Saving local gardens

An issue I predict will become massive in the coming years is the loss of green space in urban environments like Putney's. In the past 20 years, two thirds of front gardens in London have been paved-over. Just think about that stark statistic for a moment.

Throughout the constituency, concern has been growing about the loss of front and rear gardens due to three factors:

• Turning front gardens into hard standings to park cars on
• Excavating basements, which also involves the loss of a large chunk of front and/or rear gardens
• The more recent phenomenon of residents with large gardens selling off chunks to build new homes on

Pressure from all three of these factors is certain to grow as the credit crunch reduces the likelihood of people to be able to move home, and financial pressures encourage us all to look at new ways of utilising our assets to make more money.

This isn't exactly a new issue: residents on the Dover House Estate in particular have been concerned about the loss of front gardens for several years now and basement excavations have been increasingly common throughout the past decade.

You may have seen London Mayor Boris Johnson recently discover the wonder of roof-top gardens, as if they're something he's invented. They're important; and they'll become more so, but they're no compensation for that two-thirds loss of front garden green space.

But what does this really matter? There's actually a really serious consequence to this loss of garden space - and not just some aesthetic impact that cutting down a few trees and bushes and concreting over some lawns will have.

Over the past three or four years, parts of the constituency - including Roehampton, the parts of Southfields alongside the Wandle and parts of central Putney - have all been affected by flash flooding caused by sudden very heavy downpours that the drain system locally can't cope with. Gardens help drain this water away. Without them, the impact of flash flooding worsens - and bear in mind that ours is an area liable to flooding from the Thames, Wandle and even Beverley Brook. And because ours is a hilly area, those who live at the foot of hills have to absorb the cascading water pouring down upon them as well as their own share of heavy rainfall.

People have a right to expand their living space within reason. But I am against allowing front gardens to be turned into car parks and back or side gardens to be sold off to cram another unit of housing into our already densely populated community, however much a nice little earner that may be for the landowner.

New entry in worst Putney pothole competition

Residents of The Platt, just across the road from my campaign HQ in Felsham Road, have a very strong entry into my Putney potholes competition. This is the state the Council has allowed Gay Street, on the estate, to fall into:



Here are a couple of close-ups of what can no longer be called a road - more like a gravel track (you can click to enlarge):



The state of Gay Street - and a lot of the roads on Putney's council estates - leave much to be desired, though of course as my earlier post, here shows, The Council aren't discriminating: they're neglecting all roads equally as dreadfully.

Do you know of a pothole worse than this one? Let me know - email stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk or sms it to 07533 384 895 and we'll add it to our gallery. Sooner or later, even Wandsworth Conservatives will be shamed into taking action on their neglect of our roads.

Putney going to pot (holes)

Working my way around the constituency, I have to comment on the quite appalling state of many of the roads in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields.

I'm reminded of the Beatles' song "A Day In The Life":

Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. And though the holes were rather small they had to count them all: now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

If the Beatles had been around today, they could have substituted "Putney, Wandsworth" for "Blackburn, Lancashire" though I suspect the town hall has no idea how many holes there are in our streets.

There was even a letter in the Wandsworth Guardian from someone from Tooting about this problem last week. It made the - perfectly reasonable - point that low council tax is no excuse for leaving our streets in the state they're in: maintaining our highways is a fundamental duty of any council and our Conservative one is failing in it.

I'd like town hall bosses to visit Victoria Drive or Putney Heath - to single out just two of Putney's potholed streets - and see exactly how bad things have got. But the problem affects every part of the constituency: Danebury Avenue and Harbridge Avenue in Roehampton, Holroyd Road in West Putney and Kingsmere Road in West Hill - these are just a selection of roads from across Putney (click on each for the full size photo).

If you've got a pothole in your street, take a photo of it and send it to me: email stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk or text 07533 384 895. I'll keep logging further examples of the council's neglect of our streets as I'm out and about around the constituency.

Together we may be able to shame the Conservatives into taking proper care of Putney's potholed roads.

Redevelopment in Putney

We're facing an increasing wave of plans to build huge tower blocks in our patch. Rising land prices and the general lack of space in London is prompting developers to build up rather than out.

A couple of years ago, the first of these applications, for the site at the top of East Hill above the Wandsworth Bridge roundabout, was rightly rejected by the Council; a slightly less tall block is now almost complete.

Today we have three "landmark" buildings proposed for the area:

• Putney Place, opposite East Putney tube in the triangle between the two railway viaducts plans for two tower blocks: one of 25 storeys and one of 19.
• On the corner of Carlton Drive and Upper Richmond Road a 20-storey building is being proposed to replace the Capsticks building - I wrote last year about loopholes in the council's planning rules that enable developers to leave office buildings derelict and then convert them into windfall residential blocks
• And in Wandsworth town on the Ram brewery site, another set of twin towers are being planned that, hard to believe, will actually dwarf the blocks on the Arndale Estate, which currently hold the record for the highest towers in the constituency

My views on these so-called "landmark" building are the subject of my latest Putney SW15 parliamentary report, which you can read here.

The risk of flooding

Yesterday the Environment Agency held an exhibition and consultation at St Mary's Church about its plans to protect riparian communities like Putney from the growing threat of flooding.

Although this is a chance for us to have a say over how the powers that be protect the Thames area from flood risk through to 2100, the exhibition was as much a chance to reassure residents that Putney and London are not at any imminent risk of severe tidal flooding.

Protecting against severe flooding also needs to be offset against, for example, the visual impact of flood barriers. Many would argue that a great concrete wall along the Putney embankment similar to the one in Barnes would not be worth the loss of our riverside vistas or accessibility to the foreshore for pedestrians and rowers alike.

The Environment Agency is also looking at protecting communities that live alongside the Thames's tributaries - in our neck of the woods that means those in Southfields and Wandsworth town living near the Wandle, and the Roehampton and Putney Common areas alongside Beverley Brook.

Given that both these areas experienced some flooding during last Summer's downpours, the Agency is looking at ways of diverting "fresh water" floodwater (as opposed to tidal floodwater) onto flood plain land and away from homes; meaning in the case of The Wandle onto King George's Park, and in respect of Beverley Brook Richmond Park and Barnes Common.

But the underlying message to come out of the consultation was that London is secure from flooding; the Thames Barrier - while it needs some strengthening - is still fit for purpose for decades to come; that we do not yet need a new barrier further towards the estuary and that communities like Putney, if we do experience flooding, will do so due to freak downpours of rain rather than tidal surges.

You can find out a whole lot more about the flood risk, what the Environment Agency is proposing to do to protect us, and have your own say, by visiting: www.environment-agency.gov.uk/te2100

A new park for the Wandle area?

A consultation has been launched over plans to create a park that will be one of the largest in the world along the Wandle valley. The plan would join together all the open spaces along the river to create one seamless parkland environment for almost the entire length of the Wandle from Sutton to the Thames.

This project, which would create a park several times larger in total area than either Hyde Park or New York's Central Park, is a collaborative venture led by the Mayor for London and the environmental regeneration charity Groundwork London. I'm a big fan of Groundwork - it's high time Wandsworth had it's own Groundwork and their involvement lends this project significant credibility. The local boroughs the Wandle runs through are also partners.

You can find out a little more about the plans and have your say at http://www.wandlevalleypark.org.uk/. The site also contains a history of the Wandle and other facts and figures about the Wandle Valley.

The sell-off and sell-out of Barn Elms

Barn Elms is a local treasure. It provides acres of school playing fields and other recreational facilities right on the edge of our borough, just across Beverley Brook.

Now, Liberal Democrat-run Richmond Council is planning to sell-off a sizeable chunk of the site - which would include the athletics track - to a private developer for a luxury sports centre most of us will never be able to afford.

By now, I'd have thought politicians of all colours would have understood that the consequence of selling off playing fields is unfit children and worsening obesity. That self-evident truth is clearly lost on Richmond Liberal Democrats.

Before joining my current Sunday league football side based in Roehampton Vale, I played for Fulham Compton Old Boys which was based on Putney Common just behind Barn Elms - so I'm not just sounding off about this issue - I've directly benefited from this local open space for sport.

As someone heavily involved in politics, I come across so many examples of the Liberal Democrats hypocrisy over issues like this. Just google "Liberal Democrat playing field sell off" and you'll get a tirade of examples of Lib Dems campaigning to defend playing fields - it was even a manifesto pledge of theirs - and just as many examples of Lib Dem councils selling them off. Richmond is just the latest.

Of course, it's easy to be against sell-off. Successive councils have evidently struggled to generate revenue from Barn Elms, which is no doubt a substantial drain on council tax. Equally, councils have shown time and time again that they are not the best entrepreneurs around - ill equiped to market themselves or their assets to the maximum and often excluded from applying for grants from outside sources to help finance them.

In such circumstances, I'd like serious consideration given to creating a trust or conservatorship for Barn Elms - to protect this precious land from the short-termist instincts of councillors and establish an organisation solely responsible for and interested in the protection, preservation and success of Barn Elms.

Life returns to the Wandle

I reported last November on Thames Water's accidental release of chemicals into the River Wandle that wiped out wildlife for hundreds of metres downstream.

I'm pleased to report that after coughing up 500,000 - the least Thames Water could do to make up for their debacle - signs of life are returning to the river. Trout have been spotted in the affected area, which is great news.

While I don't want to sound like some latter day Huckleberry Finn, I grew up alongside the Wandle and I think London's minor rivers are among the capital's greatest treasures. So many of them have either dried up or been paved over as the city expanded and grew that it's really important to cherish the rivers that run through our urban, built-up environment.

That's why the return of wildlife to the river, alongside more active efforts to return the area's indigenous creatures like water voles - which I've also blogged about - is news to be celebrated.

How much of our recycling gets recycled?

This story in this week's Wandsworth Guardian raises real concerns about how serious the supposedly newly "green" Conservatives really are about recycling.

Throughout my time as a councillor constituents raised concerns about whether the recycling they took the effort to sort out (and remember the days when we had different coloured sacks for different recyclables, to be put out on different weeks?!) just ended up in landfill.

This story is in a different league because there isn't even the pretense that our recycling is going to the right place: recycling mixed in with refuse is going to end up in a landfill site and is contaminated (ie unusable) even if the council sought to claim it would at some later point be separated out.

This is an issue I spent a lot of time on as a councillor - I was Labour's environment spokesman on the council for eight years, and working with Labour colleagues from neighbouring boroughs brought pressure on Wandsworth to introduce the Orange sack scheme at a time when the Tories wanted to build a health-threat super-incinerator rather than invest in recycling.

I'm all for value-for-money services. But as was shown during the debacle over Wandsworth Museum, or the retendering of the street cleaning contract two years ago, or the retendering of the refuse contract just before that, the Council isn't interested in value any more; just in any old bargain-basement contractor regardless of quality. And the consequence is corners get cut.

No wonder Wandsworth lags behind on recycling.

Council tree ban - what's the real story?

The Wandsworth Guardian today reports on a campaign by a resident of Felsham Road, close to my campaign HQ, to get some trees planted in nearby Mascotte Street. The Council has claimed that the reason they won't plant any is a fear of damaging the houses and that it costs too much. But that's a strange argument on any number of levels.

First that hasn't stopped them planting trees in any number of streets throughout the borough. Second, any Arboriculturalist will tell you that trees' roots seek out water - so they only attempt to bury into houses if, for example, a sewer is cracked and leaking or where there is major damp - in which case the householder has far more serious problems than trees! Where a house is well looked after there should be no threat of structural damage - especially if trees of a scale appropriate to the streetscape are planted.

I very much doubt that residents of the small terraced steets behin Putney High Street are seeking massive Oaks, Sycamores or Horse Chestnut trees; but modest Rowan or Crab Apple trees would improve the area no end.

In fact, the most common reason why street trees can't be planted is because of underground cables and pipes that we all rely on for electricity, phonelines, cable TV, gas and water. Even in these cases there is usually enough space for one or two trees in any given street, but the council hasn't even ventured that as an excuse this time around.

So come on Wandsworth Council - stop conjouring up scare stories and instead get back to greening Putney! The Guardian story is here.

Tory Wandsworth: the fly-tip capital of London

Figures just released by the Department for the Environment (DEFRA) have revealed that Wandsworth is the most fly-tipped borough in London.

There were - wait for it - a staggering 158,076 incidents of fly-tipping the council had reported to it: and those are just the cases the council picked up! Astonishingly, Wandsworth accounts for 1 in every 4 fly-tips in the entire capital. The council spent almost £4 million of your money on the problem, and yet only managed a measly 18 prosecutions last year.

This is an issue close to my heart because for eight years I was Labour's Environment spokesman locally and spent a lot of my time forcing the council to clean up grot-spots all over the borough but especially in Roehampton (like the one pictured in Hersham Close above).

So it's little surprise to me that these new figures have found Wandsworth lagging badly, because whatever this council does well, keeping our streets clean isn't it. Over the past three years complaints about street cleaning have soared. We've seen how popular my campaign to improve the shameful state of Putney High Street has been. We've had scandal after scandal with the refuse contract.

Why is Wandsworth is so much dirtier than other boroughs? Why are fly-tippers more prepared to treat our area as a dumping ground for their rubbish? How can we do better? One of the ideas I've urged the council to adopt is to provide borough residents with a free collection of larger/heavier items of waste from their home - which in one stroke removes such incentive as there is to flytip. That's a service residents of Hammersmith & Fulham get - and their council spends barely 20% of Wandsworth on flytipping as a result because it's much less of a problem.

My experience of dealing day-in, day-out with this issue for almost a decade is that this council just isn't getting to grips with it. There doesn't seem to be the leadership to tackle it. Because improving the local environment has been my political priority for years and years, you can rest assured that as MP I'll provide the leadership so evidently lacking here.

Here are the DEFRA council-by-council figures and here's the BBC coverage of the story

Thames Water must put their house in order

I am one of those who thinks that Thames Water got off lightly earlier today with their 12 million OFWAT fine.

A newly published report by the Health Protection Agency has just found that on less than 1% of days when water from the river Thames was tested levels of hazardous bio-organisms were within acceptable World Health Organisation (WHO) levels.

One of the main reasons for this is that whenever it rains very heavily, Thames Water can't cope with the sewage and so jettison it straight into the Thames, upstream of Putney. This is disgusting, unhealthy and damaging to wildlife - not to mention rowers. It has to stop.

Thames Water have a track record. They have the worst record on broken pipes and water leaks of any water company in the UK. Last year they cut pressure through their mains which required extra pumps to be installed (at residents' expense) in blocks in Roehampton and West Hill. Their poor customer service is the reason for the record OFWAT fine.

It just isn't good enough for Thames Water to whine that instead of being fined this money could have been invested in improved service. Yes, it could: but this is the same company that last year claimed they couldn't improve upon pipe repairs because they were doing the absolute best possible. Well, a filthy river isn't the best possible. Cutting supplies isn't the best possible. Wasting water through record leaks whilst lecturing the rest of us on conserving water isn't the best possible. And record profits coupled with huge water rate increases isn't the best possible. Thames Water: must do better.

You can read the Health Protection Agency report here.

Voles for the Wandle

The River Wandle and Beverley Brook form, respectively, large parts of the boundary of the Putney constituency: the Wandle separating Southfields from Wandsworth, Earlsfield and Tooting; and Beverley Brook Putney from Richmond Park, East Sheen and Barnes. They are also hidden from public view - and perhaps therefore overlooked - for much of their length - either being routed under development like the Arndale or just difficult to access.

The London Wildlife Trust (LWT) has just announced plans to reintroduce Water Voles, which once were a substantial part of the Wandle's character, following a successful project in nearby Watermeads Island in Mitcham earlier this year. The Water Vole is one of Britain's fastest declining mammals, partly due to human encroachment on their habitat but also because Mink have been hunting them. Shockingly, there is now only one water vole for every 20 that existed just 80 years ago.

The last Wandle Vole was spotted in the 1960s but flood protection work in the 1970s is thought to have ensured their demise. This project, which I fully support, should also see other forms of wildlife cultivated, including dragonflies and Irises, and lead to an even more diverse, interesting and beautiful Wandle.

You can find out more about this and other London Wildlife Trust projects (as well as taking their quiz to find out what London Animal you most closely resemble!) by clicking here and you can visit the River Wandle - which exits into the Thames in Wandsworth town just past Point Pleasant - at a number of spots but especially from King George's Park in Southfields.