Free swimming from 1st April

From Wednesday swimming will be free in Putney Leisure Centre for over 60s and under 16s thanks to Labour.

Free swimming is available everyday, at all times, to over 60s. Those aged 16 and under can also swim for free daily, outside school hours.

Over £600 million has been made available by the Government to fund this scheme: Wandsworth Tories decided that they wouldn't let it happen unless they didn't have to put in a penny, and the Conservatives nationally have failed to commit to free swimming if they're ever elected.

I learnt to swim in Putney Swimming Pool when I was growing up and it's great that from the start of the month every Wandsworth family will be able to enjoy free swimming thanks to Labour.

February crime stats

February's crime figures again show good progress; crime down in most categories and in most parts of the constituency.

It's worth comparing the six Putney wards with the London average, because this contrast shows exactly why we are one of the safest parts of the capital:

• Burglaries are lower than the London average in five of six Putney wards
• Criminal damage is lower in four of the six
• Drugs offences are - much - lower in every single Putney ward
• Fraud and forgery offences are - again, much - lower in every single Putney ward
• Robbery is lower in five out of six wards
• Sexual offences are lower in four of the six
• Theft and handling is very much lower in every ward except Thamesfield than the rest of London
• Violent crime is lower in five of the six wards

And the substantial increase in Police and Community Support Officers Putney has recently benefited from should help make Putney, Roehampton and Southfields even safer.

Stuart vs the potholes round 27

I've tried to resist resurrecting my campaign to shame the Conservative Council into fixing Putney's potholed roads after last year's successes, but I'm getting so many complaints again that it's unavoidable.

The Conservatives have just announced that from the next financial year they're increasing the road repair budget by £1 million. Sounds great, doesn't it - except that this is the amount they chopped from it last year! And they weren't maintaining our roads competently even before the now-reversed cut. Still, it's better than nothing, but they've got a lot of roads to repair.

Here are the first few examples I've been sent or come across myself:


Amerland Road



Amerland Road - junction of Valonia Gardens



Daylesford Avenue - junction with Langside Avenue and Lantern Close. Daylesford Avenue has been in a state for a while, but the cold winter we've just had has really finished it off...Langside and Dungarvan aren't in the best nick either.


Dryburgh Road at the apex of the bridge over the railway: one I reported last summer which the council still hasn't fixed! Proof for the Tories that ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away...in fact it multiplies: here's another one right next door to that crater!:



And while it's good to see some of the roads we highlighted last Summer having been properly resurfaced, like Borneo and Blackett Streets off Hotham Road, not doing so well is next door Westhorpe Road!:

Action on Barnes Station

I've had a really great response from Putney residents who live closest to Barnes Station to my survey about their views and concerns on the station and the surrounding area.

I've already been in contact with South West Trains about getting rubbish cleared that had been thrown down the embankment because of the lack of a litter bin by the bus stop on one side of Rocks Lane.

But several of the concerns raised by residents aren't the responsibility of South West Trains (who manage the station itself): these rest with Richmond Council.

That's why, last week, I wrote to Richmond's Director of Environment asking him for a response on a number of issues including:

• Getting a new rubbish bin for the south-bound bus stop
• Repairing the dreadful, dangerous and narrow path along Rocks Lane
• Improving conditions for bus passengers at the station, who have to wait on a very narrow ledge above a very steep set of steps
• Repairing some of the potholed roads in the area

You can read my letter here. As soon as I have a reply I'll share it with you.

No to parking charges in Richmond Park

Yesterday I sent in my objection to the Royal Parks Agency over their proposal to introduce parking charges in Richmond Park.

You can read my response here.

Richmond Park - especially the Putney and Roehampton side of it, is incredibly isolated. There are no nearby bus links. Unless you live in Roedean Crescent, Roehampton Gate or Priory Lane; or down the bottom of Roehampton Vale it is unlikely that you live close enough to the park to walk to it.

The people who park in Richmond Park are not "park and ride" commuters, abusing free parking while they hop on a bus into central London, because there isn't a bus to hop onto. They are users of Richmond Park, who can only get to the park by car: people who treasure this vital natural resource for London.

So the Royal Parks Agency needs to think again. I've asked them to work with Transport for London to set up a bus link that connects the park with the world beyond it: possibly even a dedicated service that shuttles between the roads around the park to give people an alternative. Even then parking charges will be a very difficult case to make.

There's still time to have your say on the Royal Parks Agency plans. Click here to download the consultation document.

Action on loansharks

Back in September I flagged up warnings about a gang of loan sharks that had begun operating in the Roehampton area. Apparently loans at an interest rate of 66% were being touted.

Loansharking is illegal but despite this over 165,000 households are believed to borrow from loansharks each year: a problem made worse by banks dramatically cutting back on lending - even to those with decent credit histories.

This week Consumer Affairs Minister Gareth Thomas launched a confidential national hotline to help people stuggling with loansharks and to help with indebtedness.

The hotline number is 0300 555 2222.

The Stop Loan Sharks teams have successfully prosecuted more than 60 people with a further 90 prosecutions underway. This amounts to nearly 40 years of custodial sentences for illegal lending and associated crimes. The teams have supported more than 7,000 victims of illegal money lenders. Their work has meant around £14million has been saved for consumers who were locked in illegal deals with these money lenders.

In addition to the website, there's a website at www.direct.gov.uk/stoploansharks; and you can also get help by texting loan shark [include the space] and any message to 60003.

Making a real difference

The putneysw15 website is reporting yet another example of Putney's Police Safer Neighbourhood team's effectiveness.

A teenage robber has just been sentenced to three years in jail after being caught by the West Putney Safer Neighbourhood team just moments after accosting and stealing an I-Pod from someone in Larpent Avenue.

The Safer Neighbourhood team, who were patrolling on mountain bikes in the area were able to get to the scene of the crime promptly. From the description given by the victim and the direction the robber fled in, they were able to apprehend him within minutes.

Sgt Eric Ostrowski of West Putney Safer Neighbourhoods Team said: "This arrest within minutes of the offence and subsequent conviction has come about due to the courage of the victim in reporting this matter to police, the hard work of the Safer Neighbourhoods officers who were on patrol that day and the dedication of the Robbery Squad officers at Wandsworth.

"Due to this a violent individual has been removed from the streets of Putney for the foreseeable future. I hope this shows the public that we will continue to work with the local community in making our streets safer."

As usual, what is conspicuous by its absence from this story is any praise or support for our Safer Neighbourhood Police from Putney's Conservative MP, or any of its councillors. The Conservatives tried at every turn to stop former London Mayor Ken Livingstone introducing safer neighbourhood police teams - we now have forty of them - and voted against funding them once they lost that battle.

Ever since, the Conservatives have taken every turn to criticise, undermine and ridicule as ineffective our safer neighbourhood teams. That's despite a stream of success stories like this, and the consistent fall in crime Putney has benefited from since Labour introduced them.

January crime stats: Roehampton joins the sub-100 club

For the first time since I've been reporting Putney's crime figures, the number of recorded offences in Roehampton ward fell below 100 crimes per 1,000 residents in January.

This is a remarkable achievement by Roehampton's Safer Neighbourhood team, and I congratulate them. In May 2007; the first month I reported Putney's stats, Roehampton crime rate was 127.5 - last month it was 97.7: that's a drop of 25% in just over a year and a half.

January's figures also show that there was no "Christmas spike" in crime, as there was over the December/January period in 2008. Crime fell in four of our six wards, and in most categories of crime. There is also no sign of a surge in so-called "economic crime" linked to the recession, yet, although drugs offences rose in Putney, Wandsworth and London as a whole.

Good news on Barnes station

The government has told South West Trains (SWT) where to go over its plans to substantially reduce ticket office opening hours at Barnes Station.

Companies like SWT, as well as running trains, also have responsibility for stations on routes they operate, including Barnes, Putney and Wandsworth Town. Barnes' ticket office currently opens from 6.25am to 8.05pm on weekdays, from 6.40am to 8.15pm on Saturdays and from 9.10am to 4.40pm on Sundays,

SWT had planned to close the ticket office entirely on Sundays, operate a cursory service on Saturdays and significantly cut back during the week. But what the operator is actually being allowed to get away with are broadly similar hours to what we have now: 6.45am-6.45pm weekdays, 7am-7pm Saturdays and 10am-1pm Sundays.

I am really concerned about the unacceptable and widening gap between increasing fares, increasing customers but at the same time declining services. The argument goes that taxpayers should subsidise railways less which means customers paying an increasing share - but that's a false choice: the bulk of the subsidy for public transport should come not from rail users or general taxation but from less environmentally-friendly modes of transport.

Ticket offices are more than just a place to buy fares and ask for train information: they help with security at stations - especially at places like Barnes in the middle of nowhere. I'm working hard to get SWT to honour its promise to improve Putney Station and it's why it's good news that the Barnes ticket office is staying open.

Old maps of Putney 2

As promised, here's the second of the maps of Putney from Bacon's Up-To-Date Atlas & Guide to London, published probably in the 1930s - click here for the earlier post covering the Southfields and Wandsworth parts. And click on the image above for a much higher resolution scan.

This map covers the majority of Putney and Roehampton. The most obvious difference between today's map is that there is no Alton estate in Roehampton: the only resemblance with Roehampton today is what is now the Alton East: Alton Road and Bessborough Road. But even here the type of housing on either side of these roads was very different; grand houses and smaller cottages.

The rest of the land west of Roehampton Lane comprises the estate of Downshire House, Mount Clare, Manresa House and the Maryfield Convent - all buildings which remain today, just surrounded by an estate, rather than expanses of open land.

Similarly, in the north of Roehampton there is no Lennox estate at the end of Priory Lane, and the crescent-shaped housing block today called Fairacres was in those days called Lower Grove.

Moving east from Roehampton you can see how it was that the Telegraph Pub was such an important inn and communications post for travellers into and out of London. Today the pub is part of a relatively isolated cul-de-sac community in the middle of the Heath but until fairly recently, it was right on the crossroads of major traffic routes: Portsmouth Road, Telegraph Road and Wildcroft Road all of which extended right across the Heath.

And just north of the Heath we again see what Putney looked like prior to the building of huge estates: where the map shows expansive grounds around Exeter House is now the Ashburton Estate and Elliott School. In fact the only one of today's estates can be seen already built: the Dover House estate around Dover House Road.

Roehampton and West Putney aren't the only areas where major council estates were built after the war: West Hill ward - the area east of Wimbledon Parkside has also changed unrecognisably. But as I mentioned in my post on Southfields, you can see reflected in the estates of today several of the historic names shown on this map: Levana Lodgeand Park Lodge in Victoria Drive now Levana Close and Park Lodge now a care home of the same name for example. And many of the mansions on Wimbledon Parkside still remain: Chivelston, Albemarle and Spencer House.

Old maps of Putney

As a local historian, I enjoy looking at old maps of the area. A forerunner of the A-Z maps of London, which sadly doesn't have a date of publication in it but would, at latest, have been printed in the 1930s, is Bacon's Up-To-Date Atlas & Guide to London. Price: sixpence.

Today and tomorrow, I'll publish the local maps from that book on this blog, starting with Southfields and Wandsworth town, below. Click on the image to get a much larger version (which is a 3mb file, so may take a while to open). I've added some observations below the picture.



The biggest changes in this part of the world can be found towards the north of the map where the river Wandle enters the Thames. Have a look at the King George's Park area.

First, note the viaduct that ran across the park, just north of Mapleton Road - it runs from St Ann's Hill across to Merton Road before going underground at either end. And Mapleton Road used to be a through-road to Garratt Lane.

Also, have a look at how much freer the Wandle itself was: where Neville Gill Close is now the river used to form a large pool. It also had a little spur running alongside Buckhold Road, where the new Hardwick's Square development now is.

A more significant branch off the Wandle occurs even closer to the Thames, where it snaked alongside Frogmore to a road that's no longer there: Raft Road, parallel to Sudlow Street (it's now the Wandsworth Council Depot). One of the older members of Putney Labour Party used to live there in the days when the river branched out, and apparently there was quite a scandal when a young girl drowned while playing alongside this section.

It's also interesting that what is now called Ram Street, alongside the Brewery and where the 220 and 270 buses go down, was originally a continuation of [Old] York Road, before the one way system was introduced; and Fairfield Street that runs past the entrance to the Town Hall continued all the way down to the Thames (now that part of Fairfield Street is part of Smugglers Way). There's another member of Putney Labour Party who used to live in Warple Road - which is now Swandon Road which leads to the Wandsworth Bridge roundabout.

On the left-hand side of the map, in what is West Hill ward (west of the District Line to Southfields), you can see some of what the area was like before the large council estates that were built after the war. Whitlock Drive has not been built; instead Edgecombe Hall - after which the estate there is named, and it's acres of grounds - remains.

One of the things that I think is really important is that historic local names survive; in this area in particular a lot of the blocks that now exist are named after mansions, old roads, fields or other historical names; for example "Florys" lives on the corner of Augustus Road and Princes Way lives on in Florys Court; and Allenswood, Ambleside and Fernwood are all now blocks on the Wimbledon Park Estate.

"Economic" crime? December crime stats

I often go on about the high level of crime in Thamesfield ward, which is almost entirely due to the amount of crime that occurs in and off of Putney High Street.

Let me try to put how much more crime there is in Thamesfield compared to the rest of Putney into context. There are more theft and handling offences alone in Thamesfield than the entire amount of reported crime in East Putney, West Hill or West Putney wards.

That's why my campaign for town centre patrollers in the High Street are so important: when they were tested out in Clapham Junction and Tooting about four years ago they cut street crime by one third. And they'll allow the Thamesfield Safer Neighbourhood teams to give more attention to the residential parts of their patch. It's why I'm also campaigning against the £472 million the Conservatives want to cut from the Metropolitan Police, which cannot but mean reductions in front-line police locally.

So-called economic crimes like theft, or burglary - ie property crimes, are likely to rise during an economic slowdown. Politicians always struggle to talk sensibly about such crimes for fear that talking about the reasons why a tiny minority become more likely to thieve and steal in such a climate equals condoning or understanding such behaviour. Of course there is never justification to take someone else's property -period.

Fortunately there isn't that much sign of property crime increasing in Putney - yet. Burglary is somewhat down in five wards and slightly up in one. Thefts did pick up noticeably in December in four wards, dropped in two. Drug offences were down across the board and sex offences down in five out of six wards. There also seems to be a delay in reporting any crimes during the Christmas period in the figures - maybe these will feed through to the January figures due out next month.

November crime stats

Crime fell again in all six Putney areas in November 2008 (remember there's a two month lag between the month they happened and the reporting of them).

As this graph shows, with the exception of December 2007, when crime spiked in the run-up to Christmas, all wards are now safer than they were in May 2007 when I first started reporting these figures. There have been marked falls in crime in Roehampton and Southfields during this period - during which Roehampton has become substantially safer than the London average.



As we saw at the end of last year, it's probably wise to forecast a notable jump in crime in the December figures - but what we also saw was a January fall larger than the December "blip" - so that's also something to watch out for.

Here are November's figures - a reminder that green figures show a decline or the same level of crime as the preceding month; red shows an increase.

First parking permits up, now swimming charges

One of the things about having Conservatives in power locally is that we can judge what the Tories say they intend to do nationally by how they act locally.

So when, the day after Tory leader David Cameron claims he's against high taxes, Wandsworth Tories announce they're increasing the cost of parking permits by 27%, you get a good idea of the gap between Conservative rhetoric and reality.

Another example, announced just last week is the Tories' intention to hike up admission charges to swimming pools, gyms and other fitness centres across Putney and the borough from February. This again presents us with a stark difference of approach between the Conservatives and Labour.

The Labour Government announced last year that we would make swimming free from this year for pensioners and children - and free for all by the Olympics in 2012. The Conservatives want to price ordinary people out of our pools and are more interested in another nice little earner than encouraging people to stay fit and healthy.

Ironically, at the same meeting that the Tories rammed through the swimming charge increases, they also tabled a report to make sure that Wandsworth participates in the Government's free swimming programme. That they can't see a contradiction between their approach and Labour's free swimming shows how out of touch the Tories are.

The planning threats just keep on coming

The Wandsworth Borough News is reporting on a reception held by the council last night to unveil yet more overdevelopment they're championing - almost all in the Putney constituency.

The schemes unveiled included:

• The next phase of the Riverside Quarter development between Wandsworth Park and the River Wandle
• South Thames College on Putney Hill
• Hardwick's Quarter, which is presumably their fancy name for the Cockpen House development
• Southside shopping centre
• The nearly finished Parkside tower block beside King George's Park, which they are misleadingly calling affordable housing

The thing I find most disturbing is the relish with which the Conservatives keep rolling out these plans (just before Christmas, when they think we'll have our minds on other things, note) as if the views of local residents are irrelevent, the character of our area immaterial and the strain these developments will place on local infrastructure inconsequential.

Bizarrely, at the very reception the Conservatives were announcing their plans alongside their developer chums, they also announced a redesign of the Wandsworth one-way system to show off the "elegant Georgian terraces, churches and pubs that characterise the area": as if all this new development won't more than offset any small improvements to traffic flow a redesign may provide.

It's bad enough that they keep giving the green light to all this overdevelopment - but now they're actually wining and dining the developers in lavish receptions funded by local taxpayers: and putting out press releases to make sure we all know it.

Parking permits up 27%

The day after Tory Leader David Cameron lectured us about the evils of tax increases, Wandsworth Conservatives unveil a 27% increase in the cost of residents parking permits.

The price of a permit will now be £95 - a cost that has increased 44% since the council elections two years ago.

Curiously, the Conservatives mentioned nothing about their plans to hike up the cost of parking permits in their election manifesto for those elections - just as they forgot to tell us about their plans to close Wandsworth Museum or West Hill Library.

This is the reality of Wandsworth: Council Tax may be low but only because the Tories claw back the money through stealth taxes like this.

Inflation busting parking permit hikes are just one example; council tenants pay among the highest rents in London; pensioners needing home helps pay among the highest charges in London; charges for collecting bulky rubbish are among the highest in London; the amounts raised through library fines among the highest in London (and slammed by the Taxpayers' Alliance, no less); leisure centre charges among the highest in London; even the cost of dying - burial charges - are among the highest in London.

The irony of this 27% parking permit hike is that at the last council elections Labour in Wandsworth under my leadership pledged to make parking permits for the first car in every household free - which we'd have paid for by increasing the costs for second and subsequent parking permits in multi-car households. Of course, the Conservatives won those elections - so they'll say you get what you voted for.

It goes to show the real difference your vote makes locally.

Putney's part in Labour's history

Anyone who takes an interest in Putney's history may be aware that Labour's greatest-ever Prime Minister, Clement Attlee was born and grew up in Portinscale Road.

But our borough was also home for one of Labour's less well-known party leaders - someone who would have been our first ever Prime Minister had he not been defeated by just five votes for the party leadership by Ramsay MacDonald.

John R. Clynes led Labour in the breakthrough 1922 general election when Labour supplanted the Liberals as the official opposition to the (Conservative) Government, almost tripling the number of Labour MPs elected.

He served in David Lloyd-George's National Government during the First World War as the Orwellian-titled (but vitally important) role of Minister of Food Control.

Despite Labour's general election success, Clynes was challenged by Ramsay MacDonald, and defeated by just a handful of votes. MacDonald went on to head Labour's first ever government while Clynes became Leader of the House of Commons until the minority administration was defeated in 1924.

Along with other Labour greats Arthur Henderson and George Lansbury, he opposed MacDonald's austerity measures during the General Strike and refused to follow the Prime Minister into a National Government in the 1930s, which led to a Labour election disaster, during which Clynes lost his Manchester seat. But he regained it in 1935 and served a further decade in Parliament until his retirement.

A resident of Putney during his time in London as an MP, Clynes has a pleasant little council estate, John Clynes Court, named after him in Woodborough Road, West Putney.

Crime: how does Putney compare with the rest of the borough?

The October crime figures, just released, again show good progress by the Police in cutting crime. East Putney and West Hill wards all saw declines in every single category of crime; in West Putney all categories bar one were down. Overall, crime fell in five of our six council wards, with only a small rise in Southfields.



With crime figures, context is everything - it's why, alongside the ward by ward figures, I also provide the borough and London averages - so you can see how Putney is doing compared to larger areas. But this month, I thought you might be interested in seeing how Putney's six council wards compare to their fourteen counterparts elsewhere in the borough.

In the table below I'm just showing the "total" number of crimes per 1,000 - the figure that's in the shaded grey box in the table above. And, instead of ordering them alphabetically, I've ranked them in terms of that total crime rate - with the lowest crime areas at the top, and the highest at the bottom.

Three of the safest four council wards anywhere in the borough are in Putney - and four of the top ten. But Putney's Thamesfield ward is the most crime-ridden ward in the borough by far. Putney probably has the largest shopping centre in the borough, so it is to be expected that the sort of town centre crime that affects Thamesfield will be higher than other town centres. But I don't think the gap should be quite so stark.

Conservative cant over Queen Mary's

When it comes to Queen Mary's Hospital, Putney's Conservative MP has some nerve.

She's been in the local press this week attacking the hospital for its record-keeping, which the hospital itself denies is harming service.

Given that the last Conservative Government all but closed Queen Mary's, axing its Accident & Emergency Department in the process, I find it hard to take any expression of concern about the hospital from her at all seriously.

Justine Greening has voted the way her party told her to 96.4% of the time since she was elected in 2005 - sycophantic even by Tory standards. So it's safe to assume that she would have been a cheerleader for her party's closure of Queen Mary's Hospital back in 1997 and would have voted against the increased Labour investment in the NHS that funded the rebuilding of it had she been in parliament at the time.

So forgive me for being contemptuous of her pathetic criticisms of the hospital, on the basis that the hospital is disadvantaging patients.

The Tory closure of Queen Mary's A&E disadvantaged patients.

All-but closing the hospital down entirely disadvantaged patients.

In comparison, complaining about the storage of patient records at nearby Barnes Hospital while the system for storing them electronically at Queen Mary's is being set up is a pathetic, trifling criticism aimed - just as her turning up to the opening of the rebuilt hospital in 2005 was - to get herself a cheap headline.

The real newsworthy story, which would be a first for her, would be to apologise for the appalling damage her party did to Queen Mary's last time it was in power. If she can't quite manage that, the least she could do is stop criticising the hospital - especially on such spurious grounds.

Putney BNP members outed

The entire national membership list of the fascist, racist British National Party has been posted on the web.

I managed to get a look before the website was taken down, and found that the BNP has a grand total of eleven members in Putney - not exactly a mass membership party!

But you'd be surprised where some of them live - mainly in more affluent parts of the constituency like the Southfields Grid, a street off Lower Richmond Road, the Lytton Grove area and leafy West Putney.

These are usually regarded as affluent, Conservative-voting areas, somewhat removed from the stereotyped BNP member as working class, living on a council estate and poor. But wherever they live, BNP members are just pathetic, usually poorly educated people who can't handle the modern world and who are too cowardly to do anything other than blame "outsiders" for that.

Conserving Putney

As regular readers will know, I think the character of Putney, Roehampton and Southfields is under real threat from greedy developers who've been given the green light to put forward the most appalling plans for overdevelopment by the lack of leadership of local Conservatives.

One of the main weapons we have against overdevelopment is our conservation areas. These provide extra protection (or, as developers would claim, restriction) over those parts of our area most steeped in history or of special character.

The Council has begun the process of reviewing these areas, of which Putney has several. First up in our area are three conservation areas, each of which has a special public meeting coming up to which you are welcome to attend and give your views:

• Landford Road along with Lower Common: Thursday 04 December, Dryburgh Hall
• Putney Heath: Friday 05 December, Elliott School, Pullman Gardens
• Victoria Drive: Tuesday 09 December, St Paul's Community Hall, Inner Park Road

By clicking on each area title above you can download the conservation area profiles and find out how to have your say. Aside from anything else, they offer some really interesting insights into local history and how Putney was transformed, in a very short of space, from a rural outpost of London to a bustling town.

You can also read some of the other profiles for elsewhere in the borough here.

Local dentists

Click on image if you need a larger version.

Elliott improves

School inspectors have noted a major improvement in standards at Elliott School after a poor inspection last year put it on special measures.

It's really important that Elliott does well: it fought to remain true to its comprehensive values when the Council tried to turn all the borough's secondaries into selective schools; it serves a catchment area that covers the whole constituency and beyond - which makes it genuinely diverse - and it is a much-loved institution.

Importantly, a lot of the improvement has been led by the students themselves. Head Sharon Ferrell has introduced a leadership scheme where older pupils mentor and set an example for the younger ones.

You can read more about the improvements to Elliott in this week's Wandsworth Guardian.

June's local crime figures

There's not much to write about in this month's crime figures - it's fallen very slightly in three Putney council wards and risen very slightly in three. Without further ado, here are the tables:



And May's comparison:

Putney - safer than other parts of London?

Every month when I publish the ward-by-ward crime statistics I usually focus on the change over the previous month.

This month it's worth looking at how crime in Putney compares with London as a whole.

Every single ward in Putney has a lower record of drug offending, fraud or forgery, robbery and other notifiable offences than the Met Police average.

Every single ward in Putney bar one has a better record on burglary and theft & handling (Thamesfield being the exception); criminal damage and violence against the person (Roehampton); and robbery (Southfields) than the London-wide figures. Roehampton has a stastically insignificant higher rate of sexual offences, which are a very small percentage of the total anyway I'm pleased to say.

Putney also compares favourably to our borough as a whole - though the pattern is very slightly different. The overall Wandsworth figure for crimes per 1,000 of the population is 99.6; the overall Putney figure is 89.9.

So what these crime figures show, month-in, month-out is that Wandsworth is safer than other parts of London, and that Putney is safer than other parts of Wandsworth. Don't let the Tories tell you different.

Here are the year to May 2008 figures:



And the April 2008 figures for comparison:

William Gardens: "squatters out!"

Like many local residents, I've been appalled to witness how William Gardens, just behind St Margaret's Church in West Putney, has been taken over by squatters in recent weeks.

I cannot believe that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) - who own the estate and who have been decanting families from the blocks in order to renovate and make them fit for housing Servicemen and women and their families - did not imagine that leaving a derelict estate unsecured would not be a massively tempting target for squatters.

My anger with the MoD is that the legal action they will now have to pursue to reclaim William Gardens will delay the start date for the much needed renovations and therefore the date by which soldiers will be able to take up residence. And the costs of such action will, in all likelihood, far exceed the costs of some secure fencing, barbed wire and a few padlocks.

And equally, while some among those now squatting in William Gardens may or may not have some other recourse to avoid sleeping rough, I find it hard to believe that they are more deserving of space in this development than those who have fought - and in some cases been badly injured - in service to their country.

It has taken the MoD far too long to decant families from William Gardens - the last family left in July but the process has taken almost two years. While families need to be moved to suitable equivalent homes and be supported during the moving process, there is little more soul-destroying than being left behind as your neighbours and friends are moved out and you're left in an isolated estate on your own.

When the MoD decided to renovate William Gardens they should have decanted residents quickly; they should have had a schedule of works ready to commence as soon as the last family left and if that was unachievable they should have secured the site effectively until they were able to start works.

Veterans' Badges: do you know someone who hasn't claimed theirs?

This is a photo of me with Alex and Queenie Green, who live in Glenthorpe in Putney Park Avenue. Alex and Queenie have been married for 61 years, although the reason I visited them recently was not to mark that considerable achievement but because both of them served in the armed forces during the Second World War and neither had yet claimed their Veterans' Badge.

Alex and Queenie are lifelong Wandsworth residents: they spent most of their lives in Battersea before moving to Skeena Hill in Southfields and then to Glenthorpe.

They contacted me after receiving the recent edition of my special newsletter for senior citizens, The Putney Pensioner, which mentioned my campaign to encourage everyone eligible to claim their Veterans' Badge to do so. I was more than happy to drop application forms round to them and hear some of their tales of service life.

If you or a relative served in the armed forces, including service on the home front, I hope you'll take the time to download a veterans' badge application form - it's pleasingly short and straightforward - or contact me and I'll happily send you one.

Residents start to move into Queen Mary's Place

The first phase (of four) of the Queen Mary's Place development off Roehampton Lane has been completed and residents are beginning to move in.

For those of you unfamiliar with the area or the plans, this is the half of the Queen Mary's Hospital site - including Roehampton House - that was sold off to fund the building of the new Queen Mary's.

I've been writing a lot about planning issues recently due to the huge problems the high rise plans for East Putney and the Tory Council's botched and ill-judged scheme for Danebury Avenue redevelopment are creating. Queen Mary's Place is a more sensitive and thoughtful plan in design terms but it is still going to create massive problems.

When complete Queen Mary's Place will provide nearly 500 new homes - probably housing around 700-800 people. Most of the properties are being pitched at affluent professional families, most of whom will have more than one car. The only way to get to Queen Mary's Place is via Roehampton Lane, already one of the most congested roads in Putney.

And just harking back to the Danebury Avenue plans, to this traffic chaos, the Conservatives also want to add huge amounts of additional traffic - customer and service vehicles - to a supermarket behind Roehampton Lane. All without a single line explaining where the extra road space to carry these vehicles will come from - let alone an explanation of how articulated lorries will squeeze down Danebury Avenue which they have no plans to widen.

Planning matters - it is about so much more than just the aesthetics of good and bad architecture. Planning determines whether a community will thrive or fail; whether crime levels will be high or low; whether an area will be respected or vandalised; how residents get too and from their homes; what local services they'll benefit from; how crammed-in or spaced out people will be; what recreational activities we can enjoy; what types of people move to an area; even how a particular area votes. Simply put, planning is arguably the last substantive power local councils like ours has.

Yes, planning matters. But I'm afraid Putney and Wandsworth Conservatives have built up a quite dreadful record of failing to plan prudently, purposefully and successfully. And so they bear the responsibility for making our area worse for generations to come.

For more on Queen Mary's Place visit the site's sales website.

June's local crime figures

There's not much to write about in this month's crime figures - it's fallen very slightly in three Putney council wards and risen very slightly in three. Without further ado, here are the tables:



And May's comparison:

Putney Heath stabbing

Reports are coming in of a stabbing on Putney Heath by the bus terminus opposite the Green Man Pub. Fortunately, it's understood that the victim, in his 20s, is in a stable condition in hospital.

There is very little detail beyond this available at the moment.

UPDATE 1 (9pm Sunday): The Wandsworth Guardian is reporting that two men have been arrested over this stabbing, which is a good result within 12 hours of the incident. This again goes to show that it is not policing and criminal justice that is the problem here because those who commit these crimes are being caught, prosecuted and convicted; but rather stopping youths carrying knives in the first place.

It can't be said often enough: carry a knife and you'll either end up in jail, or dead.

UPDATE 2 (2pm Monday): The Sun has come up with some of the absurd, hysterical sensationalist nonsense reporting that gives tabloids a bad name. In today's paper they quote an anonymous "local" person as saying: "After 10pm its like a war-zone round here."

This is, supposedly, someone's opinion and they have a right to it, but it's a ridiculous, baseless assertion that is completely at odds with the area this crime occurred in. The fact is that Putney is substantially safer than both London AND Wandsworth borough as a whole - and West Putney, where this incident happened, is one of the safest parts of our safe community.

I reported on the latest crime figures for Putney, Roehampton and Southfields here only a couple of days ago. Knife crime is serious enough to grab the headlines in its own right without The Sun attempting to draw parallels between generally peaceful, tranquil and sedate Putney Heath and Chechnya or Columbia.

UPDATE 3 (3pm Tuesday): Two youths, neither of them seemingly from the Putney area, have now been charged with the incident. One has been charged with GBH, the other with assisting an offender.

Putney - safer than other parts of London?

Every month when I publish the ward-by-ward crime statistics I usually focus on the change over the previous month.

This month it's worth looking at how crime in Putney compares with London as a whole.

Every single ward in Putney has a lower record of drug offending, fraud or forgery, robbery and other notifiable offences than the Met Police average.

Every single ward in Putney bar one has a better record on burglary and theft & handling (Thamesfield being the exception); criminal damage and violence against the person (Roehampton); and robbery (Southfields) than the London-wide figures. Roehampton has a stastically insignificant higher rate of sexual offences, which are a very small percentage of the total anyway I'm pleased to say.

Putney also compares favourably to our borough as a whole - though the pattern is very slightly different. The overall Wandsworth figure for crimes per 1,000 of the population is 99.6; the overall Putney figure is 89.9.

So what these crime figures show, month-in, month-out is that Wandsworth is safer than other parts of London, and that Putney is safer than other parts of Wandsworth. Don't let the Tories tell you different.

Here are the year to May 2008 figures:



And the April 2008 figures for comparison:

Putney pothole of the week: 16th June 2008

In fact, three of them in quick succession, this time in Westleigh Avenue as it slopes down toward Solna Avenue, before climbing back up to Granard Avenue. These three craters are particularly dangerous for cyclists given they're on the downhill side of the road.

The Conservatives responsible for ignoring this particular set of potholes are Tory MP Justine Greening and the three Conservative Councillors for West Putney ward.

Please keep the photos coming: email them to stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk or text them to 07533 384 895

Summer fun in Putney

This weekend was the first real weekend of Summer and, appropriately, there were several fairs and fetes around the constituency that I had the pleasure of attending.

To kick off on Saturday I helped out at the Summer Fair of my old primary school, Allfarthing, in Wandsworth - at which I have been a governor for a few years now. It is customary for the governors to run the bar which, given the weather and strength of our Pimms, proved to be a popular stall indeed!

After staffing the bar and a quick tour of the other stalls I headed off to the RSPCA fair at their headquarters in Clarendon Drive, where I bumped into Wandsworth's Mayor, Councillor John Farebrother. Thereafter, it was off to the final visit of the day - the Friends of Queen Mary's Hospital Summer Party in Roehampton - the party was opened by actor Philip Glennister, otherwise known as DI Gene Hunt of Life on Mars' fame. Here I am pictured playing crazy golf at the Queen Mary's party!

It's important for a local MP to attend as many of these events as possible - not just to be seen out and about in the constituency, or to keep my cupboards well stocked with jams, cakes, second-hand books and other wares; but also to keep in touch with the grassroots volunteers who work so hard to make ours the community it is.

If you'd like me to let me know about your forthcoming fete, summer party or other event, do get in touch - email me at stuart.king@putneylabour.org.uk or phone my Putney HQ: 020 8788 8961.

Free swimming for all in Putney by 2012

I welcome the Government's announcement today to make swimming free at all local authority swimming pools - like Putney Leisure Centre in Dryburgh Road - by the 2012 Olympics.

Just as in 1997 when Labour abolished charges to national museums, this initiative - first making swimming free for pensioners and under-16s, but eventually free for all, is a recreational milestone. Free access to pensioners and under-16s will commence next year.


Britain's swimmers are really starting to compete internationally and great things are expected of our acquatic team at this Summer's Olympic Games. I hope that Olympic success will generate even more interest in swimming because not only is it a great way to keep fit, it's also great fun and it puts your body through far less wear and tear than most other sports.

Almost £250 million has been invested in swimming since 1997 to rebuild and renew our crumbling swimming pools that were starved of cash in the Tory years. We still don't have enough Olympic sized, 50metre pools in the country, but we've now got a network of smaller, well-maintained, safe and enjoyable swimming pools around the capital and the country.

And soon we'll have free entry to these pools as well -dur to Labour's commitment to sport, to equal access and to an Olympic legacy for 2012.

Putney gets safer - again

The April crime figures for Putney's six council wards are out and show another decline in crime compared to April 2007.



The only ward to buck the trend substantially was Thamesfield - I'm particularly concerned about the amount of burglaries taking place in this ward and it's disheartening that the Council - especially given that the Tory Council Leader Edward Lister represents this area - isn't doing a lot more to help the police cut crime.

One of the things that would help tremendously here would be town centre patrollers: when the Labour Government funded two trials of such patrollers in Clapham Junction and Tooting town centres, street crime - by far the biggest problem in Putney town centre - fell by a third.

Town centre patrollers wouldn't directly cut the burglary figures, but what they would do is free the Thamesfield Safer Neighbourhood Police up to focus on the rest of Thamesfield ward away from Putney High Street, and that can only be helpful.

Regretably, when the Government street patroller funding stopped, the Tory Council chose to sack the wardens rather than find the money itself to continue the excellent service. And before the Tories scream "Council Tax rises" just think how much this Council spends producing Brightside, and how it finds the money to run off (and pay to be delivered) fancy leaflets whenever it wants to attack the government - campaigning on the rates, big time. Cutting back on propaganda would go a long way to funding town centre patrollers in Putney.

As usual in these reports, here's the comparison table for March 2008:

Yet more Safer Neighbourhood team success

The Putney SW15 website is carrying yet another report of success for Putney's Safer Neighbourhoods Police team: this time the West Putney officers smashing a drug den in Cortis Road.

I may sound like a cracked record flagging up the success story that is our Safer Neighbourhoods team - but at worst I'm guilty of trying to rebalance each and every attack on this significant, substantive service by the Conservatives. The Tories celebrate any tabloid story that belittles our SNTs and they never cease to rubbish them as not real Police because they believe it helps them politically.

I passionately believe in Safer Neighbourhood teams: I think they'll come to be regarded as this Labour Government's most significant creation.

No, they're not "full" Police. But I don't want them to be: they fulfil a different role and have a different emphasis. We once again have "Bobbies on the Beat" simply because of SNTs - not just uniformed patrollers pounding our pavements, but officers who take the time to get to know the community, build links and use their local knowledge to deliver the results we're hearing about week-in, week-out.

Some say: why couldn't they do that if they become full Police? My answer is that full Police will simply get swept up with and subsumed into the same duties that existing full Police fulfill today. Keeping the two distinct actually guarantees that we will keep our Bobbies on the Beat. And what a record of success they're delivering.

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.

"Where do I vote?"

It's been a few weeks since the Council sent out pollcards telling us where our polling station is in the elections this coming Thursday.

We're sending out our own cards letting thousands of Labour supporters in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, know where to vote on Thursday. But if you want to check where you vote, you can do so on my website by clicking here.

There's a list of polling stations down the side, or you can check using the map - by clicking on the links you'll get a list of streets that vote at each station and a satellite image of the location on it.

Most polling stations are where they've always been, but a couple have changed since the last elections in 2006:

• The Putney Vale estate now votes at Stag House in Stroud Crescent, following the Tory council's closure of Newlands Hall;


• Residents of the Alton East estate are back voting at Roehampton Parish Hall (now called Cornerstone), on the corner of Alton Road and Roehampton Lane.

How many years does it take the Tories to fix a drain?

The answer is: we don't know because they haven't managed to yet; and according to residents in Tildesley Road the flooding they suffer every time it rains has been going on for years and years - as many as twenty according to some I spoke to yesterday.

The flooding in question affects one of the blocks above the shops in Tildesley Road: numbers 389-453 to be precise. Here's the cause of the problem - a drain completely clogged outside flat 425:



Residents told us that over the years so much rubbish has been forced down this drain by the cleaning crews - including animal excrement - that it just got more and more clogged.

And here's the damage that one blockage does - would you like the entrance to your home to be flooded like this week in, week out?:



Work to provide extra storage space for the shops below has filled-in the usual run-off for the flood water (that new wall at the back - which also makes the stairwell incredibly dark and dingy), so the water now just builds up and torrents down the steps, as you can see above.

Sadly, the problem's not unique: this is the concourse between the rows of shops: the main shopping area on the Ashburton estate which should be a focal point for the community. Now it's more like a great big pond.

Out and about in Putney

The main reason I've been posting a little less frequently in recent days is because of the London election campaigning my team and I are up to.

We've been out all over the constituency, and I've just today finished adding all the places we've been too in the past month to my constituency map page.

We've been talking to you about your concerns and priorities for London in the next four years and the clear choice between the experience, tested leadership and delivered improvements to the capital over the last eight years with Ken Livingstone; and the bluster, blunder, lack of substance, lack of vision, and lack of any credibly-costed plans of his Tory opponent.

So far this campaign we've been to the Longstaff Estate, Galveston Road, Lebanon Road, Sutherland Grove, Skeena Hill, Combemartin Road, Girdwood Road, Whitefield Close, Arcadian Place, Wimbledon Park Road, Albert Drive, Hayward Gardens, Pullman Gardens, Beaumont Road, Whitlock Drive, Kersfield Road, Lytton Grove, Littlecombe Close, Arlesey Close, Chepstow Close, Whitnell Way, Gay Street, Crown Court, Waterman Street, Kingsmere Close, Felsham Road, Glenthorpe, Hanover House, William Gardens, Minstead Gardens, Aubyn Square, Toland Square and Vanneck Square - apologies if we've visited you but aren't listed above.

We've a lot more campaign stops all around Putney, Roehampton and Southfields before polling day on Thursday 01 May so look out for us!

Dangerous dogs success

I'm pleased to be able to report some success for the work the West Putney Safer Neighbourhoods team and I have put into tackling the dangerous dog problem on the Dover House estate documented here.

Following the attack on The Pleasance last October, the Police worked hard to identify several addresses in the area that possibly housed dangerous dogs. After obtaining search warrants under section 5 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991, and each of these homes was called upon by the Safer Neighbourhood Team and the Police Dog Support Unit.

At one of these addresses, aPitbull type dog was seized by police and the owner prosecuted under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. If someone is found to be in possession of an illegal dog or allows their dog to be dangerously out of control then not only may they be committing offences, but they may be in breach of their tenancy agreements with Wandsworth Council.

It's important that this work has been done to reassure residents and - more importantly - get action on this issue which is so worrying to so many.

Out and about in Upper Richmond Road

My campaign team and I spent some of yesterday campaigning in the area around Upper Richmond Road. I thought I'd share a couple of the photos we took of Putney: both are from the top of Ormonde Court, one of the apartment blocks on Upper Richmond Road.



In the foreground are the backs of houses in Norroy Road - in the very bottom right is the railway line. In the background, centre-right, is Putney Wharf Tower. You can't see it on the low resolution picture above, but if you click on it you'll get a higher resolution version in which the London Eye is visible almost in the centre.



...And this one is of Putney looking west - again, the back of Norroy Road in the foreground, the trees of Putney Common on the far left. And if you click on the photo above, you should be able to make out the arch of the new Wembley Stadium in the distance.

As you can see from the sky, and will know if you were out yesterday too, while it was a bit nippy it was an otherwise lovely day, and good to be busy in the constituency.

Oh, and if you're someone who we contacted yesterday - or even if you aren't - do please take five minutes to complete my online residents' survey.

No to Lodge demolition

Walking up Putney Hill, or along Upper Richmond Road, in between the ugly apartment blocks that have sprung up since the 1950s you can still catch glimpses of old Putney: the few surviving beautiful, imposing old houses that haven't been sold off and then demolished.

One such is the gothic lodge in Upper Richmond Road at the entrance to Putney Park Lane. I find it extraordinary that with all the evidence we have along this road and Putney Hill of the scars we have inflicted on the area with ugly, bland blocks of flats (not least right next door to this Lodge) anyone is contemplating continuing this damaging trend.

Unfortunately however, the chance of making a quick buck by demolishing our landmark historic buildings and replacing them with stack 'em up, pile 'em high monstrosities is evidently still a greater motivation.

It seems that something odd is going on here. On the face of it, the Council has a plain and simple duty: to review the planning application and reject it. Laudably the Council sought to list this Lodge. However, it is reported in this week's Wandsworth Guardian that the moment they tried the developers threatened a High Court case and the council promptly lost its nerve. Why? I'm not saying there weren't good reasons - but someone should tell us all what they were.

Either way, that change of heart is not relevant to the planning decision the council will soon have to make. There are countless justifications for turning this building down - if it is not listed, it should be a local building of merit. If it is not a building of merit, it is surely within a conservation area. Make the developers prove their case for demolition at a planning inquiry. Turn this application down - on the basis of strong planning grounds - and defy the philistine developers to appeal. I think they'll lose. If there's any justice in the world they should.

Over to you Wandsworth Council.

English Heritage Blue Plaques

A couple of years ago I wrote an article for the Wandsworth Borough News about the local dignitaries who are remembered through English Heritage blue plaques in our borough.

I really enjoy investigating local history - in part it comes from living here for 37 years, but my degree was also in history. Anyway, here's the article, which I hope you find interesting.

What links the borough of Wandsworth to a former Prime Minister, a music hall artist, the dentist to Queen Victoria and an artic explorer? The answer is that all of them (David Lloyd George, Sir Harry Lauder, Sir Edwin Saunders and Edward Wilson) lived or worked in the borough, and have an English Heritage blue plaque outside the house in which they lived.

There are twenty-two English heritage blue plaques located within the borough of Wandsworth, out of a total of 456 throughout London.

2005 marked the centenary of the erection of the first blue plaque in Wandsworth, which was located at Holly Lodge, Wimbledon Park Road, in memory of author and novelist George Eliot, who lived in sin at the property with her lover, G H Lewes.

This selection of a figure of literary note seems apposite given that literary figures make up the largest group of recipients within the borough. These include the poet and novelist Thomas Hardy (who lived at Trinity Road), Victorian adventure story writer G A Henty (Lavender Gardens) and poet Gerald Manley Hopkins (Manresa House, Roehampton).

Three plaques are dedicated to famous figures from the British music hall era the comedian Gus Elen (Thurleigh Avenue), and Harry Tate and Sir Harry Lauder (both of Longley Road). During its heyday the music hall was the most popular form of entertainment for ordinary people, and its stars were the popstars of their day. Harry Tates funeral at the cemetery in Blackshaw Road, Tooting, was attended by over a thousand mourners.

Only two politicians have been commemorated former Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Routh Road) and Battersea MP, and the first working class man to enter the British Cabinet, John Burns (Clapham Common North Side). Burns was elected as an independent MP in 1892 and served Battersea in Parliament until 1918.

Others who have been commemorated include the former President of Czechoslovakia, Dr Edwards Benes (Gwendolen Avenue), John Walter, founder of The Times newsapaper (Clapham Common North Side) and anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce (Broomwood Road). The most recent plaque to be erected in the borough was in 2000 in honour of the celebrated sculptor Charles Jagger, who lived and died in Albert Bridge Road.

The blue plaque scheme is a national programme run by English Heritage. To be eligible for a plaque, nominees must be worthy of national recognition, recognisable to the well-informed passer-by, and have been dead for twenty years or passed the centenary of their birth, whichever is the earlier.

As it has been five [now seven - ed.] years since the last plaque was erected in the borough, readers may wish to suggest other candidates suitable for nomination. There is surely a wealth of suitable nominees in this great borough of ours. Here is a full list of the 22 blue plaques in Wandsworth, with the Putney ones highlighted in colour:

• BATEMAN, H.M. (1887-1970),Cartoonist, lived here 1910-1914. 40 Nightingale Lane, Clapham South, SW12 Wandsworth 1997
• BENES, Dr Edward (1884-1948),President of Czechoslovakia, lived here. 26 Gwendolen Avenue, Putney, SW15 Wandsworth 1978
• BURNS, John (1858-1943),Statesman, lived here. 110 North Side, Clapham Common, SW4 Wandsworth 1950
• DOUGLAS, Norman (1868-1952),Writer, lived here. 63 Albany Mansions, Albert Bridge Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1980
• ELEN, Gus (1862-1940), Music Hall Comedian, lived here. 3 Thurleigh Avenue, Balham, SW12 Wandsworth 1979
• ELIOT, George Mary Ann Cross (1819-1880), Novelist, lived here. Holly Lodge, 31 Wimbledon Park Road, SW18 Wandsworth 1905
• HARDY, Thomas (1840-1928),Poet and Novelist, lived here 1878-1881. Plaque replaced by new one on same building in 1962. 172 Trinity Road, Tooting, SW17 Wandsworth 1940
• HENTY, G.A. (George Alfred) (1832-1902), Author, lived here. 33 Lavender Gardens, SW11 Wandsworth 1953
• HOPKINS, Gerard Manley (1844-1889),Poet, lived and studied in Manresa House. Gatepost at Manresa House, Holybourne Avenue, Roehampton, SW15 Wandsworth 1979
• JAGGER, Charles Sargeant (1885-1934),Sculptor, lived and died here. 67 Albert Bridge Road, Battersea, SW11 Wandsworth 2000
• KNEE, Fred (1868-1914),London Labour Party Pioneer and Housing Reformer, lived here. 24 Sugden Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1986
• LAUDER, Sir Harry (1870-1950),Music Hall Artist, lived here 1903-1911. 46 Longley Road, Tooting, SW17 Wandsworth 1969
• LLOYD GEORGE, David, Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (1863-1945),Prime Minister, lived here Replacement for GLC plaque erected in 1967 3 Routh Road, Wandsworth Common, SW18 Wandsworth 1992
• O'CASEY, Sean (1880-1964),Playwright, lived here at flat No. 49 49 Overstrand Mansions, Prince of Wales Drive, Battesea Park, SW11 Wandsworth 1993
• SAUNDERS, Sir Edwin (1814-1901),Dentist to Queen Victoria, lived and died here. Fairlawns, 89 Wimbledon Parkside, SW19 (Plaque on gate pier) Wandsworth 1997
• SPURGEON, Charles Haddon (1834-1892),Preacher, lived here. 99 Nightingale Lane, SW12 Wandsworth 1971
• SWINBURNE, Algernon Charles (1837-1909), Poet and his friend, Theodore WATTS-DUNTON (1832-1914), Poet, Novelist, Critic, lived and died here. 11 Putney Hill, SW15 Wandsworth 1926
• TATE, Harry (Ronald MacDonald Hutchison) (1872-1940),Musical Hall Comedian, lived here. 72 Longley Road, SW17 Wandsworth 1984
• THOMAS, Edward (1878-1917),Essayist and Poet, lived here. 61 Shelgate Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1949
• WALTER, John (1739-1812),Founder of 'The Times', lived here. 113 Clapham Common North Side, SW4 Wandsworth 1977
• WILBERFORCE, William (1759-1833).On the site behind this house stood until 1904 Broomwood House - formerly Broomfield - where William Wilberforce resided during the campaign against slavery which he successfully conducted in Parliament. 111 Broomwood Road, SW11 Wandsworth 1906
• WILSON, Edward Adrian (1872-1912),Antarctic Explorer and Naturalist, lived here. Battersea Vicarage, 42 Vicarage Crescent, SW11 Wandsworth 1935

Dangerous dogs

Following last year's dangerous dog attack on the Dover House Estate, the Council last week announced it would evict tenants who own potentially dangerous dogs.

We all want action on dangerous dogs. But dogs are not dangerous by dint of their birth alone - they become so because they are mistreated or bred to fight.

The Council's rules will do nothing to weed out these owners, but they do threaten those with "potentially" - whatever that means - dangerous dogs that have never so much as snarled in anger or aggression before, and are properly controlled by responsible owners.

These rules will also only apply to council tenants. Homeowners and housing association tenants are exempt. So on the Dover House estate these measures will affect virtually no-one because the overwhelming majority of homes here have been sold-off by the council. And while a council tenant with a potentially dangerous dog may face eviction, their next door neighbour who is a leaseholder with a genuinely dangerous dog will remain untouched. Is that fair? Will it tackle the problem? No on both counts.

The Council's spin doctors will say at least they're doing something. But in this case, the council's guilty of doing something instead of doing something effective. Far better would be a doubling of the budget of their own dog warden service so they can patrol more widely, raise their profile and tackle the problem without picking on one particular section of the community.

I'm not a fan of ever more regulation and nanny-statism: we already have way too much of that. What we need is tougher action on criminals who mistreat their dogs, stronger action against the dog-fighting rings we all know exist in our borough and strong community policing.

Again, our Safer Neighbourhoods Police teams must play a crucial role, working with the dog warden service to achieve these goals. The objective: identifying those who can't control or are mistreating their dogs - and acting before events like those that took place in Putney Park Lane last October happen again.

Our Safer Neighbourhood Teams

Putney now has forty Police Safer Neighbourhood Officers - members of teams that didn't exist just four years ago, and which we wouldn't have if the Conservatives had their way - they opposed all funding of them.

Here are the details of our six local ward teams along with any details of forthcoming events they're holding:

East Putney Team

Acting Sgt Matt Snowden
PC Sandrine Tanghe
PC Russ Percy
PCSO Simoni Simoni
PCSO Alison Brownlow
PCSO Douglas Cameron
PCSO Kelly Collins
PCSO Claire Fairman
PCSO Paul Henry

Write to them at: Jubilee House, 230-232 Putney Bridge Road, London SW15 2PD
Phone:020 8721 2433
Mobile: 07920 233925
Email the East Putney team

Upcoming East Putney team meetings and events:

• 28/11/2007 - 19:30 - 21:30 - Community Event - Cadets, Lytton Grove
• 09/12/2007 - 11:30 - 13:30 - Street Briefing - West Hill Road
• 17/01/2008 - 19:00 - 20:30 - Public Meeting - Putney High School
• 28/01/2008 - 18:00 - 19:00 - Community Event - Brownies, Wandsworth Police Station
• 31/01/2008 - 19:00 - 20:30 - Public Meeting - London Mosque

Roehampton Team

Sgt Peter Salmon
PC Andrew Voong
PC Amanda Kennedy
PCSO Lisa Burke
PCSO Noel Perkins
PCSO Nicky Edwardes
PCSO Fuad Osman
PCSO Marco Serrano

Write to them at: Jubilee House, 230-232 Putney Bridge Road, LondonSW15 2PD
Phone: 020 8649 3551
Mobile: 07843 065885
Email the Roehampton team


Southfields Team

Sgt David Mepham
PC Darren Hunt
PCSO Liam McLaughlin
PCSO Jacek Zebracki
PCSO Alexandra Claridge
Write to them at: 146 Wandsworth High Street, LondonSW18 4JJ
Phone:020 8721 2429
Mobile: 07920 233931
Email the Southfields team


Thamesfield Team

Sgt Roger Chapple
PC Bosede Odelusi
PC Stuart Paton
PCSO Gerald Baffoe-Bonnie
PCSO Sophie Wood
PCSO Julie Kirk

Write to them at: Jubilee House, 230 - 232 Putney Bridge Road, LondonSW15 2PD
Phone:020 8721 2434
Mobile: 07920 233924
Email the Thamesfield team


West Hill Team

Sgt Nigel Mussett
PC Glen Cheal
PC Mark Toulson
PCSO Daniel Taylor
PCSO Lisa Tyler
PCSO Laura Smith
PCSO Kirsteen McPhee
PCSO Andrew Morgan

Write to them at: 146 Wandsworth High Street, LondonSW18 4JJ
Phone: 020 8721 243
Mobile: 007920 233930
Email the West Hill team

Upcoming West Hill team meetings and events:

• 01/12/2007 - 12:00 - 14:00 - Drop-in Surgery - 26 Montfort Place SW19
• 05/01/2008 - 12:00 - 14:00 - Drop-in Surgery - 26 Montfort Place SW19

West Putney Team

Sgt Eric Ostrowski
PC Stuart Baggaley
PCSO Sharon Ellis
PCSO Michael Yates

Write to them at: Jubilee House, 230-232 Putney Bridge Road, LondonSW15 2PD
Phone: 020 8721 2760
Mobile: 07747 757590
Email the West Putney team

Queen Mary's Hospital

Earlier this week I paid a visit to Queen Marys Hospital in Roehampton.

Going to a hospital isnt something that many people would normally choose to do but if you have had reason to visit QMH either as a patient or visitor - you cannot have failed to have been impressed by this fantastic state of the art local hospital. I was given a guided tour by Stuart Reeves, Associate Director for Adult Services at the hospital, and saw all aspects of the hospital.

I spent some time talking to an elderly in patient on Mary Seacole ward who was recovering from a fall at home. She was full of praise for the staff and the service she has received and it was with real pride that I explained to her how the hospital, which had been all-but closed by the last Conservative Government, had been rebuilt as a result of the record investment in the NHS under the Labour Government.

During my visit I spent some time meeting with Di Caulfeild-Stoker who is the Director of Provider Services. We talked about the health problems facing the area and the way in which she and her colleagues are trying to address them. We spent some considerable amount of time talking about how best we can tackle the obesity problem. I think school nurses have a vitally important part to play in this (pardon the pun) growing problem, but there is a real problem recruiting them due in part to the lack of affordable housing for key workers.

Also as part of my visit I met and spoke with a local GP who was gave me an insight into the primary care issues facing him and other GPs operating in Putney. I was invited to come back again soon to see in further detail the vital work undertaken by our NHS and I very much look forward to my next visit.

Dover House dangerous dogs - UPDATE

Yesterday I wrote to everyone in the Dover House estate updating them on the action being taken to deal with the dangerous dogs problem. Here's the text of the letter:

Dear Resident,

You will almost certainly be aware of the shocking incident that took place recently where two dangerous pit-bull types attacked a dog owner and his pet on The Pleasance off Putney Park Lane.

A number of local residents contacted me to express their concern about this incident and to ask what was being done to deal with it, and I am writing to keep you informed.

I spent a great deal of time last week and over the weekend talking with the Police, the Dover House Estate Residents Association and local people.

One of the two pit bull-type dogs was destroyed by the police at the scene; the other has been taken away and is being kept secure in police kennels. A file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service and legal proceedings may follow. I certainly believe they should given the seriousness of the incident.

I suggested to the police that the Safer Neighbourhoods Police team should undertake additional patrols in the area to provide a visible reassurance to local residents, and this suggestion was accepted, so do please stop and talk to the team when you see them.

If you have an immediate problem with a troublesome dog, contact the Dog Control Unit on 020 8871 7606. If you believe it is dangerously out of control call the Police immediately on 999. The Safer Neighbourhood Police team for the Dover House area can be reached on 020 8721 2760, mobile: 07747 757590, or e-mail: westputney.snt@met.police.uk

Finally, if there are any other local concerns you have do get in touch and I'd be only too happy to see what I can do. My phone number is 020 8788 8961 or write to or email me.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart King

Dover House dangerous dogs

You may have seen the front page feature in the Wandsworth Borough News about the problem of dangerous dogs in the Dover House Estate.

The problem has also generated a lot of comment on the putneysw15.com website discussion forum, and I've been contacted by worried residents, unhappy with the utter lack of interest in this issue from the Conservative MP and Tory councillors.

Today, I've spent a lot of time on conference calls with the police - which were really productive - and will be meeting with residents over the weekend. I'm optimistic that this particular incident, that caused such fear and anger locally, is going to be resolved appropriately and I'll be updating this blog after my weekend meetings to explain a little more about why I think that.

Residents are absolutely right to concerned about the issue of dangerous dogs in the area, and livid at the ambivalence shown by the MP. This issue is EXACTLY the sort of local issue a good constituency MP would be at the heart of getting resolved.

For more on the background to this story, the Borough News story can be read here.