Following consultation with residents the Shaftesbury Park Estate will be getting a 20mph zone, one of the borough’s first.
Reducing speed limits has been a frequent request in all my time as a councillor. The problem was that it just couldn’t be enforced – the police have other priorities and traditional speed bumps have severe problems, they are noisy as cars go over, they frequently damage vehicles and would be very unsightly in a conservation area. However, the trial treatments that have been installed at various points on Sabine Road and Elsley Road seem to have addressed those problems.
Overall 87% of residents were in favour of a 20mph zone and between 67% and 75% in favour installing new raised platforms at the various junctions that don’t already have them.
The council is due to be starting work on 1 February. TfL will be responsible for the works at the junctions with Latchmere Road and are planning on performing the work during February.
It’s nearly two months since Lord Adonis’ big announcement of a £50 million pot to invest in the country’s ten worst stations – and the naming of Clapham Junction as number two on the list.
I was a little cynical, since I think Clapham Junction needs some significant spend on it, and questioned how the cash would be divided. Especially when other, less needy, stations were getting significantly more anyway.
However, it seems Clapham Junction is one of the winners – getting (subject to negotiation) £10 million, 20% of the total pot. Assuming the higher placed stations, like Liverpool Lime Street which was seen as the country’s worst, get similarly big shares the poor stations at the bottom won’t be doing too well!
But while I’m still not convinced it’s enough – it’s a large sum and, spent well, will make an impact. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of it.
I didn’t make any New Year’s Resolutions about this blog but perhaps I should have made one to avoid posting about any councillor’s favourite topic: dog fouling.
Up and down the country it’s one of those issues that has become a cliche in for local government. But it’s become a cliche because it is a real problem in some areas. Personally the problem has taken on a whole new dimension now I occasionally push a pram and have to navigate four wheels and two feet through the Shaftesbury Park Estate.
And the problem hasn’t really gone away on the Shaftesbury Park Estate (or elsewhere, I imagine). In the area immediately around my house it seems dog owners have become a little more considerate, but only to the extent of dragging their dog to a tree base or gutter.
But while most people find that a bit distasteful it was perfectly legal. Indeed, I remember the old signs that – rather than telling people to clear up – merely advised people to “kerb” their dog.
But all that should be coming to an end. The council’s Dog Control Orders come into force this month, and will make it an offence not to clean up after your dog.
The Orders have been a long time coming, in part because of some mis-reporting in the Evening Standard that suggested we were going to try and ban dogs from all our parks (instead we are banning them from sections, like children’s play areas or sports facilities) but now they are finally here we can, hopefully, start dealing with irresponsible dog owners who don’t clean up after their dogs.
If you have any information, or are concerned about a particular area, you can contact the council’s dog control team on 020 8871 7606 (or see wandsworth.gov.uk/dogs) or contact me and I’ll be happy to pass the information on.
I’ve posted about 19 Lavender Hill, the abandoned, eyesore, building on the corner of Garfield Road on a couple ofoccasions before and have had plenty of correspondence from residents (both near and far to the building) about it. But it still remains an very obvious blight on the road.
In order to provide a brief follow-up the wheels are still, slowly, turning. Having failed – through pressure and incentive – to get the original owners to bring the site back in use the council used its powers of compulsory purchase to buy the building. It as then to be sold on, but because we wanted to ensure the new owners would have not only the ability to renovate and bring the building back into use but would also have the legal obligation to do this quickly the sale was not as straightforward as most property transactions.
However, I’ve been told by council officers that there is now a buyer who have a track record of bringing properties like this back into use. They and the council are currently completing the legal side of the sale and (though I am very wary of tempting fate on this) we should see the site smartening up in the early part of next year and back in use by next summer or autumn.
Canary Wharf from top of the Westfield building site
Campaigning
I’m not sure why but it seems like campaigning seems to be taking up more and more time, although looking through the diary we’ve been keeping up a fairly stiff pace through the summer months. It is perhaps the onset of darker and considerably colder nights makes an evening on the doorstep seem a lot less appealing than it did in the summer months. Or it might be that the elections are starting to seem a little more real now that other candidates are falling into place – I’ve heard Martin Linton’s wife, Sara Apps-Linton, is standing as a council candidate in Shaftesbury – whether the story is accurate or not there is no doubt that we are definitely heading into election territory. If you don’t like elections and politics it might be an idea to book a long holiday!
SNT awards
Awards of one form or another have formed a large part of this week. I was one of the judging panel for the first Safer Neighbourhood Team awards this week, responsible for sifting through the hundreds of nominations made by members of the public, businesses, charities, pubs, councillors and children who all thought they had the borough’s best SNT.
At the risk of using cliché it was not an easy decision. I think the result changed several times during the discussions before the winner was finally decided. And while I’m not going to name the winner here, it says a lot that there is such support and recognition in the borough for the work of the SNTs.
CSD awards
I also attended a little session to recognise the awards that the council’s Community Safety Division have received over the past few weeks. I have often said how privileged I have been to work with some excellent council officers from all parts of my portfolio, but it’s always good to see their good work recognised externally. Since October Community Safety officers have been part of the team winning the London Region Tilley Award (a Home Office prize awarded annually) received a commendation from Ron Dobson, the London Fire Commissioner, (I understand this is the first time council staff have received such recognition) and also received commendations from Stewart Low, the Wandsworth police borough commander, for their community safety work.
That they are an award winning department is no surprise to me, and I’m incredibly proud of all that they have done for the borough.
Westfield Stratford City
While not directly related to the borough I took up an invitation to have a look around the Westfield Stratford City site this week. It is a truly massive project and (I am happy to admit) one that I hope I will never visit when finished! But however much I dislike shopping I cannot deny the regeneration benefits it will have for Newham, creating enormous employment opportunities for the area and fitting into the wider regeneration through the Olympics. Of course, a retail-led regeneration of that scale is not directly suitable for Wandsworth, not least because it would undermine the council’s five town centre strategy. But it is a example of what can be achieved between the private and public sector and while the parallels are not direct gives an indication of the sort of benefits might accrue to local residents as development begins in Nine Elms.
As an aside, it also offered an excellent view of the Olympic venues. Several are visible from the upper areas of the Westfield building site, and while the media (I think) tends to portray a negative image but when you see them you realise that they are very close to completion and that the Olympics are not very far away at all.
Housing ASB conference
Finally, I spent his morning at a conference on Anti-Social Behaviour organised by the council’s housing department. Wandsworth’s housing department is very strong when it comes to dealing with ASB from its tenants, but it is something that continues to blight many people’s lives. One aspect is understanding, a resident in a working group I took part in commented that, very often, people felt intimidated when there was no ill-will meant and sometimes a group of teenagers is just a group of teenages and not a knife-weilding gang!
It is a point we often lose sight of and I was talking to a Shaftesbury resident this afternoon about much the same subject. While the council and partners need to be (and are) tough on crime and anti-social behaviour we need to ensure that in doing so we do not criminalise and marginalise a generation just for doing what teenagers have always done – meet friends and hang about.
The Shaftesbury Safer Neighbourhood Team are holding a drop-in clinic tomorrow (Friday 27 November), between 12 noon and 4pm in the old Peabody Offices on Eversleigh Road.
They will be there to discuss any policing, crime or anti-social behaviour issues you may have. If you can’t get along their contact details are available on the Met’s website and they hold regular public meetings (again listed on the Met website, the next is 5 January at Battersea Arts Centre).
Since then I’ve been trying to find more details. But I’ve failed. There just don’t seem to be any details out there. The best I’ve managed to find is on Martin Linton’s website is a suggestion that Clapham Junction should get a big share, but without any reference to why he makes that assertion.
That details can’t be found perhaps isn’t that worrying of itself. It was only a week ago that it was announced. However, it’s a bit concerning that it’s so difficult to find any reference to how the decisions will be made. Do the individual stations bid? Are they just allocated the cash? What if the stations, collectively, need more than £50 million?
The money is a response to the Rail Champions report. Reading through Lord Adonis’s blog of his tour of the ten worst stations he seems to suggest the problems at Clapham Junction are things like the lack of escalators and that the platform canopies do not cover the entirety of the platform. He also mentions the need for an entrance at bridge level, which, of course, is already being planned (with some investment from Wandsworth Council).
These are the sorts of things that might be changed relatively cheaply. But they aren’t the fundamental problems that need to be addressed.
To my mind, and I think anyone who uses the station, the real problems are capacity – of the tunnel linking the platforms and of the trains serving the station. While the proposed Brighton Yard entrance will go some way to alleviating the pressure in the tunnel it might only be at the expense of new congestion problems on the footbridge, an antiquated structure that I suspect is well overdue replacement. And there’s a good chance that the problems will get worse once pay-as-you-go becomes valid next year, as a huge group of travellers become eligible to pass through the Clapham Junction gates.
It might be a start, but it’s significantly less than other – considerably less needy – stations are getting. It’ll be interesting to see the details when, and if, they are published.
The Lavender Gardens playground (the small playground between Dorothy Road and Asda) is closed for nine days from today.
The playground is being refurbished by the council, who will be installing some swings, a wooden activity trail and a climbing frame and slide and will be re-opened on Wednesday 28 October.
This follows on from the landscaping work that had been carried out in the area to prevent it being used anti-socially and will hopefully enhance the facilities available for local residents as well as making the area nicer for people using the short-cut to Asda and through to Clapham Junction.
Now that conference season is over things start getting back into full swing. A few of the bits and pieces I’ve not mentioned this week are:
School governors
One of the privileges I’ve had as a councillor is being able to serve as a school governor in three of the ward’s schools. I’m currently a governor at Shaftesbury Park – and attended the full governors meeting on Wednesday.
The council nominates people to each governing body and there are usually some vacancies somewhere as people come and go from Wandsworth. It can be an incredibly rewarding experience and need not take up much time (as little as a couple of evenings per term). If you think you might be interested in being a school governor you can find out more from the school governor section of the council’s website.
NLA event
Last night I was promoting Wandsworth at a New London Architecture ‘Our Patch’ night. It was a great opportunity to talk about how great Wandsworth is and what it has to offer (I will try to create a YouTube version of my short pitch).
Their building in Store Street has a model of central London amongst its displays and is well worth a visit, even if the Power Station has, sadly lost two of its chimneys.
Black History Month
And finally, I popped into a Black History Month (links to a PDF) event at Battersea Library this morning entitled ‘arrivals’.
Given my previous post (and talk) on why Wandsworth is great it was fascinating to hear the stories on how and why people came to Wandsworth. Wandsworth has a long and proud history of welcoming immigrant communities and listening to the stories of how people came here and become part of the wider community brought home how much better we are for being a diverse, but still cohesive, community.
A number of residents have asked about the ‘demolition’ notices that have gone up on the Elsley Road school site. The building that is being demolished is the ‘temporary’ wooden building that used to house the pupil referral unit (or PRU) on the same site. The main brick building is not being touched.
The site has been vacant since last year’s flooding, which meant the building could not be used and led to the school being relocated with Nightingale School. Following the success this move was made permanent – both schools are part of the same federation and both cater for children with emotional and behavioural disorders.
There was concern earlier this year there was concern about security on the site, and as ward councillors we wrote to neighbours advising them about the measures the council was taking. The nature of the site means it’s difficult to imagine a suitable council use for the site, and the recession means the council wouldn’t get best value via a disposal, so the site might be vacant for some time. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any concerns.
Following consultation with residents the Shaftesbury Park Estate will be getting a 20mph zone, one of the borough’s first.
It’s nearly two months since Lord Adonis’ big announcement of a £50 million pot to invest in the country’s ten worst stations – and the naming of Clapham Junction as number two on the list.
I’ve posted about 19 Lavender Hill, the abandoned, eyesore, building on the corner of Garfield Road on 
Now that conference season is over things start getting back into full swing. A few of the bits and pieces I’ve not mentioned this week are: