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