What's going to be left?

Shortly after I sent in the 600+ petitions from the Roehampton area demanding action from the Conservative-run council on street-drinking in the Danebury Avenue area, the Tories responded firstly by denying there was any problem - and if there was one they had fixed it (this was in the middle of the coldest winter in recent years).

They said no other council had ever implemented the sort of alcohol exclusion zone I was calling for - yet a straightforward google of those three words provides a great list of councils who have done exactly that.

And they said that even if there was a problem - the same problem they'd just denied the existence of - the same failed policies they'd been applying would fix it even though they've failed for years.

But then the Conservatives decided to take action. First they removed the benches outside the library - a favoured gathering place for the street drinkers admittedly. So they moved across the road to sit on the stone benches outside the post office. A move that made people accessing post office services - especially the ATM there - very uncomfortable.

So now the Tories have taken those benches out too.

This is an ingenious plan by the Conservatives. Rather than just ban street drinking in the area, they are choosing to strip from Roehampton every facility used by the street drinkers until there's going to be nothing left. What's the next step - evict all the shops from Danebury Avenue and Roehampton until there's nowhere for them (or anyone else) to buy anything?

We already know the Tories want to concrete over the green beside the library because it was in their crazy demolition plans for Danebury Avenue - so perhaps they'll bring that idea forward so there's no grass on which they can gather either?

They should probably demolish the wall by the library the drinkers are now sitting on, even though it keeps the pavement around the library from subsiding into the green - but why worry about that?

No. The Conservatives have completely lost the plot. They're not removing facilities that only street drinkers use: they're punishing the entire community around the town centre by removing these facilities. It's as if they think it's Roehampton's fault the Conservatives can't or won't deal with street drinkers.

Well it isn't - it's the Conservatives' failure, not Roehampton's. It only becomes the responsibility of Roehampton if, despite all the evidence of Conservative neglect, failure and incompetence, on May 7th the people of Roehampton wake up to the same Tory MP and councillors they've just re-elected.

My priorities for Putney: fighting overdevelopment

The overdevelopment of Putney and Wandsworth is the biggest local threat our area faces. The Conservatives here have a stack-em-up, pile-em-high mentality without consideration of quality of life, the character of our area, the strain on roads, services and infrastructure or the desirability of burying Putney under skyscrapers. All the time Putney's Tory MP has tried her hardest not to get involved in this critical issue.

Putney is not Manhattan. The principal reason Putney is such a great place is because it is a human-scale built environment.

That's why I was involved in the battle to stop the Putney Place, Tileman House and Danebury Avenue overdevelopment plans; and why I continue to fight hard to stop the overdevelopment of the Riverside Quarter and the Ram Brewery site.

We can't just be against progress of any sort - and I'm not. I believe we need a strong plan for Putney that tells developers clearly what is and is not acceptable here. That should avoid them wasting time and money on consultants and campaigns; and save the community time and effort fighting battles that sheer weight of numbers will eventually win. I've set out time and again what I want to see instead in my plan for Putney, and that's what I'll work to implement if I become your MP.

Read the news articles I've written on this website about overdevelopment here

Visit my pages on the Riverside Quarter overdevelopment

Visit my pages on the Tileman House overdevelopment from 2009 here

Visit my pages on the Putney Place overdevelopment from 2008 here.

Visit my pages on the Danebury Avenue overdevelopment from 2009 here.

Read the "No more towers" edition of the Putney Paper from summer 2008 here.

Read my "Plan for Putney" edition of the Putney Paper from New Year 2009 here.

Heathrow Judgement a welcome respite for Putney

Last week's High Court judgement requiring the government to look again at the environmental impact of Heathrow's third runway gives Putney a welcome respite from the threat of ever-increasing expansion of our largest airport. It's a decision I very much welcome. I applaud the hard work and efforts of the large coalition of South and West London MPs and councils of all political persuasions (including Wandsworth Council) who helped deliver yesterday's judgement.

There is, however, a very real weakness in the basis of the High Court ruling: and that is that it was based on the need for the Government to review whether its Heathrow plans accord with its own Climate Change Act.

Since aviation is a tiny, albeit growing contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, (the biggest contributers by far are road transport, heavy industry and agriculture) the Government is likely to respond by arguing that it can meet its climate change obligations despite its plans to expand Heathrow. We have a very strong argument against the expansion of Heathrow, but the climate change argument is the weakest amongst them.

All of us who have campaigned against Heathrow expansion need to continue our efforts. Friday's judgement was a welcome and moral boosting victory - but the battle will continue beyond the outcome of this year's election. I am resolute in my opposition to the expansion of Heathrow. A vote for me will be a vote in Parliament against Heathrow expansion.

Patching rather than fixing: typical Tories

I've long since given up highlighting the disgusting state of Putney's potholed roads - made that way not because of the winter weather but simply through years of the Tories starving the highways budget of cash.

Their policy is simple: never resurface a road if they think they can get away with patching it - and never patch a road they think they can get away with neglecting entirely.

Well, this is Tildesley Road, which runs from Putney Heath through the Ashburton Estate. It exemplifies the absurdity of the Tory patching policy: just count the patches they've put down here - all to no avail.

Patching, as I've written before, is a false economy - one instance of patching will obviously not cost as much as properly, professionally resurfacing a road; but the problem with patching is that - outside Wandsworth - it's never intended as a permanent fix: it's just a stop-gap before more serious attention can be given to the road.

The consequence is that patches are shortlived - as you can see with Tildesley Road. They rapidly erode, and they erode quickly the more intensively the road is used. So the council has to return again, and again, and again to make right the erosion as well as fill in new potholes that emerge in the same areas. And that costs you - it doesn't cost the council: you're paying through it via your council tax - far more in the long run than the Tories properly funding and managing their road maintenance programme.

This isn't rocket science - it's basic housekeeping. The Conservatives, for all their talk of being value for money, show with their dereliction of duty to the basic services we should all be able to expect from our council, that they simply have no idea how to manage a budget.

Reward this Tory incompetence at the council elections in May. A vote for any party other than Labour helps the Tories win again. And you'll get more of the same if they win again.

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.