Weekend casework

Here are some of the issues I've been working on sorting out this week. There are just two points I want to make about this. The first is that some of these are issues I reported last year - and which I got fixed but are now in a poor way again; and the second is that these are all problems in and around just one medium-sized estate: the Orchard estate in West Hill.

My point is this: just consider how many problems there must be throughout Putney, Roehampton and Southfields which your Conservative MP and councillors are just ignoring or can't be bothered to fix.

The Conservatives are right that 2010 needs to be a year of change: in Putney that change is Labour.


The pavements in Linstead Way are dreadful - and they've been dreadful for years under the Tories.





Damaged banisters in Linstead Way which leave these dangerous metal spokes in an area full of young families.


It just wouldn't be Tory Wandsworth without some shocking potholes - these on the slope from Beaumont Road to Linstead Way, past Andrew Reed House





Only last November I finally got the council to fix these railings along the path from Beaumont Road to Royal Orchard Close. They've been vandalised already - mainly because on one side this is a convenient cut-through to Linstead Way. So we either need more substantial railings or a designated, safe path with steps down the slope.


The bollards like those on the other side of this raised crossing by Castlecombe Drive have somehow vanished, leaving two craters in the Beaumont Road pavement.

More action: Durford Crescent

There are hundreds of potholes still unattended in Roehampton: my team counted almost 50 in Holybourne Avenue alone yesterday, but one of the most neglected roads in the area was Durford Crescent, which runs between Bessborough Road and Wanborough Drive.

I asked for this area to be given top priority and it has been. And we were there on Sunday to check that the holes had all been filled-in.

--------------------------
From: Jolley, Steve
Sent: 25 February 2010 10:30
Cc: Bhatia, Mena
Subject: DTS559344 - State of Durford Crescent
?
I refer to your e-mail dated 11th of February concerning the above, which has been passed to me for reply.

The reported areas were subsequently inspected, and all of the potholes that met the criteria for urgent repair were programmed accordingly.

Orders were then raised for the potholes to be repaired, and I am advised that the repairs have now been completed.

Yours sincerely

Steve Jolley
Assistant On Street Services Manager
London Borough of Wandsworth

Estate gardens

When a lot of estates were originally planned, right across the borough some were designed with garden areas adjacent to the blocks for those on upper floors who couldn't benefit from a backyard of their own.

This was an entirely laudable objective but, as we see above, it's not one that's worked very well in practice, broadly speaking. The picture above is of the gardens to Hascombe House in Dilton Gardens on the Alton estate, but there are examples right across Putney, Wandsworth and indeed London.

The problem, I think, is that these gardens were always exposed - they were never really private spaces that could only be accessed by the householder through their own property, but were plots of land right next to public space and never well-enough fenced or secured to make them vandal-proof or sufficiently private.

The result is as you see above: largely derelict plots, overgrown and flytipped: and what could have been some really useful space has become an eyesore.

There are two ways to resolve problems like this. Either we make an effort to revive these gardens as they were first intended, this time with decent fencing, secure locks and designated tenants responsible for them; or we turn them into proper communal space, landscaped or with facilities the residents can make use of.

The Conservatives, however, have taken the third way on this: just allow the rack and ruin of these gardens without taking any responsibility for them: the worst of all worlds.

It seems crazy to me that on estates where hundreds of residents have no access to gardens of their own, we lack the imagination and creativity to turn these plots into productive, useful spaces. There are huge waiting lists for allotments in Wandsworth and any number of ways we can find the manpower for the first big push that will get the land cleared up and fit for planting. One example I favour would be to use the community payback scheme to get minor offenders contributing productively to those areas they blighted with their criminality.

As I wrote on Sunday, we could allocate some of the money the council gets from all the filming that takes place on the Alton as a down-payment for the new fencing and security needed for these sites. But funding isn't the issue - every year the council carries over tens of thousands of pounds from minor estate improvement budgets meant for exactly this type of work.

No, what is needed is local leadership which, as I keep saying, is so evidently lacking from the Conservatives in Putney and Roehampton. Transforming this space meets so many goals: it smartens up our estates; it gives local people garden and recreation space; and it makes good use of derelict land.

Labour councillors will make this happen - a vote for the Conservatives gets you the sort of dereliction we see in Dilton Gardens.

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?

Weekend casework

These are some of the issues I've been taking up this weekend:



Roehampton Councillor candidate Sean Lawless documents a growing flytip in Ibsley Gardens just behind Fontley Way



One of the thousands of potholes due less to the recent icy weather and more to years of Conservative cuts to road repairs budgets - this one on Fontley Way



Sean Lawless shows how vandalised this phonebox in Ibsley Gardens has been - we've asked the council as managers of the estate to co-operate with BT in getting the window panes reinstalled.



And here uneven paving in Dilton Gardens by Durford Crescent has created pooling despite a drain being right next to the steps: it takes very little effort to fix this. It's relatively minor things like this, repeated hundreds and hundreds of times across the estate that make the Alton look so run down and neglected under the Conservatives.

St John's goes electric

St John's Avenue is going to be one of the first roads in the borough to get some electric car charging points installed.

The power points - funded by the Labour Government, which will be located near the junction with Putney Hill, outside Hill Court, will enable up to two cars to recharge. The electricity will be free to the car user, but as the power points will be based beside two pay-and-display parking bays and it takes 3 hours to fully recharge a vehicle the council will seemingly end up making a substantial profit from each point.

There are already electric power points at Putney Leisure Centre,

My only criticism of the scheme is that, as usual, the Conservative council is trying to overclaim the significance of this scheme. Two electric vehicle charge points are not going to transform the pollution blight in Putney town centre and it's therefore faintly absurd to dress this positive step forward as anything more than a very small step in the right direction.

It's great that our Labour government is funding the set-up costs for power points, because it's quite clear we'd have none if the Conservative council had to fund the installation off its own back.

We need vastly more charge points throughout Putney in order to start making substantial cuts in NOx emissions - something I called for back in the 2009 budget and which I'll work hard on as Putney's MP. At the very least I believe every petrol station should provide power points for electric cars and in due course wouldn't it be nice to see petrol pumps being replaced by power points?

Conservatives now want to block King's Head plan

I get more and more depressed by the Conservatives' disastrous planning policies with every passing planning committee.

At their meeting next week, the Tories want to approve an increase on what is already a gross overdevelopment on the Riverside Quarter which I have written about already; and at the same time look set to reject one of the most impressive plans they're ever likely to see for the derelict King's Head pub in Roehampton village.

Just look at the two plans above. The one they like is the stack-em-up, pile-em-high towerblock plan for an area already creaking under the weight of development. The one they oppose is the modest, sensitive, in-keeping, high quality plan to regenerate a site derelict for getting on for a decade.

The King's Head plans are backed by the local residents association, the Putney Society, the Roehampton Partnership, Wandsworth NHS, Wandsworth Chamber of Commerce. Even the council's own economic development officer is for it.

But the Tories are overruling all of us on the basis that the plans take away too much of the pub garden. Open space is important. But is haggling over a few square metres, when Putney Heath is less than 50 metres away, really of greater importance than making Roehampton village look presentable again, or providing jobs and services for the most deprived part of our area?

It beggars belief that while the Conservatives were hell-bent on driving through damaging and unpopular plans to demolish Danebury Avenue a few months ago - and were only stopped because of the recession, not because they realised their mistake; they are now hell-bent on blocking a widely-supported effort to genuinely regenerate Roehampton.

My message to all the councillors on the planning committee is this: your term of office ends in twelve weeks. You have very few remaining chances to show some leadership. Please approve the King's Head redevelopment plan. Please reject the Riverside Quarter planning application.
Put Putney before party and do what's right for our area.

You can read the Tory Committee report on the King's Head pub here.

And their report approving the Riverside Quarter plan here.

The potholes of Westleigh Avenue

Westleigh Avenue has featured in my "pothole of the week" competition before and look: it's back again!

This is the junction with Carslake Road, near Elliott School:



A close-up of the state of the Carslake Road junction:



In front of Haverstock House on the corner of Carslake Road:



And now on the steep slope from Carslake Road down to Solna Avenue:



Another:



And a third:



At the junction of Solna Avenue:



And another - this one's about 7 inches deep and will do serious damage to car suspensions, not to mention seriously injure any cyclist thrown off their bike because of it:



I find it absolutely astonishing that the Conservatives can find the money to resurface from end to end Hazlewell Road...



...but allow Westleigh Avenue - about 30 metres away from it - to deteriorate to the shocking and dangerous extent that it is in now. Bad judgement, wrong priorities, no leadership. As usual.

I've just reported dozens of potholes throughout the Alton etstate to the council for urgent repair - the worst being Durford Crescent - which runs between Bessborough Road and Wanborough Drive; Swanwick Close, Ibsley Gardens and Danebury Avenue, which can be added to the Harbridge Avenue potholes I reported a few days ago.

The Conservatives are in meltdown over their neglect of Putney's streets. They simply cannot cope with this most basic of competences that I'd expect any council asking to be re-elected in elections in twelve weeks' time to be able to manage.

But remember, the only way to punish the Tories in Putney is to vote Labour: only the Conservatives and Labour have any councillors in Wandsworth and we're the only ones that can beat them in any of the council races in our area.

Wandsworth - 2nd in London's Pothole League of Shame

It's official: as well as being the most flytipped borough in London, Wandsworth has, after Croydon, the most potholes in the capital.

Figures provided in last night's Evening Standard show that fewer than 1 in 3 of those reported - and remember that reported potholes grossly undercount the actual number of potholes in the area - are repaired by the Conservative council.

And it's little wonder when this straightforward fact is exposed - admitted by the Conservatives at a council meeting last week.

In 2000/1 Wandsworth council spent £3.5 million on road resurfacing.

In 2006/7 they'd slashed that to £2.1 million.

That's a 40% cut in the budget.

So next time the Tories blame the weather for the pitiful state of roads in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, put the blame straight back where it belongs: on the penny-pinching Conservatives who can't even keep our streets repaired.

Remember: keeping our pavements and roads in good condition is the fundamental competence we should measure every single council against.

The state of Edwyn House

This is a video one of my volunteers took a few days ago whilst delivering letters about my campaign to save the 28 bus. Edwyn House is the middle of the three Arndale estate blocks in Neville Gill Close. I've written regularly about my concerns about the condition the Conservative council keeps the Arndale, and this is just the latest example.

Litter-strewn stairwells, heaven-knows-what stuck to the ceiling, nazi graffiti, roof panels torn out and general neglect are all shown in the above film - and all things I report over and over and over again to the Conservative council - but who never act to sort out the problem long term.

As I've said before: the Conservative MP and Conservative councillors for the Arndale wouldn't dream of putting up with such disgusting conditions where they live - so why should residents of the Arndale have to?

It's one rule for the Conservatives and another for everyone else in Putney. And here's the difference a Labour vote makes: live-in caretakers for the Arndale who'll have a stake in keeping the area clean because they'll live there too.

Labour councillors who'll make regular inspections of the blocks - not just the Neville Gill Close blocks but Wentworth Court, Eliot Court and Sudbury House - so that they really are up to the standard residents should expect.

Far tougher action on those caught littering, defacing the buildings or vandalising the blocks - those responsible for this damage (or their parents) should get one warning, have the damage added to their rent, and if the problem persists face eviction.

And far more regular deep cleans of the blocks - simply because they house so many families that the amount of wear and tear each will experience is greater than other housing estates in the borough.

That's what electing me your local MP, and Matt Hay, Alex Lisinge and Tom Marsom as your local Labour councillors, will achieve.

More casework from the Alton

Sadly, the disgusting state of Harbridge Avenue yesterday wasn't the only problem I'm having to raise with the Conservative council today.

Similar problems of overflowing bin chambers and flytips at Portswood Place:



And a cleaning contractor that thinks just sweeping rubbish into a great heap and leaving it passes as acceptable cleanliness - also at Portswood Place (with the Methodist Church in the background):



A flytip on the corner of Minstead Gardens and Portswood Place:



And here several of the wooden bollards at the bottom end of Minstead Gardens have been damaged but heck, despite Minstead Gardens comprising sheltered housing for the elderly, why on earth fix the dangerous holes and loose paving the damage has caused - just stick a cone nearby and hope no-one injures themselves:



Another flytip in Minstead Gardens - at the top by Richmond Park. The Conservative jobsworths will say this isn't on their land. I guess it's ok to just leave this festering eyesore then?



And I'm not sure how long it's been since the council's out-of-town couldn't-care-less cleaning contractor cleared up the Sherfield Gardens verge along Danebury Avenue but aside from being littered from one end to the other, it also has been flytipped with a sofabed and a pinball machine:



Finally, to add to the Conservatives' collection of potholes, this one in Swanwick Close is about seven inches deep and a real hazard to anyone coming down the slope from Minstead Gardens or Chadwick Close - just one of several potholes in the vicinity, including at the bus stop by the bull sculpture:



The two posts from the Alton I've published today can be summarised in four simple words:

Conservatives: couldn't care less.

Harbridge Groundhog Day

You may recall that late last year I posted some of the photos my campaign team took of Harbridge Avenue: overflowing bins spilling their detritis all over the pavements; flooded pathways, potholes, grass verges torn up by vehicles driving over them to cut corners.

When I highlight issues like these, as you would expect I also take them up directly with the council and they replied on 12 December last year promising to...well, do not very much to improve this environment for residents.

And as a result, look what we found when we were in Harbridge again yesterday.

The grass verge even more damaged and rutted:



The road surface even more damaged and potholed - and take my word for it when I say I have six or seven other photos the entire length of Harbridge Avenue of pothole after pothole:



The completely unacceptable, envrionmental health-risk overflowing rubbish bins and flytips that go uncleared. The Conservatives helpfully tell us: "The Council's waste collection contractor, Biffa, are not contracted to collect overspill waste left on the floor." So either contract them to, or increase refuse collections so residents have no resort other than to flytip:



More examples from the other side of Harbridge:



And why can't the refuse bins be stored in the bin chambers? Because the bin chambers are almost as full of it as the Conservatives are:



Here, Peter Carpenter, one of Labour's Roehampton council candidates, highlights the fact that every single sapling planted in Harbridge Avenue has been vandalised. The answer: plant more mature trees that are far harder to destroy - don't just leave the support stakes forlornly where the saplings once stood:



...And another example of the tree vandalism:


Peter inspects the flytip which I've reported along with all the other problems listed here - and plenty others which I'll write about in a blog post this afternoon.



Elections are about choices. Roehampton can choose to continue with the Conservatives who leave their environment in this state and say it is beyond their ability to do anything to improve it. Conservatives who wouldn't dream of putting up with this where they live - but who think it's fine for council estate residents.

Or you can vote for change - vote for councillors who say: "This is disgusting and unacceptable - but it doesn't have to be like this."

A Labour vote will restore council caretakers to our estates - replacing the out-of-town, couldn't-care-less cleaning contractor the Tories keep rehiring. Labour councillors in Roehampton will work with me to invest in a respectable environment in places like Harbridge Avenue - because one thing's for sure: if the council can't be bothered to take care of an area, they're in no position whatsoever to lecture local people to do so.

Simply put: a Labour vote says: "enough's enough".

Small mercies

Just about the only thing the latest plans for the Riverside Quarter have going for them are that they aren't this idea they came up with - and fortunately withdrew - in 2008.

"Thank heavens for small mercies" is an understandable feeling looking at this alien monstrosity - but just because the new plans aren't this awful doesn't mean they deserve approval.

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.

Tideway Tunnel feature in the Standard

There was a big report in last week's Evening Standard about the Thames Tideway Tunnel: Thames Water's plans to build a super-sewer under the Thames from the Hammersmith area to Beckton in the east end to end the dumping of raw sewage into the river whenever we experience heavy rain.

This is a project that's going to affect Putney - adversely while it's being built, but beneficially once our Thames isn't polluted by millions of gallons of raw sewage.

You can read the Evening Standard story here, and I've written more about issues relating to the Thames here.

Alcohol Zone: Roehampton says yes, Tories say no

I've just read the response from the Conservative council to the petition of over 600 Roehampton and Putney residents calling for an Alcohol Exclusion Zone for Roehampton.

It's riddled with inaccuracies, jargon and excuses not to act. I'll give you just five:

First, that "no alcohol exclusion zones are known to have been established in the UK." Well, they may not know it, but had they done a quick google search, they could have educated themselves quite easily. How about Rotherham, Winchester, Pontefract, East Lothian, North Tyneside - shall I go on? If the Conservatives are so ignorant as to make such basic mistakes, what confidence can we have in anything else they have to say?

Second:"The practicality of this approach in such a small area where displacement is likely [is] merely likely to displace the problem to the immediate vicinity around the zone".

Well, that depends what the immediate vicinity is, doesn't it? If it's just the shopping parade at Danebury Avenue then of course there could be displacement: to Portswood Place or Petersfield Rise or the village. And no one's arguing for that - I'm certainly not. If, however, the AEZ covers an area bounded by Richmond Park, Priory Lane, Clarence Lane, Roehampton Lane and a perimeter around the village, the only places left for street drinkers to disperse are heaths and parks. And they won't disperse there because there is no ready supply of alcohol for them in the middle of Richmond Park.

But then, just listen to their third argument: that were a zone to be implemented, it would "need to be large and as a result difficult to justify".

Hang on: one minute their case is that an AEZ won't work because it will be too small, but now it's because it will be too large! Which is it? And it's even more baffling given that Winchester's AEZ covers the whole of the city, and Bromley's covers the whole of Beckenham town centre: far bigger areas than Roehampton. And they're working fine, thank you.

Fourth, they conjour up a figure of £10,000 to create the AEZ - a figure they offer no substantiation for and which, incidentally, pales into inconsequence compared to the £350,000 they've just squandered on their aborted Danebury demolition debacle.

The fifth is just about the most bizarre claim you'll ever hear a council make. They claim that an AEZ would demand the confiscation of all alcohol - open or not, from anyone - drinking it or not, without exception. I've got to ask: do you really believe Rotherham, with its city-wide AEZ, is a 1930s prohibition mecca? Or Tyneside? Or the entire city of Winchester? The Conservatives make fools of themselves, and show their contempt for the people of Roehampton, with such absurd claims.

We then get more of the same weak and ineffective excuses for a lack of action so far: that it's a new problem (no it isn't); that their current efforts have changed habits (no they haven't); that the problem's diminished in the cold weather (yes it has but do you really think it won't return the moment it's not freezing cold?); that the drinkers are mainly local (so what?) and that getting them to sign slips of paper promising to be good are far more effective ways of dealing with them (need I comment on this!?).

For some reason the Conservative are afraid to take the action Roehampton needs to deal with this problem. I don't know what the source of that fear is, but it exists and it's failing Roehampton.

Let me put it this way: Roehampton did not just create a 600-signature petition, which could have been double or treble that size with very little extra work, to get such a peremptory, dismissive and weak response. They signed up in droves because they want action - and for us all that action is long overdue. But it's clear we won't get it from this lot.

Before and after

Sometimes it's quite hard to keep together all the disperse overdevelopment threats there are to our area. But these two "before and after" pictures of the Riverside Quarter show, I hope, why this is such a critically important issue.

They're from the developers' architects themselves, submitted as part of the planning application and still available on the council website.

Here's what the Riverside Quarter looks like today:



And here's how it will look as a result of a series of planning mistakes the Conservatives have made for this area:



To me, the first looks like Putney. The second one looks like a scene out of Miami Vice - garish modern buildings, out of all scale to the human environment, piled up one on top of another. And just to put the sheer scale of this in perspective: the 21 storey tower I've been opposing is barely visible to the left at the back - still sticking out above other tall buildings closer to the river clumped around it.

This isn't how the rest of Putney has to end up. Fortunately we have Wandsworth Park to stop the type of development that has turned the Thames into a canyon from Wandsworth right up to Vauxhall encroaching any further our way. But then remember that the developers aren't even looking at this as an opportunity - they want to run their towers up Upper Richmond Road and down Buckhold Road, gridlocking central Wandsworth and packing even more people into an area where the infrastructure is already bulging at the seems.

Ashburton playpond is no more

I've just had this reply from the Housing Department about the now-famous "playpond" - the play area that flooded with rainwater last Autumn unbeknownst to the area's Conservative councillors who claim to patrol the area regularly.

"I am pleased to advise that the repairs to both the underground drainage and the play equipment are now complete. All that remains is for the cleaning contractor to jet wash a growth of moss from the safety surface, which cannot be done currently with the likelihood of freezing. The position is being monitored but the playground will remain locked in any event pending an improvement in the weather."

That's great - but of course the housing department also need to fix the dangerous play equipment that closed the play area in the first place. I hope they'll do so before the spring so that local kids on the Ashburton estate can again use the play equipment they deserve.

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.

The King's Head, Roehampton: a plan to support

This is the architect's drawing of how the King's Head pub site in Roehampton High Street could look, if a new planning application for a hotel wins approval by the council.

The plan will not only redevelop the King's Head itself - the oldest non-religious structure in the Putney area - but also the site next door where there's currently a tanning salon, plus the derelict hous adjacent to the Angel Pub.

These plans, which you can see do not extend much above the level of the King's Head pub, provide a hotel of large enough size to be financially viable (if the trade can be obtained); utilise a site that's been an eye-sore for far too long; will provide local employment opportunities for the Roehampton community and maintain the site in keeping with its history and character.

This is what regeneration is all about. So far there have been very few comments on the plans - which in itself suggest they are not provoking a wave of local hostility. I disagree with the one all-out opponent of the plan that Roehampton does not need a new public house - it does; and I don't accept that a venue which serves alcohol means as of certainty that there will be problems with the clientele (but he is right to note there most certainly were in the past).

No, you can more often than not tell what sort of venue a pub or hotel is going to be by the effort the owners invest in the building; and a hotel pub is of a much different nature to an out-and-out pub in any event.

I support this application - and anyone else who is passionate about reviving Roehampton will I hope do likewise. Conservative council please take note: THIS is what genuine regeneration and improvement to an area looks like - not the disastrous botch of a scheme you tried to impose on the top of Danebury Avenue.

Find out more about the application: No. 2009/3483 here.