizarrely, at the very reception the Conservatives were announcing their plans alongside their developer chums, they also announced a redesign of the Wandsworth one-way system to show off the "elegant Georgian terraces, churches and pubs that characterise the area": as if all this new development won't more than offset any small improvements to traffic flow a redesign may provide.

It's bad enough that they keep giving the green light to all this overdevelopment - but now they're actually wining and dining the developers in lavish receptions funded by local taxpayers: and putting out press releases to make sure we all know it.

Parking permits up 27%

The day after Tory Leader David Cameron lectured us about the evils of tax increases, Wandsworth Conservatives unveil a 27% increase in the cost of residents parking permits.

The price of a permit will now be £95 - a cost that has increased 44% since the council elections two years ago.

Curiously, the Conservatives mentioned nothing about their plans to hike up the cost of parking permits in their election manifesto for those elections - just as they forgot to tell us about their plans to close Wandsworth Museum or West Hill Library.

This is the reality of Wandsworth: Council Tax may be low but only because the Tories claw back the money through stealth taxes like this.

Inflation busting parking permit hikes are just one example; council tenants pay among the highest rents in London; pensioners needing home helps pay among the highest charges in London; charges for collecting bulky rubbish are among the highest in London; the amounts raised through library fines among the highest in London (and slammed by the Taxpayers' Alliance, no less); leisure centre charges among the highest in London; even the cost of dying - burial charges - are among the highest in London.

The irony of this 27% parking permit hike is that at the last council elections Labour in Wandsworth under my leadership pledged to make parking permits for the first car in every household free - which we'd have paid for by increasing the costs for second and subsequent parking permits in multi-car households. Of course, the Conservatives won those elections - so they'll say you get what you voted for.

It goes to show the real difference your vote makes locally.

Putney power outages

I have today written to the Chief Executive of the National Grid plc asking them to explain why central Putney has suffered three power outages in recent months. Here's the text of my letter:

30 November 2008


Mr Steve Holliday
Chief Executive, National Grid plc
1-3 The Strand
London
WC2N 5EH


Dear Mr Holliday,

Power outtages in Putney, London SW15

I am writing because, in the past four months - the most recent being on Wednesday - there have been three power outages in the centre of Putney in the evening.

These blackouts have affected the town centre including the High Street, the Royal Mail sorting office for Putney and Putney mainline rail station, as well as thousands of local homes. Having an overcrowded mainline rail station go dark in the middle of the rush hour is exeptionally dangerous. Supermarkets including Sainsbury's and Tesco have lost perishable items, other shops have lost trade having to close early - and have been exposed to a greater risk of break-ins as electronic security systems have failed; and huge numbers of residents have been inconvenienced.

The High Street is one of the busiest roads in the constituency and for it to be without light is dangerous, especially given the number of pedestrians seeking to cross the road throughout its length. And a huge number of households have been inconvenienced for several hours at a time.

I am writing to find out the cause of these outages and what you as the body responsible for ensuring stable electricity supplies is doing to ensure that this does not recur. Furthermore, if there is a long-term structural problem with electricity supplies in Putney that cannot be quickly resolved this must surely call into question planned development in the area if the existing demand is regularly exceeding supply.

The constituency is obviously deeply interested in your reply so I hope you will let us know the answers to these questions at the earliest opportunity.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart King

Crime: how does Putney compare with the rest of the borough?

The October crime figures, just released, again show good progress by the Police in cutting crime. East Putney and West Hill wards all saw declines in every single category of crime; in West Putney all categories bar one were down. Overall, crime fell in five of our six council wards, with only a small rise in Southfields.



With crime figures, context is everything - it's why, alongside the ward by ward figures, I also provide the borough and London averages - so you can see how Putney is doing compared to larger areas. But this month, I thought you might be interested in seeing how Putney's six council wards compare to their fourteen counterparts elsewhere in the borough.

In the table below I'm just showing the "total" number of crimes per 1,000 - the figure that's in the shaded grey box in the table above. And, instead of ordering them alphabetically, I've ranked them in terms of that total crime rate - with the lowest crime areas at the top, and the highest at the bottom.

Three of the safest four council wards anywhere in the borough are in Putney - and four of the top ten. But Putney's Thamesfield ward is the most crime-ridden ward in the borough by far. Putney probably has the largest shopping centre in the borough, so it is to be expected that the sort of town centre crime that affects Thamesfield will be higher than other town centres. But I don't think the gap should be quite so stark.

The tower plans came in two by two...

Plans to redevelop Tileman House, at the Putney Hill end of Upper Richmond Road have just been unveiled.

Tileman House, like Putney Place, is currently an eyesore building. The office space element has been empty for years, while the residential side has become more and more run-down. In the photo to the right I'm standing in front of Tileman House.

Now Berkeley First working with Carey Jones Architects (who designed the Riverside Quarter development next to Wandsworth Park) have proposed a building that is up to 16 storeys tall.

That compares with 25 and 18 storeys at Putney Place, and a proposal for a 22-storey Carlton Tower on the Capsticks site. You'll find the artist's impression of the new Tileman House at the foot of this post.

Here's the good news: the design is nowhere near as garish as the Putney Place towers that were rejected a fortnight ago.

Now the bad news: they're twice as tall as the next door building, No.125 Upper Richmond Road (the building that houses the Heathbridge Doctors surgery), and four times the height of the beautiful curved Victorian terrace that sweeps round onto Putney Hill. The buildings are also well over twice as high as the abutting apartment blocks in St John's Avenue: Albany and Marlin House as well as No.18 St John's Avenue.

The developers want to provide 2,322 sq m of office space coupled with 106 apartments (that compares to 19 flats in Tileman House). You can read more on the website skyscrapernews.com.
I am, to say the least, exasperated with the developers, and with those elected representatives locally whose do-nothing approach has led to the situation we're now saddled with. It is totally unfair to the local community to have to fight and fight again to defend Putney from these threats. One could be forgiven for thinking that this is a campaign of attrition by developers to wear residents into submission in the knowledge that if only one application can be forced through the precedent will be established that will open the floodgates.

The new blocks, while architecturally better than Putney Place, reminds me of Campden Hill Tower that looms over Notting Hill Gate. I have to question the wisdom of replacing one genuine sixties monstrosity with a new neo-sixties monstrosity of even greater size.

So, I hope you have one more good battle within you - I do, and I'm up for the fight. We've defeated one set of poor plans: now its time to cross swords with another!

Putney BNP members outed

The entire national membership list of the fascist, racist British National Party has been posted on the web.

I managed to get a look before the website was taken down, and found that the BNP has a grand total of eleven members in Putney - not exactly a mass membership party!

But you'd be surprised where some of them live - mainly in more affluent parts of the constituency like the Southfields Grid, a street off Lower Richmond Road, the Lytton Grove area and leafy West Putney.

These are usually regarded as affluent, Conservative-voting areas, somewhat removed from the stereotyped BNP member as working class, living on a council estate and poor. But wherever they live, BNP members are just pathetic, usually poorly educated people who can't handle the modern world and who are too cowardly to do anything other than blame "outsiders" for that.

Conserving Putney

As regular readers will know, I think the character of Putney, Roehampton and Southfields is under real threat from greedy developers who've been given the green light to put forward the most appalling plans for overdevelopment by the lack of leadership of local Conservatives.

One of the main weapons we have against overdevelopment is our conservation areas. These provide extra protection (or, as developers would claim, restriction) over those parts of our area most steeped in history or of special character.

The Council has begun the process of reviewing these areas, of which Putney has several. First up in our area are three conservation areas, each of which has a special public meeting coming up to which you are welcome to attend and give your views:

• Landford Road along with Lower Common: Thursday 04 December, Dryburgh Hall
• Putney Heath: Friday 05 December, Elliott School, Pullman Gardens
• Victoria Drive: Tuesday 09 December, St Paul's Community Hall, Inner Park Road

By clicking on each area title above you can download the conservation area profiles and find out how to have your say. Aside from anything else, they offer some really interesting insights into local history and how Putney was transformed, in a very short of space, from a rural outpost of London to a bustling town.

You can also read some of the other profiles for elsewhere in the borough here.

Local dentists

Click on image if you need a larger version.

Safety checks for electric blankets

Wandsworth Fire Brigade and local Trading Standards officers have rescheduled their free safety check session for electric blankets to this Wednesday, 19 November.

The checks take place at Wandsworth Fire Station in West Hill - nearly opposite the former West Hill Library and on the corner of Lebanon Road.

The horrifying injuries an electric blanket catching fire can cause makes it surely worth the ten minutes or so it takes to make sure it is safe and set to go this Winter.

To book a time to pop in, or to see if you can schedule a different day, call 020 8871 6178. Or email tradingstandards@wandsworth.gov.uk - you'll need to provide a contact phone number in your email though.

Safety checks for electric blankets

Wandsworth Fire Brigade and local Trading Standards officers have rescheduled their free safety check session for electric blankets to this Wednesday, 19 November.

The checks take place at Wandsworth Fire Station in West Hill - nearly opposite the former West Hill Library and on the corner of Lebanon Road.

The horrifying injuries an electric blanket catching fire can cause makes it surely worth the ten minutes or so it takes to make sure it is safe and set to go this Winter.

To book a time to pop in, or to see if you can schedule a different day, call 020 8871 6178. Or email tradingstandards@wandsworth.gov.uk - you'll need to provide a contact phone number in your email though.

Stabbing in Lebanon Gardens

I'm sorry to report that someone has been stabbed to death in Lebanon Gardens, which is a crescent just off Merton Road in the Wandsworth town part of the constituency.

From the Putney SW15 website:

"The victim, who was black and in his early twenties, died at the scene of the incident in Lebanon Gardens late last night. It is understood he was known to police.

"Two arrests were made of men suspected of causing grievous bodily harm but these men are not being charged in connection with the murder.

"The victim's next of kin have not yet been informed. Detectives from the Homicide and Serious Crime Squad are leading the investigation.

"Road closures are in place while police conduct their inquiries in the area. A police spokesman said it was not known when roads would be reopened."

I'll update this post as and when I know more.

UPDATE: 19:00
The BBC has some more details here.

"Landmark" buildings

The ever-helpful architects for Putney Place have provided some more images of their "landmark" designs for us all - even here slightly misleading as the cylindrical tower will be black, not the sort of soft, gentle, almost transparent white they've drawn it as:


From Fawe Park Road, junction of Skelgill Road


From Brandlehow School.....................................From Wadham Road


From Disraeli Road jct Bective Road.......................From Oxford Road

Putney Place latest

A message from the Chairman of The Putney Society:

Council officers tell me they have met with the developer. Oracle will not withdraw or amend their plan. If it is rejected by the Planning Applications Committee then Oracle will appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.

The Planning Committee date is likely to be 6 November 2008. Rejection would mean an appeal some months (maybe 3 - 6) later.

I am optimistic about rejection - but we cannot assume that this will happen.

It is important that there is a continuing flow of objections to this application in order to both strengthen the case pre-committee and be in place as evidence at an eventual appeal if required.

Letters will count after the Council's cut off date of 17 October - desirably they need to be in by 31 October 2008

Regards

John Ewing

You can either write to the council direct by emailing planningapplications@wandsworth.gov.uk or by visiting my Putney Place page and completing my online survey which, if you tick the relevant box, I'll submit to the council for you.

Local Guardian reports on Putney Place

The Wandsworth Guardian was at the Putney Place meeting last Thursday, and you can read their report of the meeting here.



Local residents have also set up a blog to help people keep in touch with what's happening:
http://saveputneyfromthetowerblocks.blogspot.com/

Tonight's Putney Place meeting

I'm just back from the Putney Society-organised meeting between residents and the developers at St Mary's Church which I was able to address briefly.

Over 300 people turned up - as you can see from the photo below the hall was packed - as was the upstairs gallery. It's really pleasing that so many turned up over what is such an important issue; though I'm a little surprised at how few Putney councillors bothered to attend.

I'll write more about my thoughts on the meeting in the next few days but I don't think the developers' team had a good night. In all likelihood they were never going to - this is a massively unpopular plan and deservedly so. But they did themselves no favours by arguing that white was black: that the plans were not intrusive, that they would not overshadow, that public transport capacity could accommodate them, that the towers were just what Putney needed.

I think one resident summed the scheme up perfectly when they said that this was a plan to win architecture prizes for daring, not a plan for the people. And the presentation was pitched at architects rather than local residents: it was a very, very poor show and I wonder why the public relations person present hadn't sat them down and gone through it with them before they spoke.

I've had almost 300 surveys back so far, and I can tell you that just 9 have been in favour of the plans. Those nine I don't think were present tonight!

Anyway, a good night for Putney, a good night for local democracy and a bad night for Oracle.

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.

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

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.

Putney Place plans now out for consultation

The owners of Putney Place, the site opposite East Putney tube where they want to build two massive tower blocks, have at last submitted all the documentation to enable Council officers to begin deciding whether to recommend that councillors grant planning permission.

This includes a 52-page "planning statement" which is produced by contractors of the applicants rather than an independent and impartial agent, but which is supposed to represent an objective assessment of the impact the development will have on the area and a justification or mitigation for that impact.

The EIA is a detailed document and I haven't yet had the time to plough through it, but the basic application is as follows:

• Two blocks: one 26 storeys (84 metres high) and one of 21 storeys (67.5 metres high)
• 300 residential units, approximately a third of which will be what the developers call "affordable" housing
• 3,439 square metres of office space
• 114 square metres of retail space
• 443 square metres of restaurant, retail or office space
• 84 square metres of space for a cafe
• 2,862 square metres of what they call "public amenity space"
• and "New public art"

You can find all the relevant documents about this application - the reference number for which is 2008/3321 here

June's local crime figures

There's not much to write about in this month's crime figures - it's fallen very slightly in three Putney council wards and risen very slightly in three. Without further ado, here are the tables:



And May's comparison:

The high rise signal from Boris that should worry Putney

Today's Evening Standard reports that London Tory Mayor Boris Johnson just can't be bothered to submit an objection to a 43-storey tower block on the South Bank, the Doon Street Tower.

This is a complete reverse of his campaign pledge to block tower blocks across the capital and should be a major concern in our neck of the woods where, of course, we are under threat from several tower block plans - some of similar height to this one.

I am someone who isn't opposed to high buildings on principle: they can be appropriate in the City of London and central London. Putney isn't such a location. But that's not Boris's position. He ran for election and, I suspect, won quite a few votes, for his blanket opposition to tower blocks.

Yet today he couldn't even muster the interest to jot down a few words of opposition and submit them to the Secretary of State for Communities, Hazel Blears, who has to rule on this application following a Public Inquiry earlier this year.

If Boris can't be bothered to object to a tower block plan that was backed by a Labour Mayor, was reviewed before he was even elected and which no one will hold him accountable for, the prospects of him standing up to his Conservative allies in Wandsworth over their planning mistakes aren't high, to say the least.

We need Boris to honour his election pledges - not sell out at the first test of them.

Out and about in Carlton Drive

On Saturday my campaign team and I were out talking to residents in the Carlton Drive area between Putney Hill and East Putney station.

This area is one of the most at threat from the monstrous plans to build two 25 and 19 storey tower blocks on the Putney Place site opposite East Putney tube, and the "Carlton Towers" plan for the Capsticks building on the corner of Carlton Drive and Upper Richmond Road.

I've written a lot about my opposition to these plans both in this news section and the current edition of The Putney Paper, but too often planners get overly absorbed with the - important - minutaie of such proposals and forget the real people who will have to live in the shadow of such monstrosities for decades to come. That's why I chose to spend my time on Saturday talking to residents in this part of Putney.

We have to turn back these high-rise applications or else Putney will become a free-for-all for developers competing to build the biggest tower block since the last one.

Have your say on Putney Place

The long-awaited, much-dreaded plan to build two high-rise blocks across the road from East Putney tube station has finally been submitted to the council.

I am 100% opposed to this application which you can read up on here.

It is this planning development that I made the front page story of the latest edition of The Putney Paper - because while the existing Putney Place carbuncle is an absolute eyesore, my solution is to replace it with a better building of similar or smaller scale that complements the area and which our infrastructure can cope with. Instead the site's owners, Oracle, want to cram two ugly 25 and 19 towers onto this tiny triangle of land.

The planning application that has been submitted is incomplete and incredibly vague:

* It doesn't assess the impact on the environment or on local services

* It doesn't address the grotesque overdevelopment this plan amounts to, or the precedent it will set for the middle of Putney.

* It doesn't explain why surrounding residents should have to be overlooked and overshadowed, or why they think they have the right to transform Putney's skyline for decades to come.

* It doesn't talk about what proportion of the housing will be affordable

The Council must extract satisfactory, detailed and practical answers to each of these questions from the developer and tell us what it believes is a satisfactory development on this site. If it cannot or will not, this application must be refused.

Please register your views - and hopefully your objections - to this scheme. A groundswell of local protest will make it far harder for the Conservatives to cave in to the developers and blight our environment further.

You can comment online here, or email planningapplications@wandsworth.gov.uk, referencing planning application No. 2008/3321.

Putney - safer than other parts of London?

Every month when I publish the ward-by-ward crime statistics I usually focus on the change over the previous month.

This month it's worth looking at how crime in Putney compares with London as a whole.

Every single ward in Putney has a lower record of drug offending, fraud or forgery, robbery and other notifiable offences than the Met Police average.

Every single ward in Putney bar one has a better record on burglary and theft & handling (Thamesfield being the exception); criminal damage and violence against the person (Roehampton); and robbery (Southfields) than the London-wide figures. Roehampton has a stastically insignificant higher rate of sexual offences, which are a very small percentage of the total anyway I'm pleased to say.

Putney also compares favourably to our borough as a whole - though the pattern is very slightly different. The overall Wandsworth figure for crimes per 1,000 of the population is 99.6; the overall Putney figure is 89.9.

So what these crime figures show, month-in, month-out is that Wandsworth is safer than other parts of London, and that Putney is safer than other parts of Wandsworth. Don't let the Tories tell you different.

Here are the year to May 2008 figures:



And the April 2008 figures for comparison:

Putney's grand designs No.2

Continuing my infrequent series of posts about the great buildings of our area, one of the issues I've touched upon in previous posts has been the damage done to Putney by planners. The most stark examples of this can be found in central Putney where fantastic gothic mansions were demolished in the 1950s and 1960s and replaced by architecturally similar, blander apartment blocks.

These proliferated up and off Putney Hill; in Carlton Drive, St John's Avenue and Merciers Road to mention a few. However, interspersed with these apartment blocks remain some of the original homes, that give us an idea of what central Putney used to look like.

One of the grandest examples of these is pictured here in St John's Avenue. But there are several other original mansion houses in Carlton Drive in particular.

Putney continue to crack up

Cromer Villas Road



...And another from Cromer Villas Road



Melrose Road



...And another from Melrose Road

I couldn't resist posting these four photos of the shocking state of the roads in this part of Southfields - among the worst I've come across - because they happen to be the neighbourhood in which Council Leader Edward Lister lives. He must drive over some of them on his way to the Town Hall!

Thank you for all the photos of your potholed streets you've been sending in - if I posted one a day I'd have enough to keep this blog running through to the Autumn. Though that's not a bad idea, I'm inclined to post a few photos a week from across the constituency. But do keep them coming - as the common adage goes: you can never have too many photographs of potholes - especially, it seems, from around Putney, Roehampton and Southfields.

In the meantime, I'm launching a new competition to come up with the collective term for potholes. "A neglect of potholes"? "A wreck of potholes"? "A council incompetence of potholes"? Let me have your ideas - email stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk.

"Where do I vote?"

It's been a few weeks since the Council sent out pollcards telling us where our polling station is in the elections this coming Thursday.

We're sending out our own cards letting thousands of Labour supporters in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, know where to vote on Thursday. But if you want to check where you vote, you can do so on my website by clicking here.

There's a list of polling stations down the side, or you can check using the map - by clicking on the links you'll get a list of streets that vote at each station and a satellite image of the location on it.

Most polling stations are where they've always been, but a couple have changed since the last elections in 2006:

• The Putney Vale estate now votes at Stag House in Stroud Crescent, following the Tory council's closure of Newlands Hall;


• Residents of the Alton East estate are back voting at Roehampton Parish Hall (now called Cornerstone), on the corner of Alton Road and Roehampton Lane.

Out and about in Putney

The main reason I've been posting a little less frequently in recent days is because of the London election campaigning my team and I are up to.

We've been out all over the constituency, and I've just today finished adding all the places we've been too in the past month to my constituency map page.

We've been talking to you about your concerns and priorities for London in the next four years and the clear choice between the experience, tested leadership and delivered improvements to the capital over the last eight years with Ken Livingstone; and the bluster, blunder, lack of substance, lack of vision, and lack of any credibly-costed plans of his Tory opponent.

So far this campaign we've been to the Longstaff Estate, Galveston Road, Lebanon Road, Sutherland Grove, Skeena Hill, Combemartin Road, Girdwood Road, Whitefield Close, Arcadian Place, Wimbledon Park Road, Albert Drive, Hayward Gardens, Pullman Gardens, Beaumont Road, Whitlock Drive, Kersfield Road, Lytton Grove, Littlecombe Close, Arlesey Close, Chepstow Close, Whitnell Way, Gay Street, Crown Court, Waterman Street, Kingsmere Close, Felsham Road, Glenthorpe, Hanover House, William Gardens, Minstead Gardens, Aubyn Square, Toland Square and Vanneck Square - apologies if we've visited you but aren't listed above.

We've a lot more campaign stops all around Putney, Roehampton and Southfields before polling day on Thursday 01 May so look out for us!

Redevelopment in Putney

We're facing an increasing wave of plans to build huge tower blocks in our patch. Rising land prices and the general lack of space in London is prompting developers to build up rather than out.

A couple of years ago, the first of these applications, for the site at the top of East Hill above the Wandsworth Bridge roundabout, was rightly rejected by the Council; a slightly less tall block is now almost complete.

Today we have three "landmark" buildings proposed for the area:

• Putney Place, opposite East Putney tube in the triangle between the two railway viaducts plans for two tower blocks: one of 25 storeys and one of 19.
• On the corner of Carlton Drive and Upper Richmond Road a 20-storey building is being proposed to replace the Capsticks building - I wrote last year about loopholes in the council's planning rules that enable developers to leave office buildings derelict and then convert them into windfall residential blocks
• And in Wandsworth town on the Ram brewery site, another set of twin towers are being planned that, hard to believe, will actually dwarf the blocks on the Arndale Estate, which currently hold the record for the highest towers in the constituency

My views on these so-called "landmark" building are the subject of my latest Putney SW15 parliamentary report, which you can read here.

Out and about on the Portinscale Estate

This weekend my campaign team and I were talking to residents of the Portinscale estate: Askill Drive, Buttermere Drive, Portinscale Road and part of Keswick Road, just behind East Putney Station.

We got a really good response, although residents had lots of transport concerns - especially about accessibility to local stations. We'd already delivered The Putney Paper to this estate so residents were aware of the planned improvements to Putney Station, which will include a passenger lift; and similar renovations to Southfields tube station because it's one of the 2012 Olympics Stations.

Unfortunately East Putney Station, which had been scheduled for the same sort of accessibilty improvements, appears to have been a victim of the collapse of Metronet: the private company with the contract to overhaul much of the tube network that went bust last year. It's still too early to say when East Putney will now get the work, but obviously I'm pushing Transport for London hard.

Out and about in Upper Richmond Road

My campaign team and I spent some of yesterday campaigning in the area around Upper Richmond Road. I thought I'd share a couple of the photos we took of Putney: both are from the top of Ormonde Court, one of the apartment blocks on Upper Richmond Road.



In the foreground are the backs of houses in Norroy Road - in the very bottom right is the railway line. In the background, centre-right, is Putney Wharf Tower. You can't see it on the low resolution picture above, but if you click on it you'll get a higher resolution version in which the London Eye is visible almost in the centre.



...And this one is of Putney looking west - again, the back of Norroy Road in the foreground, the trees of Putney Common on the far left. And if you click on the photo above, you should be able to make out the arch of the new Wembley Stadium in the distance.

As you can see from the sky, and will know if you were out yesterday too, while it was a bit nippy it was an otherwise lovely day, and good to be busy in the constituency.

Oh, and if you're someone who we contacted yesterday - or even if you aren't - do please take five minutes to complete my online residents' survey.

English Heritage Blue Plaques

A couple of years ago I wrote an article for the Wandsworth Borough News about the local dignitaries who are remembered through English Heritage blue plaques in our borough.

I really enjoy investigating local history - in part it comes from living here for 37 years, but my degree was also in history. Anyway, here's the article, which I hope you find interesting.

What links the borough of Wandsworth to a former Prime Minister, a music hall artist, the dentist to Queen Victoria and an artic explorer? The answer is that all of them (David Lloyd George, Sir Harry Lauder, Sir Edwin Saunders and Edward Wilson) lived or worked in the borough, and have an English Heritage blue plaque outside the house in which they lived.

There are twenty-two English heritage blue plaques located within the borough of Wandsworth, out of a total of 456 throughout London.

2005 marked the centenary of the erection of the first blue plaque in Wandsworth, which was located at Holly Lodge, Wimbledon Park Road, in memory of author and novelist George Eliot, who lived in sin at the property with her lover, G H Lewes.

This selection of a figure of literary note seems apposite given that literary figures make up the largest group of recipients within the borough. These include the poet and novelist Thomas Hardy (who lived at Trinity Road), Victorian adventure story writer G A Henty (Lavender Gardens) and poet Gerald Manley Hopkins (Manresa House, Roehampton).

Three plaques are dedicated to famous figures from the British music hall era the comedian Gus Elen (Thurleigh Avenue), and Harry Tate and Sir Harry Lauder (both of Longley Road). During its heyday the music hall was the most popular form of entertainment for ordinary people, and its stars were the popstars of their day. Harry Tates funeral at the cemetery in Blackshaw Road, Tooting, was attended by over a thousand mourners.

Only two politicians have been commemorated former Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Routh Road) and Battersea MP, and the first working class man to enter the British Cabinet, John Burns (Clapham Common North Side). Burns was elected as an independent MP in 1892 and served Battersea in Parliament until 1918.

Others who have been commemorated include the former President of Czechoslovakia, Dr Edwards Benes (Gwendolen Avenue), John Walter, founder of The Times newsapaper (Clapham Common North Side) and anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce (Broomwood Road). The most recent plaque to be erected in the borough was in 2000 in honour of the celebrated sculptor Charles Jagger, who lived and died in Albert Bridge Road.

The blue plaque scheme is a national programme run by English Heritage. To be eligible for a plaque, nominees must be worthy of national recognition, recognisable to the well-informed passer-by, and have been dead for twenty years or passed the centenary of their birth, whichever is the earlier.

As it has been five [now seven - ed.] years since the last plaque was erected in the borough, readers may wish to suggest other candidates suitable for nomination. There is surely a wealth of suitable nominees in this great borough of ours. Here is a full list of the 22 blue plaques in Wandsworth, with the Putney ones highlighted in colour:

• BATEMAN, H.M. (1887-1970),Cartoonist, lived here 1910-1914. 40 Nightingale Lane, Clapham South, SW12 Wandsworth 1997
• BENES, Dr Edward (1884-1948),President of Czechoslovakia, lived here. 26 Gwendolen Avenue, Putney, SW15 Wandsworth 1978
• BURNS, John (1858-1943),Statesman, lived here. 110 North Side, Clapham Common, SW4 Wandsworth 1950
• DOUGLAS, Norman (1868-1952),Writer, lived here. 63 Albany Mansions, Albert Bridge Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1980
• ELEN, Gus (1862-1940), Music Hall Comedian, lived here. 3 Thurleigh Avenue, Balham, SW12 Wandsworth 1979
• ELIOT, George Mary Ann Cross (1819-1880), Novelist, lived here. Holly Lodge, 31 Wimbledon Park Road, SW18 Wandsworth 1905
• HARDY, Thomas (1840-1928),Poet and Novelist, lived here 1878-1881. Plaque replaced by new one on same building in 1962. 172 Trinity Road, Tooting, SW17 Wandsworth 1940
• HENTY, G.A. (George Alfred) (1832-1902), Author, lived here. 33 Lavender Gardens, SW11 Wandsworth 1953
• HOPKINS, Gerard Manley (1844-1889),Poet, lived and studied in Manresa House. Gatepost at Manresa House, Holybourne Avenue, Roehampton, SW15 Wandsworth 1979
• JAGGER, Charles Sargeant (1885-1934),Sculptor, lived and died here. 67 Albert Bridge Road, Battersea, SW11 Wandsworth 2000
• KNEE, Fred (1868-1914),London Labour Party Pioneer and Housing Reformer, lived here. 24 Sugden Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1986
• LAUDER, Sir Harry (1870-1950),Music Hall Artist, lived here 1903-1911. 46 Longley Road, Tooting, SW17 Wandsworth 1969
• LLOYD GEORGE, David, Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (1863-1945),Prime Minister, lived here Replacement for GLC plaque erected in 1967 3 Routh Road, Wandsworth Common, SW18 Wandsworth 1992
• O'CASEY, Sean (1880-1964),Playwright, lived here at flat No. 49 49 Overstrand Mansions, Prince of Wales Drive, Battesea Park, SW11 Wandsworth 1993
• SAUNDERS, Sir Edwin (1814-1901),Dentist to Queen Victoria, lived and died here. Fairlawns, 89 Wimbledon Parkside, SW19 (Plaque on gate pier) Wandsworth 1997
• SPURGEON, Charles Haddon (1834-1892),Preacher, lived here. 99 Nightingale Lane, SW12 Wandsworth 1971
• SWINBURNE, Algernon Charles (1837-1909), Poet and his friend, Theodore WATTS-DUNTON (1832-1914), Poet, Novelist, Critic, lived and died here. 11 Putney Hill, SW15 Wandsworth 1926
• TATE, Harry (Ronald MacDonald Hutchison) (1872-1940),Musical Hall Comedian, lived here. 72 Longley Road, SW17 Wandsworth 1984
• THOMAS, Edward (1878-1917),Essayist and Poet, lived here. 61 Shelgate Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1949
• WALTER, John (1739-1812),Founder of 'The Times', lived here. 113 Clapham Common North Side, SW4 Wandsworth 1977
• WILBERFORCE, William (1759-1833).On the site behind this house stood until 1904 Broomwood House - formerly Broomfield - where William Wilberforce resided during the campaign against slavery which he successfully conducted in Parliament. 111 Broomwood Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1906
• WILSON, Edward Adrian (1872-1912),Antarctic Explorer and Naturalist, lived here. Battersea Vicarage, 42 Vicarage Crescent, SW11 Wandsworth 1935

Goodbye Putney...hello Battersea

At the next general election, boundary changes will come into effect that will see just over 1,000 Putney voters transfer to the Battersea parliamentary constituency in the area closest to Wandsworth town.The roads affected are:

• Chesterton Close
• Cromford Road
• Ericcson Close
• Mexfield Road
• Oakhill Place
• Oakhill Road from No.37 upwards on the odds side and No.42 upwards on the evens
• Putney Bridge Road between Wandsworth High Street and the railway line, including Bush Cottages
• Santos Road
• West Hill, between Mexfield Road and Putney Bridge Road

Labour supporters in these streets will get the chance to vote for Martin Linton, Battersea's excellent Labour MP for the past ten years rather than me.

Parliamentary boundary changes take place every decade or so mainly to even-out population growths and declines around the country. In our case, however, the change is because council ward boundaries have been redrawn since the last parliamentary review, as part of which these streets were moved from East Putney into Fairfield ward. Parliamentary and Council ward boundaries have to align and Fairfield is a Battersea constituency ward, hence the transfer.

Click here for a larger version of the map above.

Our Safer Neighbourhood Teams

Putney now has forty Police Safer Neighbourhood Officers - members of teams that didn't exist just four years ago, and which we wouldn't have if the Conservatives had their way - they opposed all funding of them.

Here are the details of our six local ward teams along with any details of forthcoming events they're holding:

East Putney Team

Acting Sgt Matt Snowden
PC Sandrine Tanghe
PC Russ Percy
PCSO Simoni Simoni
PCSO Alison Brownlow
PCSO Douglas Cameron
PCSO Kelly Collins
PCSO Claire Fairman
PCSO Paul Henry

Write to them at: Jubilee House, 230-232 Putney Bridge Road, London SW15 2PD
Phone:020 8721 2433
Mobile: 07920 233925
Email the East Putney team

Upcoming East Putney team meetings and events:

• 28/11/2007 - 19:30 - 21:30 - Community Event - Cadets, Lytton Grove
• 09/12/2007 - 11:30 - 13:30 - Street Briefing - West Hill Road
• 17/01/2008 - 19:00 - 20:30 - Public Meeting - Putney High School
• 28/01/2008 - 18:00 - 19:00 - Community Event - Brownies, Wandsworth Police Station
• 31/01/2008 - 19:00 - 20:30 - Public Meeting - London Mosque

Roehampton Team

Sgt Peter Salmon
PC Andrew Voong
PC Amanda Kennedy
PCSO Lisa Burke
PCSO Noel Perkins
PCSO Nicky Edwardes
PCSO Fuad Osman
PCSO Marco Serrano

Write to them at: Jubilee House, 230-232 Putney Bridge Road, LondonSW15 2PD
Phone: 020 8649 3551
Mobile: 07843 065885
Email the Roehampton team


Southfields Team

Sgt David Mepham
PC Darren Hunt
PCSO Liam McLaughlin
PCSO Jacek Zebracki
PCSO Alexandra Claridge
Write to them at: 146 Wandsworth High Street, LondonSW18 4JJ
Phone:020 8721 2429
Mobile: 07920 233931
Email the Southfields team


Thamesfield Team

Sgt Roger Chapple
PC Bosede Odelusi
PC Stuart Paton
PCSO Gerald Baffoe-Bonnie
PCSO Sophie Wood
PCSO Julie Kirk

Write to them at: Jubilee House, 230 - 232 Putney Bridge Road, LondonSW15 2PD
Phone:020 8721 2434
Mobile: 07920 233924
Email the Thamesfield team


West Hill Team

Sgt Nigel Mussett
PC Glen Cheal
PC Mark Toulson
PCSO Daniel Taylor
PCSO Lisa Tyler
PCSO Laura Smith
PCSO Kirsteen McPhee
PCSO Andrew Morgan

Write to them at: 146 Wandsworth High Street, LondonSW18 4JJ
Phone: 020 8721 243
Mobile: 007920 233930
Email the West Hill team

Upcoming West Hill team meetings and events:

• 01/12/2007 - 12:00 - 14:00 - Drop-in Surgery - 26 Montfort Place SW19
• 05/01/2008 - 12:00 - 14:00 - Drop-in Surgery - 26 Montfort Place SW19

West Putney Team

Sgt Eric Ostrowski
PC Stuart Baggaley
PCSO Sharon Ellis
PCSO Michael Yates

Write to them at: Jubilee House, 230-232 Putney Bridge Road, LondonSW15 2PD
Phone: 020 8721 2760
Mobile: 07747 757590
Email the West Putney team

Parking penalty

I was recently contacted by a resident of a new block of flats in the heart of Putney who had been caught in an absurd parking loophole.

When new developments are given planning permission nowadays the council rightly requires the developer to provide off-street car parking spaces and thereafter the residents of these new apartments become ineligible for residents' permits in the surrounding parking zone.

But for my constituent the problem is that she bought in the shared-ownership section rather than the main development and the owners did not allocate any parking spaces for this part of their scheme. So she's now caught between the council saying they won't give her a residential parking permit for her zone and the developers who won't give her an off-street parking space either.

This is clearly unfair, and I've got involved to make sure that either the Council or the developer backs down. Fairly applied the council's policy of preventing those with off-street parking spaces from having residential parking permits as well is not unreasonable - but banning residents who don't have that luxury is plain wrong.

If you've experienced similar problems and would like my help, do get in touch - email stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk

The De Morgan Centre

Earlier tonight, I attended an evening staged by Putney Labour Party at the De Morgan Centre on West Hill.

We received a talk from a Centre trustee, Kate Catleugh who talked about William and Evelyn De Morgan and the Arts and Crafts movement, which had strong roots in the reformist movements in the 19th century - Evelyn, for example, was prominent in the campaign for women's suffrage.

The De Morgans were associated with the pre-Raphaelite movement that included artists like William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt

The De Morgan Centre is at 38 West Hill, next door to West Hill Library; the buses 37, 337 and 170 all stop nearby. It's open 12 noon to 6pm Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and 10am to 5pm Fridays and Saturdays, closed at other times. If you'd like more information, please visit the Centre's website: www.demorgan.org.uk, phone 020 8871 1144 or email info@demorgan.org.uk

This is one of our borough's less well-known gems; and given the council's ridiculous plans for reorganisation of Wandsworth Museum, which include West Hill Library, the fate of the Centre cannot be certain, so do show your support, visit the Centre, enjoy some of the exquisite paintings and ceramics on display and learn more about this remarkable couple and the movement they were involved in.

The Longstaffs

These past two weekends I've spent part of my time in Longstaff Crescent, Longstaff Road and the Longstaff Estate.

Longstaff Road and Crescent are two streets of pleasant inter-war council cottages in Southfields just alongside King George's Park; an area I know well because I lived just the other side of the park when I was growing up.

The Longstaff estate is a completely separate development: it's the small council estate just behind the fire station in West Hill, right opposite the junction with Upper Richmond Road.

The common feature which unites these two is that both look distinctly neglected by the Council; in the case of Longstaff Crescent the windows are badly eroded and long overdue for replacement; the Longstaff estate is shabby and grim, with stained brickwork.

Working with local Labour councillors I've now taken up several specific cases of council neglect; it's time the council gave a firm date in the near future for replacing the Longstaff windows given the approach of Winter.

On both occasions the reception was mostly warm and positive - indeed, many people commented positively about the visit given there isn't to be an election for some time. No one could recall a visit by Justine Greening since she became Putney's MP over two years ago.

Community lunch clubs

Last week I had the great pleasure of meeting with members of the St Paul's Community Centre luncheon club for the elderly in Inner Park Road, West Hill.

After lunch I was invited to address the 25 or so members present, setting out how I would lead the constituency and how I believe the issues we face can be tackled. I got grilled on a range of questions: the European treaty, tax, fair trade, race and education among them.

I also visited residents of Wickham House, the sheltered accommodation in Kersfield Drive off Putney Hill - the picture is of me and resident Theresa Thompson. And to commence the day I popped into the coffee club on the Lennox estate where again I enjoyed the opportunity to discuss local and topical issues of the day with long term Putney residents.

I very much enjoy getting out and about in the constituency, meeting genuine local people and at attending local events: the bread and butter of what a good MP should be up to. If you're involved in a local group: be it a residents' association, a school, a faith group, amenity society or something else, please get in touch - I'd love to hear from you. You can email me or give me a ring on 020 8788 8961.

Council office-block loophole causing problems

Like other councils, Wandsworth has rules to stop radical changes of use of buildings - so houses can't usually be converted into shops, shops into nightclubs and so on. Such policies are important to preserve the identity of our area, keep residential areas residential and shopping areas vibrant.

Last week I met with a local solicitor, whose firm leases quite a large amount of office space in Upper Richmond Road. He told me that the owners of his building had indicated that they will not be extending the lease when it expires so that they can exploit a loophole in council planning policy that, if not dealt with soon will have major impact on Putney's economy. The same has occurred elsewhere in Putney and we will soon lose local lawyers Capsticks from Upper Richmond Road.

This is because a loophole in Wandsworth's planning rules says that if a property is left derelict for long enough, planning regulations relating to a change of use can be waived. The consequence - and this is another side-effect of the local housing crisis - is that land for housing is at such a premium in Putney that it is now in the interests of landowners who hold purpose-built office blocks to keep them empty and then, once they qualify, change the use to housing, then sell up at a huge profit.

At first glance, no-one - least of all me - is going to weep at the demolition of the ugly post war blocks along Upper Richmond Road between East Putney tube and Putney Hill. But think about the number of people that work in those ugly blocks: the business they bring to local shops, cafes and restaurants - and the impact their loss will have on our economy. It's not just shops and bars that are the measure of a vibrant Putney town centre; it's the less visible office economy too.

I hope that the current council consultation on its new Local Development Framework (its planning Bible) will address this problem and offer better protection to the local office buioding stock.