A plan for Putney

Earlier this week the Labour Government set out several ideas to help councils like Wandsworth make life easier for town centres. Here are just a few of the policies:

• Special planning permission waivers called Local Development Orders allow the council to implement more flexible planning policies more quickly


• We want to get empty premises back in use - for however short or long a period as possible, But landlords need to know that there is a proper legal basis for such temporary uses, so the government has created "fast-track" specimen legal documents that landlords can use for temporary occupiers.


• For landlords still not happy about leasing to unknown short-term tenants, we're also giving them the option of leasing to the council - as an intermediary - who in turn can grant their own temporary lease to a local group for community uses.


• And the Government's 'Real Help for Business now' plan offers free business health checks, skills training, and a £20billion working capital scheme. 70% of all properties will now be exempted from empty property rates and businesses can also defer 60% of next year’s rate increase and transitional relief increase to the following two years.


• Town centre planning rules already give council the power to refuse a new development that might harm the high street. Local planning and licensing powers can also limit a particular type of shop in a town to prevent too much of the same business or unwanted nightlife. For me this has been local Conservatives' biggest failing: they've had the power to safeguard our town centre from overdevelopment and clone shops and they've chosen not to. They must now right this wrong.
  
• Finally. local business can agree with councils to establish Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) using ring fenced business rates to improve the business environment of the town centre. 71 BIDs have been established since 2004.

Now I admit that each of these schemes isn't the most exciting-sounding idea: but boring policy is often good policy that works. We just need the local leadership to see that Putney doesn't have to be this grotty, congested, polluted and run-down place but could be a vibrant shopping hub like Kingston, Fulham Broadway or Barnes.

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.

A polluted high street

One of the main reasons Putney High Street is an unpleasant shopping environment is the amount of traffic running through it, and the pollution that is created as a result.

The Council has just been given a government grant to measure the scale of this pollution over a year - and because the High Street is narrow and enclosed by relatively high buildings I expect the findings to be...well, less than healthy.

I support getting the hard facts to substantiate the fairly obvious truth that Putney High Street is congested and polluted - pollution which in turn leads to extra grime in the town centre. But the real question I ask of the council is: "And then what?"

And then what will they do once they have this evidence? All that the Councillor responsible for the environment has said it will do is encourage car drivers to test the fumes their vehicles omit and, bizarrely, fund "environmental theatre", whatever that might be. Neither will improve, let alone transform our town centre.

Yet again, given an opportunity to lead on a plan for Putney, the Conservatives duck it.

They have allowed our town centre to decay; their planning policies have failed to control traffic in Putney; and their failure to invest in the High Street, while our neighbours in Fulham, Kensington and Kingston have sorted out their town centres, is one of the key reasons why Putney is being hit harder by the recession.

So let's have the pollution monitoring. But let's also have a clear path along the lines I've been arguing for since 2005 to a cleaner, smarter, healthier and less congested Putney please.

Wally's in Putney High Street!

When Google launched their new - and quite unnerving - street-level views of our streets recently, they said that they'd planted "Wally", from the famouse "Where's Wally?" books somehere in the world.

Where should he turn up but Putney High Street, at the crossing opposite HMV and the entrance to the Putney Exchange!

It's good to know Putney High Street is still attracting the odd celebrity shopper!

To use the Google street-view device, visit Googlemaps, and once you've zoomed into the place you want to explore, drag the person icon from the controls in the top left of the screen onto the map.

Hat-tip to Wandsworth Guardian for the story.

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.

Planning our town centres

The BBC is reporting on plans by Waltham Forest Council, in north east London, to tighten its planning rules to limit the number of fast food outlets near schools or places heavily frequented by children.

The report proves again that tougher planning rules to protect town centres are entirely achievable and desperately needed in Putney High Street. In Waltham Forest the problem appears to be too many fast food "restaurants"; in Putney its coffee shops, mobile phone shops, gambling premises and what the Americans call "Dime Stores".

A cohesive plan for Putney is what the Putney Society has been calling for and it is one of the essentials of my SOS plan to Save Our High Street. It goes hand-in-hand with ideas like shop-front improvements, to introduce a cohesive character to the town centre and longer term suggestions like relocating the Chelverton Road bus garage away from the High Street and replacing the ugly concrete building that currently houses Woolworths, Halfords and Superdrug.

The Council's Local Development Plan is currently being reviewed and this is an ideal opportunity to draw a line under past disagreements and work together to draw up a strong, clear and radical plan that safeguards local shops, improves the environment for shoppers and other pedestrians and makes the High Street the attractive heart of Putney it should be.

You can read more about my ideas for Putney High Street and give me your own views here.

Are we winning the High Street improvement battle?

As someone who has been campaigning to improve the state of Putney High Street for almost three years, I welcome the Council's new announcement of further improvements to the pavements.

Slowly - too slowly, grudgingly and ungraciously, the Council is (without admitting there's any problem at all) starting to take the first tentative steps to improve our town centre.

Of course, this work isn't being funded by them - it's money provided by Transport for London and approved when Ken Livingstone was London Mayor - but new paving will have a big impact. That is, if the Council keeps them cleaner than the current greasy, grimy paving.

Likewise, if the Council is now serious about clearing away the clutter than congests the High Street's pavements for pedestrians, then that could actually be a second item ticked off from my ten point plan to save our high street. But are they just going to tinker, or are they serious about taking out the control boxes, the pedestrian barriers, the signposts, the rubbish bags and the bike racks (that should be relocated around the side street corners) that clog our pavements?

It's a shame it's taken the Conservatives three years to catch up with the Putney Society, the hundreds of Putney residents who've filled in my High Street surveys and my Labour campaign team. I wonder if the Tories are yet willing to admit there's a problem and that there is a role for local government in rectifying it? And will Putney's Conservative MP break her vow of silence on this issue to help us wield more influence with her Tory friends in the Town Hall?

If not then we're not going to make any progress on the remaining problems: high levels of street crime, flyposting, grotty shopfronts, getting a better mix and quality of shops and improving traffic flow. But whether the Tories admit it or not, keep dragging their feet or not, these problems will not disappear and nor will my campaign to Save Putney High Street.

You can have your say on the state of the High Street by taking my online survey here.

Putney Bridge disintegrates

Today's wet weather has washed away large chunks of the long-eroding surface on Putney Bridge - again the responsibility of Wandsworth's neglectful Conservative council.









The road surface here has been worn down for months and the bus lane had become warped; almost like waves of tarmac. Signs of erosion were already in evidence right across the bridge, and as usual the council had either ignored them entirely, or splodged a few dollops of tarmac into them in the mad hope that this would somehow substitute for competent road maintenance. It's simply not good enough for the Council to lay down metal sheets because they're too miserly to keep the bridge in good shape.

The Bridge is an icon of Putney: it presents our area to the rest of the world, so the state it's kept in by the council has even more of an impact than the (in itself unacceptable) neglect of residential backstreets. Just as with our grubby, run-down High Street, the Conservatives are evidently quite happy for people to get the impression that Putney is a shabby, neglected area in which no pride is invested.

That may be true of the council - but I know it isn't true of the residents.

UPDATE: Even this council seems to believe that the state of the Bridge is unacceptable as tonight the bus lane has been cordoned off. Whether that is for essential roadworks or for the Police traffic census they've been conducting all day today we'll have to wait and see.

High Street's vacant shops on the up

Conservative Councillors in Wandsworth are now openly admitting on the putneysw15 website that landlords in Putney High Street are starting to struggle to let their premises.

The number of vacant shops in our town centre is on the increase again. In fact, we're probably back to the position we were in 2005 when I launched Labour's Save Putney High Street campaign.

If Putney High Street is facing economic difficulties, that isn't the fault of the Council - it's a consequence of the international credit crunch (though consumer spending was remarkably robust last month).

No, the charge I level at Putney Conservatives, including the MP, is that had they acted to recession-proof the High Street when times were better over the past three years, retailers would be in a better position to weather whatever economic turbulence we're in line for. I believe Shadow Chancellor George Osborne calls this "fixing the roof when the sun is shining".

My ten point plan to fix the High Street has been around for three years now; common-sense points which those of you who've taken my survey have supported hands-down. The Putney Society has been similarly vocal in its concerns about the state in which the Conservatives allow our High Street to remain. Yet the Tories have ignored us - they've even denied there's any problem at all.

For the past three years, when Putney High Street needed some political vision, leadership and direction from its elected representatives, its had none. Let's hope that High Street retailers do not pay too high a price for this absence of courage from the complacent Conservatives.

Mystery shoppers?

Tory Council Leader Edward Lister has been bragging about some retail survey he claims proves that Putney High Street is the oasis among town centres.

Curiously, he's provided very few details of the survey, and there's nothing about it on the council's website, which is usually the first to trumpet good news for the Conservative administration.

If anyone knows more about this mystery survey could they let me know because I'd like to read it. As you know, I've been championing the High Street for the past three years: I launched Labour's Save Putney High Street campaign coincidentally at the same time as the Putney Society raised their concerns about it. If I think there's a problem; if the Putney Society thinks there's a problem and if the huge number of respondents to my campaign think there's a problem ,why doesn't the council?

Precious little has changed since we started pointing out the embarassment that is Putney High Street - the local councillors and Tory MP for Putney are in denial that there's any problem with it at all, and Cllr Lister's spin on this mystery report is just the latest evidence of it.

I'd like to read the report in full to see what it really says. If local shops are doing a brisk trade then that's great for Putney - but it doesn't negate the greasy, grimy pavements, the uneven, cracked paving; the rubbish; the clutter; the congestion; the pollution and the poor planning that led Putney to be branded a clone high street not so long ago in a national survey.

Tell me what you think about Putney High Street: spare two minutes to fill in my Save Putney High Street survey here.

Christmas could be better if we had a smarter High Street

I was in Putney High Street earlier today - and I have to say that when it is cold and raining, then alongside all the other problems: the litter, the uneven, greasy paving, the pavement clutter, the traffic gridlock and the ongoing gradual decline in quality shops it is one of my least favourite places in the constituency.

Contrast the state of Putney High Street with the hugely successful pedestrianisation of Oxford Street and surrounding areas in the run-up to Christmas.

Now, obviously, there's a limit to how far we can compare London's shopping district with Putney's, but I can compare the dynamism, leadership and (though I hate the term) vision of Westminster Council and London Mayor Ken Livingstone with our own council - that won't even concede that a single thing is wrong with Putney High Street.

This isn't an issue that's going to go away, not least because the Council simply refuses to pay any attention to the - entirely legitimate - concerns residents, The Putney Society, Putney Labour Party and I will continue to raise until we get action. And it's not a party political issue: Westminster Council is Conservative-run as is Kensington & Chelsea, which has done great things to improve High Street Ken; just as Labour did with Fulham Broadway when we administered Hammersmith & Fulham.

The utter disdain our Council has for our High Street can be seen in the sorry excuse for Christmas lights that "adorn" the High Street's lamp-posts. For the umpteenth year in a row dug out from whatever mouldy basement storeroom they cram them into they epitomise the Conservatives' lack of pride in Putney.

The Tories will say they're being frugal with taxpayers' money. I say that their "bah, humbug" scrooge approach to Christmas is pathetically mean and counter productive: the High Street was hardly crammed full of shoppers today - just two shopping weekends before Christmas. By investing in our High Street shoppers are far more likely to invest in Putney.

I've set out a commonsense ten-point plan that would transform the High Street without costing the earth. Click here to visit my Save Putney High Street campaign page, or join my Putney High Street facebook group.

We agree: shop fronts do matter

I genuinely welcome the Council's decision to force a couple of shops in Lower and Upper Richmond Roads to remove the ugly steel security shutters that seal them off after closing time each night.

As Planning Committee Chairman and Putney Conservative Councillor Leslie McDonnell says:

"Shopping streets should be vibrant and welcoming but these shutters present an intimidating, fortress-like facade. There are better ways in which shop-owners can secure their premises and make them more attractive."

I couldn't agree more. But the council can't have it both ways. It cannot say that the appearance of shops is fundamental to the success of our shopping areas and at the same time credibly maintain its opposition to my campaign to smarten up Putney High Street - a central measure of which is tighter control of the appearance of shop fronts and grants to help introduce higher standards and a common visual identity for the whole town centre. To date the council has said that it's neither something they have the power to enforce, nor is interfering with private businesses a matter it should engage with. And yet in the case of these two shops above, that's exactly what the council's done.

The reality is that this is all about local leadership: it's not that the council can't take action to improve the High Street - it's that your councillors and MP, all of whom are Conservative, simply lack the will and imagination to lead on this issue.

You can read more about my Save Putney High Street campaign, take my survey to feed back your ideas, and add your support by clicking here.

Putney High Street

There's been a lot of coverage and some discussion locally about last Friday's accident when a shop hoarding collapsed, injuring - in one case seriously - two passers by.

I send my condolences, and wishes for a speedy recovery to the two injured and welcome the Health & Safety inquiry launched by the Council.

Some have been questioning the common sense of a shop - any shop - choosing to have a hoarding made of concrete (or at least what was designed to look like concrete, and which was incredibly heavy anyway). I have sympathy with this view.

It was one of the reasons why my Save Putney High Street campaign launched in Autumn 2005 called for both far tighter design standards for the High Street and a shop front improvements scheme.

We proposed such ideas to try to smarten up our High Street - which any impartial observer must agree (still) looks cluttered and grubby almost two years on - but clearly to ensure some consistency in both safety standards and visual quality. This incident, while entirely unforeseen, suggests that the Council was at best unwise and at worst negligent in dismissing out of hand our ideas simply because local Labour supporters rather than Conservatives had proposed them.

Some progress in improving Putney High Street - but nowhere near enough - has been made since the last council elections: mainly thanks to London Mayor Ken Livingstone coming up with investment for aspects of the street scene that the Council is actually responsible for funding.

This isn't just about the Council. We need co-ordinated action from Transport for London, Network Rail and the train companies (to improve Putney Station), the Government's Departments for Transport and Enterprise (to deal with the impact of traffic on the area and to stimulate business growth locally), local businesses and, yes, the Council. What is clear is that the past two years since the Putney Society and my Labour team raised our concerns about the neglect of Putney High Street have been characterised by inaction and lack of imagination. What we need is local leadership. Putney simply isn't getting it from its Conservative MP and councillors.

Links on the hoarding incident:

• Wandsworth Guardian coverage


• putneysw15 website news story


• putneysw15 website discussion forum