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.

Fair parking for Brewhouse Lane

Residents of the Putney Wharf development just behind Putney Bridge became the latest to contact me about unfair council parking restrictions in their area.

Just as residents of the Whitelands Park and SW15H developments - mainly, but not exclusively key workers - have fallen between two stools because they have either not been allocated or cannot afford to buy an exhorbitantly priced off-street parking space and, simultaneously, the Conservative council is refusing to even allow them to apply for an on-street residents' parking permit.

The motivation behind the policy of tackling parking stress is sound, but it is only fairly applied if residents are treated equally; by which I mean that all residents must either be given an affordable off-street parking space or, if the intent is to promote car-free living, no off-street spaces should be provided for anyone.

However, in respect of Putney Wharf we have won a small victory. I have persuaded the council to remove the permit-holder only restrictions in Brewhouse Lane - the road just behind Putney Cinema that runs down to the Thames. Because the only residents in the vicinity of Brewhouse Lane are, in fact, residents of Putney Wharf there is a strong case for the few bays in this road to be shared-use, rather than permit-holder only.

This will enable residents who do not have off-street parking spaces in the Putney Wharf development and their guests to park closer to their homes.

As a consequence of my campaigning on this and other parking problems created by the council's short-sighted, dogmatic parking scheme - behind the SW15H development in East Putney and Whitelands Park behind West Hill - Councillors have admitted that they got this wrong and are reviewing its parking policies.

I hope that residents of any future developments in Putney will therefore be spared the frustration and inconvenience that some - too many - have been subjected to.

Transport Police now patrolling Putney

The British Transport Police have just set up a new team specialising in patrolling stations in South West London, including Putney.

The team of nine officers, based at station 9 in Clapham Junction will be focussed particularly on cutting down assaults, but will be taking on any policing concerns on the rail network in south west London, including drug dealing and knife crime.

The team was only launched this week, and they've already arrested what appears to be a gang member carrying a six-inch long kitchen knife who assaulted a police officer.

The stations covered by the team include Clapham Junction, Wimbledon, Richmond, Staines, Twickenham, Earlsfield, Mortlake, Norbiton, Putney, Strawberry Hill, Wandsworth Town, Kingston, Feltham, Hampton Wick, Raynes Park, New Malden, Teddington, St Margarets, North Sheen, Barnes, Whitton and Ashford.

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.

Southfields' Olympic lift

One of the Conservatives' campaign pledges at the last general election was that, if they won Putney, Southfields station and the District Line in general would receive a massive overhaul: a longer platform to accommodate longer trains, air conditioned trains, more trains and a more accessible station.

Of these, the only one they have even tried to claim they have delivered on is the last: a more accessible station - because Southfields is going to get a passenger lift in the next few years. I believe in giving credit where it's due; even to Putney's Conservative MP if and when she is personally responsible for improvements to local facilities as she has claimed in respect of the Southfields Station lift.

So when I met recently with the Transport for London official responsible for District Line services I was really surprised to discover that, contrary to Tory claims, the reason Southfields is getting a lift is solely because it's an Olympic Station: the Tennis Olympics take place at the All England Club, just down the road. As I say, I'm more than happy to credit Justine Greening with winning the lift for Southfields Station - all she has to do is tell us about the decisive role she played in winning the 2012 Olympics for London!

Until then let's give credit where credit's due - to the team led by Tony Blair, Ken Livingstone and Lord Coe - without whom the Conservatives would not even be able to attempt to mislead residents they had delivered any improvements to Southfields Station.

AirTrack

Today, I'm launching my Putney4AirTrack campaign.

AirTrack is a proposal for a rail service between Heathrow and Waterloo. The beauty of the idea is that 96% of the track for this service already exists so it's an incredibly affordable infrastructure scheme - all that's required is for a spur of just 4km between Staines and Heathrow itself to be built.

The plan is for AirTrack services to run every 10 minutes in both directions; with end-to-end rail journeys of between 35 and 45 minutes. The service is forecast to reduce car journeys by 5,000 in the morning rush hour alone.

It's such a great scheme that it really is surprising that it hasn't been done already. The concern is that AirTrack appears to being linked with development of a third runway at Heathrow - but there really is no reason it has to be: AirTrack is a stand-alone viable scheme that will provide a vital south-of-the-river service to complement and relieve the Piccadilly Line.

The other big issue for us locally is that at present, the service isn't planned to stop at Putney: the nearest station to us will be Clapham Junction. Obviously, it's important for the service to get to and from Heathrow quickly, but Putney is the largest population area between Clapham Junction and Staines, with a large number of Heathrow users.

To support my Putney4AirTrack campaign, click here.

For a larger version of the AirTrack map above, click here.

And for more on the AirTrack proposal, click here.

Putney Station improvements

I've just received an email from the Area Manager of South West Trains confirming that Putney Station is to get some new cash-and-card ticket machines in March. This is the first of a series of improvements to Putney Station I've been campaigning for as part of my Save Putney High Street campaign.

The state of Putney Station is pretty dreadful; aside from being inaccessible and congested very little has been spent on the station by the operators, SWT, for years, so it has become shabby as well.

I think it was a mistake years ago to let-out so much of the station's floorspace to shops and takeaways - while I'm sure it's a nice little earner for SWT and Network Rail, it has meant that what's left of the station can't cope with rush-hour commuters surging in and out.

That mistake in turn led to another bad decision: to site two of the ticket dispensers outside the station, further congesting a very busy area where several buses stop and where the shops clutter up the pavement by setting out their goods. My Save Putney High Street plan proposed moving the ticket machines back inside and making the news kiosk again face out, which I suspect will also be better for their trade.

Because of the more radical improvements planned for Putney Station I'll write about soon, as well as getting a much needed revamp, there will be sufficient space created to achieve these goals. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with extra ticket vending machines, which is at least a first step in the right direction.

Local buses

Following complaints I've received about the quality of some of the local bus routes, I've been looking into the reliability of buses throughout the constituency.

Most of our bus services now run very frequently indeed; the improvements in public transport since Ken Livingstone became Mayor of London are significant. Buses are now cleaner, safer, more reliable and 24-hour routes like the 85 have made a real difference to more remote parts of the constituency like Roehampton and Putney Vale.

The average time people have to wait for borough buses is just over four minutes. The longest waiting times are for the 493 bus, that seems to visit everywhere in South West London - but even here the average wait is supposedly just 7 minutes (though there is a 1 in 4 chance that passengers will end up waiting up to 20 minutes, according to the stats - and that chimes with my experiences of this route).

There are, however, some routes that I want to see improvements in. The reliability of three routes: the 493, the 265 which goes down Lower Richmond Road and up Roehampton Lane towards Tolworth; and the 337 which runs along Upper Richmond Road between Richmond and Clapham Junction also leave something to be desired.

You can download the bus service reliability report here; and I'd like to hear from you about your own experiences of public transport - good and bad - not just buses but tube and train journeys too. Of course, there is more to a good travel experience than the amount of time you have to wait.

Pupils and buses

Another story that caught my eye in this week's Wandsworth Guardian was a complaint by the Deputy Head of Southfields Community College that 156 bus drivers haven't been stopping near the college at home times.

He makes the not-unreasonable point that by refusing to pick up groups of schoolkids, the group only grows even larger and more rowdy. On the other hand, being a passenger (and I'm sure a driver too) when large groups of noisy, boisterous pupils surge onto a bus, shouting, jostling and often behaving aggressively and thoughtlessly is not a pleasant experience.

What would help no end would, I suggest, be the College - and our other secondary schools too - sending a staff member out to the bus stops at home time to make sure that the pupils behave themselves while waiting for their buses. In such circumstances, other than when buses are already full to bursting, there would be no excuse whatsoever for 156s not to stop. The Guardian story is here.

Heathrow exhibition

Last Friday I attended the Department for Transport's exhibition as part of their consultation into adding capacity at Heathrow airport at the Wetland Centre in Barnes.

The exhibition essentially comprised blown-up panels of the summary consultation document and interactive touchscreen devices to look at the maps; but slightly more usefully a range of Department for Transport officials were on hand to answer questions and some of the more detailed reference documents were available to take away.

Outside the exhibition the anti-Heathrow expansion campaign HACAN clearskies had a stand - I spent some time chatting with the group's chair John Stewart.

I have also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to find out exactly which areas have received the consultation document: some 9,000 have been distributed in Putney: principally in the area closest to Barnes, which falls within (or just short of) the contour considered by the DfT as the area most affected by noise nuisance from planes. I am currently obtaining the specific list of postcodes because of course, even if it is conceded that noise is slightly reduced elsewhere in the constituency it remains a major blight.

There are two key problems with this consultation for me:

First, it isn't about the question of whether Heathrow should get a third runway - because this was consulted on and agreed to a couple of years ago - but rather what options are best (or least bad) for the development of the airport in light of this;

And second, the consultation questionnaire is "opaque" to say the least - the questions are highly technical and you need to have a considerable determination to plough through the jargon and references to other texts to be able to contribute meaningfully;

To date, I don't think the government has done itself any favours with the way it has gone about this exercise: it has looked evasive even when it has not actually been so and by dripping out every few years very narrow aspects of the aviation problems facing London (the next will, of course, be in 2012 when night-flights policy is reviewed) rather than giving us a say on the overall strategy for London it is very difficult to submit views for or against the broader issues.

I'll be blogging further about the issues within this current consultation and my broader views concerning aviation policy in general in the coming weeks.

Heathrow consultation underway

You may have seen news coverage about the government's consultation on the future of Heathrow in the last few days.

This is a massive issue for the country, for the Capital and for our part of London, so it's really important not to pay attention to the noise made by politicians, pressure groups and special interests and reach your own opinion on the basis of the facts.

The Department of Transport has published a comprehensive consultation document - the full thing is 77mb and runs to 240 pages - but don't worry if that puts you off: there's a summary document and other tools to help assess the impact.

The consultation runs through to 27 February 2008: you can find out more here.