Dover House shops do better with Labour

Putney's Conservative MP is at it again!

In a recent report she's written: "I've worked with the Dover House shops on their local business concerns such as business rates..."

I'm glad she has, but do you think she told those businesses that if she gets her way they'll pay more in business rates? You see, she's campaigning against the current revaluation of business rates. But 81% of this parade will see LOWER RATES if the revaluation goes ahead.

The table above - which comes from Wandsworth's Conservative council's database of all borough businesses - shows every business in the Upper Richmond Road shop parade she's talking about. The ones in blue - four shops - will see their rates rise slightly under the revaluation. Seventeen will see their rates fall with savings of up to £3,500.

Isn't it a distinctly strange outlook for an area's MP to be campaigning to make life harder for local people? Yet that's exactly what Putney's Conservative MP is up to. I can guarantee this: I'm standing as MP to do the opposite - stand up for Putney and reduce business rates on the majority of shops in the Dover House parade.


Note: I've hidden the exact numerical amounts of rates each business will pay because that's commercial information they're entitled to keep confidential.

Conservatives privatise Roehampton Fields for 57p

Conservative Councillors have approved the transfer of Roehampton Playing Fields in Dover House Road over to Roehampton University.

The plans will grant a 99 year lease to the University in return for refurbishment of the sports pavilion and continued community access to the site for 25% of the time.

I've asked a few questions about this deal:

1) What is current usage by the community of the fields - because if it's more than 25% this is going to kick out some groups and individuals;

2) What are the current planning restrictions and other covenants on the land - because it may well be that he university will try to use the fields at times beyond those it is open now; and if so what protections for surrounding residents are there?

3) How confident can we be that the university remains able to honour its funding commitments, which run to £2 million, given the tighter financial settlements higher education will get irrespective of who wins the next general election?

The response We've had is 1) that the University has guaranteed that no current user will be unable to continue their use; 2) that there are no plans for evening use of the grounds other than in the summer months when flood-lighting won't be needed and 3) that the University has assured the council that it can honour its obligations despite the tighter budgeting it will have to undertake from now on.

For the council this is a nice little earner - they dispose of their responsibility to maintain a large community facility. But what this Conservative administration too often forgets is that Roehampton Fields were planned quite purposefully as a facility for the community - not 25% of the time but 100% of the time.

Regardless of the good intentions of the university - and I accept they will use the fields to a greater extent than they have been in recent years - the council has, de facto, just privatised Roehampton Fields. The community was the sole shareholder in this site; it now has just a 25% stake in it. All for the Conservatives to save 57p on council tax.

I just think the community should be far more seriously involved in decisions like this to sell off Putney's family silver rather than just being slipped through as item 16 in a committee report in the first week of the New Year. It's not as if we can do anything about it for a century now.

Dover House survey results

In the Autumn I spent a week talking to residents of the Dover House estate in West Putney about their issues and concerns.

As part of that week I sent a survey round - the results of which I've now published, here.

The big concerns, as I've written about before, were the lack of children's play facilities for such a large area with so many families. A thumping 84% of respondents support my campaign to get the council to provide a toddlers play area on Roehampton Fields at the top of Dover House Road.

Even more people - 90% didn't think there were enough activities on the Dover House to occupy teenagers, which isn't really surprising given that there are none at the moment.

A majority of residents - 53% rated traffic problems on the estate in the top two quintiles - that figure becomes 88% if you include the third quintile too. While this is a really difficult issue to tackle, it deserves being taken seriously. I feel that the Conservative council hasn't done that: instead fobbing off the estate with crazy and doomed-to-fail ideas like the unpopular ban on right-turns from Roehampton Lane that a huge majority rejected.

A separate majority share my cocnern about the overdevelopment threat to Putney which the Conservatives are responsible for encouraging. 64% said they were either worried or very worried about it - and that rises to 84% if those "quite worried" about it.

The week spent on the Dover House estate produced a raft of casework which I've spent the Autumn taking up; parking problems, dog fouling problems, problems with broken pavements, cycling problems, refuse problems, planning problems and many more. I'm happy to take these issues up because the Dover House estate is a lovely area and deserves better than it's currently getting.

Council to consult on Pleasance playground

It's only been a few weeks since I asked the council to provide a children's playground on Roehampton Fields at the top of Dover House Road. As I reported then, the Conservatives have refused to agree to that - for now - but they are now bringing forward plans for a playground on The Pleasance, the green space near St Margaret's Church.

The council is talking about providing a "natural" playground rather than a "conventional" one, though they don't explain what the difference is. I'm not concerned about this other than for the fact that The Pleasance is also used for dog exercising - and was the site of the horrible dangerous dog attacks a couple of years ago. I share the concern of parents that unless it's secure they may not have the confidence in its safety to make it a success.

As usual with this Conservative Council, they're not actually putting up a single penny of funding in providing this playground: all £138,000 comes from a Labour government initiative called the Playbuilder Programme. Why not look out for the next Conservative leaflet when they claim all the credit for it though?

Click here to read the report on the Pleasance Playground - but the Dover House estate is a huge area: we need more than one play area serving this area, so please help me keep up the pressure on the Tories by signing my online petition for Roehampton Fields.

Making more of Roehampton Fields

When I was out and about talking to residents of the Dover House estate recently, one of the things that kept coming up from families with small kids was the lack of play facilities in the area.

They've got a point: there is not a single children's play area anywhere on the Dover House estate. And this despite there being plenty of open space in the local area.

The largest of these open spaces happens to be the huge Roehampton Playing Fields at the top of Dover House Road just before you reach Putney Heath. "Why can't a small section of this space be turned into a children's play area?" I was asked.

And so in turn, I asked the council. This is the response I got:

"The site has not at any time, neither during the Council?s tenure nor during the previous ILEA tenure, been a publicly accessible open space. That being so there are no plans to extend use of the facility by local residents, however we are aware of local concerns at the lack of play facilities for younger children and officers are considering the potential to provide some appropriate form of play facility on the Pleasance open space."

Well, secure play facilities for young children and families on the Pleasance, at the other end of the Dover House estate near St Margaret's Church is something that should be looked at. But that doesn't really explain why they can't look at providing something at Roehampton Fields - in fact the only reason the council has come up with is that they've never been used for this purpose.

I don't think that's good enough. With some imagination, young families' play facilities could be incorporated into the playing fields without impinging one foot onto the games pitches and without compromising the overall security of the fields.

If you agree, please sign my petition. Click here.

Roehampton Lane right-turn ban: 61% say "no"

In another spectacular misjudgement of public opinion, the Conservative plans to ban right turns from Roehampton Lane into Medfield Street have been rejected by a thumping 61.1% NO vote.

To recap, the Conservative plans - drawn up way back in early 2006 by Putney Tory MP Justine Greening and our former Tory London Assembly member - wanted to ban cars turning into Medfield Street, supposedly to ease traffic rat-running through Roehampton and the Dover House estate.

As pretty much everyone except the Tories realised, just banning cars turning into these roads but NOT Roehampton High Street and Rodway Road would simply push all the rat-run traffic into these residential roads and not solve the problem in the Dover House at all.

Now, three years on, a hugely costly consultation later and having disillusioned thousands of local people with their do-nothing approach to the area's traffic problems, the Conservatives have graciously agreed to abide by the 61% no vote and consign their crazy plan to the dustbin.

Even a majority of Medfield Street residents opposed the Tory plan! In the Quadrant area that includes Rodway Road, and in Roehampton High Street the no vote was 85% and 86% respectively. Quite right too.

A more modest plan to ban right-turns into Ponsonby Road, where Roehampton Church School and Holy Trinity is, received a narrow yes vote of 54% and this will proceed, subject to review after six months.

You can read the report on the consultation here.

Dangerous dogs

Following last year's dangerous dog attack on the Dover House Estate, the Council last week announced it would evict tenants who own potentially dangerous dogs.

We all want action on dangerous dogs. But dogs are not dangerous by dint of their birth alone - they become so because they are mistreated or bred to fight.

The Council's rules will do nothing to weed out these owners, but they do threaten those with "potentially" - whatever that means - dangerous dogs that have never so much as snarled in anger or aggression before, and are properly controlled by responsible owners.

These rules will also only apply to council tenants. Homeowners and housing association tenants are exempt. So on the Dover House estate these measures will affect virtually no-one because the overwhelming majority of homes here have been sold-off by the council. And while a council tenant with a potentially dangerous dog may face eviction, their next door neighbour who is a leaseholder with a genuinely dangerous dog will remain untouched. Is that fair? Will it tackle the problem? No on both counts.

The Council's spin doctors will say at least they're doing something. But in this case, the council's guilty of doing something instead of doing something effective. Far better would be a doubling of the budget of their own dog warden service so they can patrol more widely, raise their profile and tackle the problem without picking on one particular section of the community.

I'm not a fan of ever more regulation and nanny-statism: we already have way too much of that. What we need is tougher action on criminals who mistreat their dogs, stronger action against the dog-fighting rings we all know exist in our borough and strong community policing.

Again, our Safer Neighbourhoods Police teams must play a crucial role, working with the dog warden service to achieve these goals. The objective: identifying those who can't control or are mistreating their dogs - and acting before events like those that took place in Putney Park Lane last October happen again.

Putney in the news

Putney has been in the news twice today. BBC London News this evening led with a story on dangerous dogs and featured the attack on The Pleasance last month. It was good to see the victim of the attack recovering well.

You can watch the BBC News story here or read the summary of the story on the BBC website here.

We also learned today that fifteen years after the horrific murder of Rachel Nickel on Wimbledon Common, part of which is in the constituency, someone has been charged with the crime. My thoughts tonight are with both Rachel's family but also with Roehampton resident Colin Stagg who was falsely accused of her murder at the time and who has been persecuted ever since. While no one has yet been convicted and we need to be careful with what we say until they are, this must have been a day Mr Stagg has long waited for.

Dover House dangerous dogs - UPDATE

Yesterday I wrote to everyone in the Dover House estate updating them on the action being taken to deal with the dangerous dogs problem. Here's the text of the letter:

Dear Resident,

You will almost certainly be aware of the shocking incident that took place recently where two dangerous pit-bull types attacked a dog owner and his pet on The Pleasance off Putney Park Lane.

A number of local residents contacted me to express their concern about this incident and to ask what was being done to deal with it, and I am writing to keep you informed.

I spent a great deal of time last week and over the weekend talking with the Police, the Dover House Estate Residents Association and local people.

One of the two pit bull-type dogs was destroyed by the police at the scene; the other has been taken away and is being kept secure in police kennels. A file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and legal proceedings may follow. I certainly believe they should given the seriousness of the incident.

I suggested to the police that the Safer Neighbourhoods Police team should undertake additional patrols in the area to provide a visible reassurance to local residents, and this suggestion was accepted, so do please stop and talk to the team when you see them.

If you have an immediate problem with a troublesome dog, contact the Dog Control Unit on 020 8871 7606. If you believe it is dangerously out of control call the Police immediately on 999. The Safer Neighbourhood Police team for the Dover House area can be reached on 020 8721 2760, mobile: 07747 757590, or e-mail: westputney.snt@met.police.uk

Finally, if there are any other local concerns you have do get in touch and I'd be only too happy to see what I can do. My phone number is 020 8788 8961 or write to or email me.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart King

Dover House dangerous dogs

You may have seen the front page feature in the Wandsworth Borough News about the problem of dangerous dogs in the Dover House Estate.

The problem has also generated a lot of comment on the putneysw15.com website discussion forum, and I've been contacted by worried residents, unhappy with the utter lack of interest in this issue from the Conservative MP and Tory councillors.

Today, I've spent a lot of time on conference calls with the police - which were really productive - and will be meeting with residents over the weekend. I'm optimistic that this particular incident, that caused such fear and anger locally, is going to be resolved appropriately and I'll be updating this blog after my weekend meetings to explain a little more about why I think that.

Residents are absolutely right to concerned about the issue of dangerous dogs in the area, and livid at the ambivalence shown by the MP. This issue is EXACTLY the sort of local issue a good constituency MP would be at the heart of getting resolved.

For more on the background to this story, the Borough News story can be read here.