Pigeons

Don't these photos, sent in by a local resident sick of the state of Putney High Street, just epitomise what's wrong with it?

This is the healthy living shop on the corner of Disraeli Road: but there's nothing healthy about the state these pigeons are leaving the shopfront in.

I've asked the council to locate and contact the landlords of the site to get them to tackle the problem - and if they won't do anything for pest control to be carried out and recharged to them.

This is about taking pride in our town centre. How can we expect to tackle the big things wrong with the High Street when the Conservatives can't be bothered to even fix the little blights, like this?

The most polluted High Street in London

Putney High Street is the most polluted High Street in London, figures exposed in tonight's Evening Standard show.

Since the start of the year alone, Putney High Street has breached pollution levels a shocking 75 times. That's the second worst figure in London, and the worst for a high street.

I've been campaigning for tougher action on pollution in the High Street since 2003 when I was on the council. My Plan for Putney sets out several ways pollution can be tackled not least relocating Putney bus depot away from the town centre. That measure alone would reduce the number of heavily polluting buses turning into and out of Chelverton Road, and put an end to buses being left with engines running up by the station as drivers change over - something that I know from experience drives passengers to distraction as well!

I'm not sure that's enough to get pollution levels low enough given how bad the problem in Putney has been exposed as being. What is clear is that we can't wait for Putney's Conservative council to act: they've been ignoring those of us who have been campaigning to put some pride back into Putney for years and years.

That's why London Mayor Boris Johnson, who is responsible for making sure London's roads don't breach the tough new pollution caps needs to introduce a pollution zone in Putney over the heads of local Conservatives who simply lack the leadership to sort this problem out.

And in May, come the council elections, you need to vote for a cleaner, greener Putney. I've offered the local leadership to begin sorting this problem out - it will take time and effort and will - and I'll need good local councillors working with me to succeed. Janet Grimshaw, Chris Locke and Bibi Qureshi are the councillors Putney town centre needs if you want change.

Plan to redevelop Putney Post Office

Plans have been submitted to build flats and new retail space at 214 Upper Richmond Road - the site of Putney's main post office.

This application, if approved - and it looks doubtful whether there are many grounds for rejection - will obviously force the Post Office to find new premises, either permanently or while the site gets rebuilt. It should be made clear that the Post Office are not the owners of this site - just tenants of the retail space. And this is a fairly dilapidated block as it stands now - as the photo above illustrates: it is in need of some modernisation.

I've contacted Post Office bosses urging them to begin searching for a suitable site immediately: one that is close to the town centre, fully accessible and with sufficient space to meet the needs of Putney customers.

The planning application is ref 2009/2149 - click here to see the very limited information there is about this plan.

I'll post more details about this issue once I have them.

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.

New Putney Paper published

The Spring 2009 version of my Putney Paper is now available to read on this website - just click here.

In these economic times it's clear that the dividing line between the two main political parties is between those who have a plan to get us out of the global downturn and those who would do nothing.

I'm very strongly in the first of those camps; while it's evident that Putney's Conservative MP and councillors fall in the latter.

It's not just nationally that we need a plan - not least because, with the billions being invested to mitigate this recession it's only right that Putney gets a share.
In this edition of the Putney Paper, I talk about some of my ideas for recession-proofing Putney. Central to that is my long-running campaign to improve our town centre. I'm delighted that local architect Tom Jestico agreed to do some sketches for me of what a regenerated Putney High Street and town square might look like.

But we need a plan for Putney for far more than just to improve our town centre, critical though that is. Almost everyone I talk to is seriously worried about the skyscraper threat to our area the Conservatives are saddling Putney with for generations to come. The reason the developers think they can get away with all this overdevelopment is because we lack a coherent plan for Putney. One of my top priorities is to provide the local leadership that's been lacking on these issues.

And what is the purpose of building all these sky-high luxury penthouses - other than to create massive white elephants that will either remain empty for years or so gridlock our area's roads and services that Putney will cease to be the area we know and love it to be. Instead of penthouses, we need affordable homes to rent, especially at a time when some will be losing the homes they have.

I talk about all these issues and more in the new edition of The Putney Paper.

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

Chuggers Law?

A few days ago, the Labour Government announced it was looking at introducing a licensing system for public charitable collections - the so called Chuggers (Charity Muggers) who accost us when we're out shopping, trying to get us to sign up to a standing order for their cause.

This is something I have called for myself, and from the correspondence I receive through my Save Putney High Street campaign, something that animates a lot of you.

The aim is for a new licensing scheme for public charitable collections that will ensure responsible fundraising and deter bogus collections and prevent any nuisance to the public. I look forward to this review being completed so that we can better control what is at best a public nuisance and at worst can approach harrassment.

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

Time to regulate "chuggers"

The Charity Intelligent Giving has today come out against "chuggers" - the people who accost us in Putney High Street and elsewhere to try to sign us up as contributors to their sponsor charity.

Chuggers - a conflation of Charity and Muggers - have been operating in Putney for years and are, I'm afraid, just another obstacle to navigate in our already cluttered, crowded and congested High Street.

Intelligent Giving have called for the public not to give to these street traders, not least because there are nowadays so much more convenient ways of giving to charity, because giving in this way only encourages more charities to station chuggers on our High Streets, and because a large chunk of any donation you make goes not to the good cause but to pay the Chugger's wages.

I support IG's arguments, but I also think chuggers should be regulated properly, because some are too in your face, can't be identified and, if they were regulated, could be better organised to cause less obstruction to the street scene and restrict their hours of operation - and that'd be good news for shoppers just wanting to go about their business.

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.

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.

Putney farmers' market returns

It was good to see that the farmers' market is now back in Church Square by St Mary's Church and the Odeon Cinema, after a couple of false starts earlier this year.

If you missed it today, it's back again tomorrow and every weekend from now on, between 10am and 3pm, with around 12 stands offering free-range meats, fresh fruit and veg Speciality Cheeses, Organic and Artisan Breads, Salads, Oils, pies, fresh flowers and much more.

This is one of the very few pleasant features of Putney High Street: the redevelopment of this riverside quarter - which the Conservative Council opposed - has really shown how new life can be breathed back into a town centre.

While we look forward, desperately, to the repaving of some more of the High Street - work again paid for not by the Council but by Ken Livingstone's Transport for London - this still leaves too much of Putney's town centre cluttered, grubby, grimy and run down.

The Putney Society are rightly heralding the repaving works but I hope they won't regard this as job done: I need them alongside me continuing to crusade for a Putney High Street we can all take some pride in.

Visit my Save Putney High Street campaign pages to give me your views on how we can improve our town centre.

Have a happy new year

I'd like to wish everyone who has visited this website: the loyal following I appear to be building (given the latest visitor figures - more about this in the new year when they've been verified!); and everyone in Putney Roehampton and Southfields best wishes for 2008.

I'm delighted with the six months since I was selected:

• Forcing the council to think again - and at least consult residents - about the closure of Newlands Hall
• Finally delivering the long-overdue refitting of Roehampton Recreation Club: a Labour campaign going back six years
• Helping highlight the absurd and damaging plans to close Wandsworth Museum and West Hill Library
• Working with local Police to highlight the significant fall in crime in Putney - one of the safest constituencies in London
• Reassuring residents of the Dover House Estate after the dog attack in the Autumn
• Boosting take-up of the Child Trust Fund on the fifth anniversay of this important Labour initiative
• Fighting to make voting easier for Roehampton University students
• Stepping-up my campaign to pur some pride into Putney High Street
• Focussing as my top priority on the local housing crisis, in contrast to Putney's Tory MP who hasn't asked a single parliamentary quesion on the subject since she was elected
• And taking up hundreds of local concerns, problems and ideas picked up from getting out and about in the constituency, asking residents their views in surveys and petitions, and making sure everyone has the opportunity of contacting me not least through this website

...To list but a few. Bring on 2008 and a full year of campaigning for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields!

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