Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Wednesday 11 February 2026, 7:30pm

Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Wednesday, 11th February 2026 at 7:30pm

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1 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

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2 Declarations of Interests

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3 Local Plan (Paper No. 26-31)

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26-31 - Report

4 Review of the Walking and Cycling Strategy (Paper No. 26-32)

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5 Highways Maintenance Programme (Paper No. 26-33)

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6 Car Clubs (Paper No. 26-34)

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26-34 - Report and Appendix 1

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Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated, so it may contain errors. Please view the webcast to confirm whether the content is accurate.

committee the meeting is being webcast and some officers I don't think we have

anyone accessing virtually no one's joining virtually I'm Jack Councillor

Mayorkas and chair of the Transport Committee I'll now go through the members

of committee in alphabetical order switch on the microphone as normal to

confirm your attendance Councillor Belton good evening chair

Councillor Critchard.

Councillor Critchard, Tootingbeck Ward.

Councillor de la Sejour.

Good evening.

Councillor Hamilton.

Hello, good evening.

Apologies from Councillor Lawless.

Councillor Locker.

Hello, Councillor Locker from Thamesfield Ward.

Councillor Owens.

Good evening everyone, Councillor Owens, Northcote Ward.

And Councillor Tiller.

Good evening everyone, Councillor Matthew Tiller from Roehampton board.

And we've had apologies from Councillor Lawless as well.

Cool, so before we go on to agenda item one which is the minutes, I just wanted to put

record my thanks and a bit of a tribute to Councillor Locker and this is his last

meeting as a Councillor and of this committee first elected in 2010 in

Bedford Ward and then Thamesfield since 2017 and of course previously the

cabinet member for transport and responsible for a lot of the papers and

schemes that we have been discussing and always a source of very detailed

scrutiny in a collegiate way so thank you very much Councillor Locker for your

time on the council. We move on then to actually before we do that so just

before we jump onto the minutes I'm just going to invite Councillor Yeates the

cabinet member to provide a very brief update on Albert Bridge as I know that

pertinent to this committee. Yes thank you chair we thought we should mention

Albert Bridge at the start of this transport committee meeting because obviously

It's recent closure is of course of you know great concern to ones with residents

Obviously it is essential that

Kennington and Chelsea Council do undertake the necessary safety cheques obviously public safety is absolutely paramount

But of course we are concerned about the congestion. It's the closure is causing

in our borough on some particular roads in Battersea,

Parkgate Road for example, but also the pressure

this will be putting on our other river crossings.

Officers have been in very regular contact

with their counterparts in Kensington and Chelsea

and I'll just hand to Mr O 'Donnell

for a very brief update on that.

Thank you, Councillor.

Just to say that we are in daily conversations

with our colleagues in the neighbouring borough. We are assured that there are regular cheques

ongoing at the moment and regular inspections in relation to the bridge. We are told that

will continue for at least the next week or so and therefore we will get further updates

in the near future. But we will, as soon as we have information, we will make that available

through our normal channels.

Thanks very much both.

Councillor Belton.

I thought I'd just add a quick historical note.

When I was first, when I was considerably younger, first active in the Batsy -Lebo party,

the bridge was under threat.

I actually had thought it was closed, but I've just checked it out again.

It wasn't quite closed, but there were all sorts of considerations about demolishing

and actually demolishing it and replacing it with a modern bridge, and also about doing

it up at great expense. This is in the 60s and 70s I think at the time and in the end

it was decided to prop it up and anyone who's looked at Albert Bridge properly will see

that it's no longer a suspension bridge, there's a stanchion actually holding it up right in

the middle. You hardly notice it, the up and down traffic on the river goes on either side

of it but there is a separate stanchion holding it. So it has had this track record and I

guess it could be a big problem for us and for Ken and Chelsea. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I just thank Councillor Yates for that update and could I ask that

officers please to keep us in touch as much as they can. I haven't seen a huge amount

of email traffic on it yet but I do expect that we will receive a lot of queries in the

coming days so thank you very much for the update and look forward to hearing more.

Yeah absolutely Councillor Hamilton. I've asked our comms team to be very proactive

on this. They have been putting out information from Kensington Chelsea on Instagram, Twitter,

Facebook, but of course as soon as we have any other information we will share it with residents.

But obviously as you'll appreciate we're very dependent on the information that the Kensington

Chelsea officers are able to share and at the moment because they're still assessing the

condition of the bridge, as you'll appreciate they can't share much at the moment because they

really don't have any conclusions at this time.

Thanks very much, Councillor Critchard.

Just to say, as well as all the other channels,

are we thinking about having something up

on our Council website,

which we've done for other transport things?

I just wondered about that,

because not everybody is on Instagram

and all the other things.

Yes, thank you, Councillor Critchard.

We can certainly arrange that.

And I've also asked our network management team to look into what further signage they could put up in Battersea due to the congestion on some particular roads.

And Mr. Chung, who's here, has also been in touch with Transport for London about one of the signalised junctions on Battersea Bridge Road,

which I think is particularly congested at the moment because of the closure of Albert Bridge and leading to some safety concerns.

So, you know, we're trying to reach out to all parties who can, you know, assist with the situation.

Thanks everyone for that. Moving on to agenda item number one. Just before I ask about agreement

of the minutes, you'll know that there's no paper on the second paper on delivery riders,

so I just invite David Tidley to give us an update on that work at the moment.

Thank you, Chair. David Tidley, the Head of Transport Strategy. Members will recall that

At your November committee, you considered a paper on delivery riders and

specifically noting the sort of valuable contribution that they make in the borough and

in assisting businesses and people making a living.

At the same time, it was noted that they do present us with challenges in terms of finding adequate space for parking for the vehicles.

There's an issue on welfare facilities for delivery drivers, for delivery riders,

and also issues relating to the use of mopeds and e -bikes, and particularly unlawful use of such.

You gave us some good steer and advice to take away and

to follow up on those matters that were discussed.

And subsequently, as I've mentioned in an email that I've sent to you recently, we've made contact with companies and with the police and with London councils and Transport for London,

who so far, where we've received responses, they've been very positive and they're very keen to work with us.

And we suggest that probably the most appropriate solution or next step would be for those organisations

to come to a future meeting of the committee and to take questions and to sort of provide

further advice.

So that's where we are at the moment.

If you have any more input that you'd like to forward to me to make sure we consider

that as we develop a paper, probably a paper for the future committee and session for you,

then file means do so. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much. So moving in then on to the

1 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

minutes. Are the minutes of the Transport and Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on

the 20th of November 2025 agreed and can I sign them as a correct record of the meeting?

2 Declarations of Interests

Very good. Moving on to Agenda Item Number 2 in that case which is declarations of interest.

I think due to apologies from Councillor Cooper there won't be but are there any declarations

of interest? No? Perfect. So moving on to our first substantial paper then which is

agenda item number three which is the local plan and I'm going to ask

3 Local Plan (Paper No. 26-31)

Government for Housing, IDEN, Councillor Dickardam to introduce that.

Thank you very much. Yeah so this is an update on the local plan changes. You'll

be aware of them, we've discussed them for Council. Tonight I won't be able to

give you a clear outline of what's been adopted and what hasn't because that

still is with the inspector and we're waiting on those, you know, on the rule in there.

But we have a rough idea of what we think has gone well, what we think, you know, we

might not go in our favour. I think to kind of put this in context, this was a very ambitious

commitment from the council to try and maximise the amount of affordable housing delivery

that it could using the planning system that exists. So leveraging and trying to squeeze

as much affordable housing out of private development sites.

But also, alongside some of those big, heavy -hitting policies like the 50%, the 45 % threshold,

the internal splits, were I think some really important smaller changes around smaller sites,

around student accommodation, which I know our residents will be very pleased with if

they go through.

So I promised I'd bring it to this committee even before, rather than delay it until we

get the findings so you can have some proper discussion about it.

But we can't give you clear 100 % guarantees

of what we think will happen or what might not happen.

But we can talk broadly about why

we brought these policies forward and our evidence base.

And then Daniel can give a bit of an introduction

about how the hearings went.

And I don't know if any of you sat in on them.

But they were really fascinating.

Our team did an incredible job at articulating

the case for Wandsworth.

So I'll pass it over to Daniel.

Thank you, Councillor.

I suppose, just members, in terms

of outlining a little bit about process.

So, you might recall that we brought a paper

to the Transport Committee back in 2024, I think towards the end

of 2024 outlining kind of draught policies that we proposed

to include as part of that local plan partial review.

And there were six policies that were to supersede versions

of the policies in the 2023 local plan,

which were outlined in the paper.

And pursuant to recommendation that Transport Committee made

at that time to cabinet or to executive at the time.

Those policies were consulted upon,

and then they were submitted to the Secretary of State

in early 2025.

So subsequent to that, we participated in examination

hearings in November.

And as Councillor Dickerdum says,

our general view on that is it went fairly well.

And it's always a kind of positive atmosphere,

and it's always about kind of trying

to put across your evidence and listen

to the evidence of others.

And so following conclusion of those hearings, we have now consulted on some modifications,

and these were modifications that the inspector identified as necessary.

And I won't go through them in detail, if you forgive me, because there are quite a

few.

But my main summary of them is that they're mostly very minor, and only a few substantive

ones that are listed in the paper.

So I think Council Dickendham has probably done a pretty good job of kind of outlining where we're at at the moment.

I'm very happy to answer any questions if you have any questions about those modifications in detail or about the process.

But generally speaking, I think it's just important to note, excuse me, that the process is still ongoing.

And we're waiting for that inspector's report.

But nevertheless, we are now very advanced in that process.

And I think it's probably also important to say that we're in constant dialogue with our

development management colleagues who obviously report into development committee about the

weighting that can be given to these draught policies, because as you get further into

the process, that weighting does also increase.

So I'll leave it there, Chair, if that's okay, but I'm very happy to answer any questions

on any of that.

And I'll drink some water now.

Thank you.

Just once you've drunk some water, would you mind just giving your title?

I was receiving quizzical looks from some members of the committee.

Apologies, Chair.

So, yes, my name is Daniel Goodman.

I'm a principal planner in the Spatial Planning Team.

Thank you.

Thanks very much.

Councillor Tiller.

Thank you, Chair.

I very much welcome the ambitious target that 70 % of affordable homes will be social homes.

Could you say a bit about how this will benefit residents?

Perhaps if I start, Chair, and then if Councillor Dickerton wants to add anything.

I mean, I guess the main thing is just to say that it increases the supply of social

rented homes, which are the type most needed in the borough.

So on every site above 10 units, we would expect, obviously, seven out of 10 of the

affordable homes to be social rent.

At the moment, it would be more like 50%.

So there's a practical outcome.

There's also obviously related outcomes that we've spoken about in the examination hearings around savings to the council around

hopefully reduce need to use temporary accommodation, etc.

Perhaps that's a good time to introduce, bring Council Ticodem into it.

But I think that's the key thing.

We're talking about more social rented homes.

We know that's the type most needed.

And that's, I guess, a key outcome of the process so far.

But Councillor Stichton might want to say more.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I was thinking for anyone who might be watching at home that we're going to use

lots of percentages here.

We're talking here about the internal percentage of the overall scope of affordable homes.

So roughly at the moment, policy is 35 % of the scheme would need to be affordable.

And then it's the proportion within that affordable housing, how much of it is socially rented

and how much of it might be an intermediate product, like shared ownership.

And what the GLA allows us to do is go to a kind of top threshold within our power of

that 70 percent.

Policy before was 50 percent.

We would try and negotiate for higher percentages.

We often were doing quite well at planning on that, but we really – it gives us a lot

more strength to our position within the planning policy to have that 70 -30 internal split.

So it's that – I'm just clarifying it because people hear 70 percent and they think

We're talking about the percentage of the scheme, which comes at huge financial benefit

to the Council because we all know from Finance Committee how large the burden of temporary

accommodation has become.

We're crossing the 4 ,000 people in temporary accommodation threshold.

That's circa, you know, 60 million pounds general funds spent a year.

So any social unit that we get is a massive saving, not just the kind of general fund,

but also the wider welfare of residents who are currently, you know, overcrowded or not

properly housed.

Mr. Hamilton.

Thank you.

G'dam's position on this, I think you've clearly articulated from a political perspective

and I think you've shown a great deal of clarity in terms of the direction of thought

that you have, I think, about where you want to see housing going in the borough.

There's no doubt about that.

But one thing I would ask is you've spoken about percentages and you spoke a few moments

ago about almost a certainty of delivery of this actually happening.

And again, I pick up on the officer's comments.

He spoke about how these changes bring about an increase in supply and social rents and

will have practical outcomes.

But of course, we are still thinking, as we are with all of these structures, about theoretical

outcomes.

And they do, of course, require things to be built in the borough.

And I think one of the longest, one of the most significant criticisms that we've had

about this shift is that I've yet to see any evidence that really shows how an impact

that moves to a 50 % affordable target plus a 50 % social rent target will actually be

viable for developers.

Because what we've seen certainly in the last few years is a slowdown in private development

in the borough.

I think part of that is influenced by, I would argue, some of the mood music from the administration

about the future of housing.

But this is very theoretical and of course 35 % may not be the figure that you want to

see realised, but 35 % of something is better than 70 % of nothing.

So I would just question the evidential basis that you have used to come to these targets

And what evidence do we have that you really think this building will actually happen?

Because I think it's fair to say we're sceptical of that.

Yeah, so I think that's a really good point, because I think there's a kind of misunderstanding

of how viability works.

So particularly, I think you were referencing the kind of fast track, the ambitious fast

track proposal on 45 percent of schemes getting a specific fast track.

So the fast track is when you don't actually do the viability testing.

That's the kind of carrot for the developer to say,

rather than go through the process of viability testing,

we'll meet you where you want to go.

And that has historically been quite successful.

The GLA's 35%.

It saw a kind of increase in affordable housing.

If a scheme is not viable at that percentage,

then the developer probably won't go for the fast track.

It will go down the viability tested route.

And it can then deliver at much lower levels

of affordable housing.

So what this does is it gives us the armour and the character of a developer that really

wants to build in Wandsworth, that adds a kind of additional, because of our land values,

because of the prices in the borough, gives us a bit of an additional ask, because we

think we're not a Bromley or a Bexley or an Alta borough, we can really maximise the value

of our land on private sites to try and deliver as much public good as possible.

Now am I going to sit here and pretend that my ambitious socialist strategies for planning

in Wandsworth coincided with the perfect market conditions? Absolutely not. We saw costs go

up. We saw dual staircase regulations. We saw change in interest rates, which is affecting

house prices. So I completely understand the kind of, there's an argument to say that there

are risks here around the impact of bills happening on site. You get the planning permission,

but then will it get built? I think that is almost like a separate question because the

The role of planning is to plan for the 10 -year cycle.

Had we had some of these plans in place during the good years of the 9 -ELMS boom, we would

have got 4 ,000 social units that we just don't have and we could have got and it would have

kept those schemes viable.

You don't want to build a planning policy that is based on the dip in the market, the

bad years, particularly when you want to have a plan that is over the long term.

Permissions granted now, build out happens later down the line.

I think there's a helpful graph that shows some of the affordable homes that we have

undoubtedly being delivered under our administration, were consented under yours because these are

long time periods in which things get built out. So what we're doing is we're trying to

bank for future delivery, future generations and make sure that sites provide. I also think

in a down year, getting planning permission is important. I know there's an argument at

the moment which is a planning permission doesn't mean much, but actually a planning

permission with a better level of affordable housing is better than a planning commission

without affordable housing. There are two million unbuilt out planning permissions at

the moment. The issue there is not that the regulations is too tight and people can't

get planning permission. It's a question of the market forces. So we have to balance our

role as custodians of the borough, but try and deliver as much public good as possible.

And I think this is the most ambitious and progressive you can be on this question. And

I don't think it's too bad if we secure some planning permissions that wait for the upcycle.

We know that baked in and locked in is that good level of affordable housing. So when

things increase and they do get built out, we're not sitting there going, oh, I wish

we'd ask for more because this came through in a period in which they could prove viability

was low.

So that's kind of my pitch on this proposal is some kind of longer term thinking to extract

as much public good as possible.

Councillor Belton and then Councillor Locker and then Crichton.

If I may ask the officer, Mr Goodman, I'm in total agreement with the policies.

It's indeed, I'd like to think we could go further,

but that's another argument.

But you said this was the housing most in demand.

That's clearly a statement which people can look at

in different ways.

What was the evidential basis for saying that,

in the sense that I'm sure lots of people would say

the biggest demand was for first time buyers

or for private rented, or whatever case they may put.

What was your evidential basis for saying that social housing was the biggest demand?

Thank you, Councillor.

So one of the key evidence bases that went into the local plan review and the examination process was a housing needs assessment.

And that looks at a lot of different data around the demographic makeup of the borough and affordability criteria.

and it looks at local earnings and it essentially projects over the course of a plan period,

which is typically 15 to 20 years, what percentage of borough residents can afford to purchase

a home in Wandsworth at market rates or projected market rates.

What percentage could have their needs met if they could, if you built enough of intermediate

housing, shared ownership, et cetera.

So that typically would then cater for people whose incomes

aren't enough to buy market housing,

but they're not low enough to be eligible for social housing,

for example.

And then that leaves a proportion

that housing needs can only be met from social housing.

And it is ultimately projections,

and it is ultimately assumptions,

but it very much follows national policy guidance

on how these assessments are done.

And what it concluded was that anywhere between, I think,

something in the region of half to 80 % of all homes that need to be built in ones

with over the next 20 years may need to be social rented to meet full needs.

And the higher figure comes from essentially the fact that lots of people,

unless we meet their need for social rent within the borough, will be forced to leave the borough to have their housing needs resolved.

which is not really, it might be a kind of practical reality of the world and how housing market works.

But it's obviously not really a favourable outcome.

But there will always be a large chunk of people who will stay and who's only route to housing and

avoiding kind of temporary accommodation, homelessness, overcrowding, etc., is by meeting their needs with social housing.

So that's what I mean when I say majority.

I mean, it's not that there isn't kind of diversity in different types of need, but

it's just when you look at local incomes and you look at house prices and availability

of support, social housing is the type of housing that when you kind of compare it to

the other forms of housing, more local people need than others.

And particularly that's true for affordable housing.

So I think in the region of two -thirds of all affordable housing needs would have to be social rent.

And then as you move between other types of product like London Living Rent or shared ownership or

at the very top end kind of discount market rent, then you resolve more and more of those needs.

So that's essentially what I mean, Councillor.

It's through that evidence base that we've looked at those projections and

that's ultimately what the inspector has tested as part of the examination process.

Thank you.

Councillor Locker, then Critchard.

Thank you, Chair.

I have two questions.

I'm not entirely sure who they're directed to, but I'll raise them anyway.

Firstly, can I thank officers for providing the additional information in a paper format.

That makes it so much easier for me to read.

Thank you.

So I'm looking at the table in that appendix, and it's got a breakdown of homes granted

permission, homes built and then affordable homes and then percentages.

So that's really helpful.

I just note when I look at that paper that the first number of years in the table, the

average amount of homes granted permission was averaging about just under 5K.

My maths isn't great but I think it's just under 5K.

In recent years it's been around 2K.

I just wonder why that is and what it means.

Now, I sort of have in my mind that the planning process is a bit like a funnel.

So you get more stuff put in the top and then it sort of grades down a little bit and you

don't necessarily get them all out.

And there's a lovely little footnote with an asterisk there that says, you know, to

be cautious and that comparisons and commencements are, you know, generally better in terms of

monitoring indicators.

But it's quite a substantial reduction in the number of requests.

Does that mean that we think that in years going forward that the pipeline is going to

reduce and that we'll start to see a reduction in the number of homes delivered?

Or does it mean that there are some developers just sitting on big pieces of land which they've

got permission for but not actually done anything about?

So that's my first question.

Do you want me to answer that or do you want me to come back with my second?

If it's okay, Councillor, I'll answer that quickly now.

So I think part of it is probably with reference to that footnote, just to say that sometime

absolute permissions can be misleading because they might include resubmissions and therefore you kind of get that double counting.

But I think in terms of the underlying question, I think if you look at those years, what you find is that in terms of kind of land availability,

those years coincide when lots of permissions were being granted on the areas within the borough where we know there was a lot of land available.

So for example, parts of what's being developed at Nine Elms.

And there's relatively less of that now, but that's really just purely because more and more of that's been built out.

So it's a scarce resource.

It's just diminishing.

So it's probably worth saying that the London plan target for Wandsworth per year is 1950.

So those years where nearly 6 ,000 homes were being granted, that's fantastic.

But the idea with that housing requirement is that it would always be an average.

So when land supply diminishes, you might have years where you go below, but it's kind of averaging out in the end.

So I think partly it's just representative of where land availability in the borough has changed, and

more and more of that, Nine Elms has been built out in other parts of the borough.

That does then create, and this is probably a discussion for another day, but local plans are always cyclical.

And there will be a need for us to look again at our local plan and

look again at identifying the future supply of land.

And the London plan update has started.

I think there's going to be a consultation later this year

that we will no doubt participate in.

And there will be that need for us to, at some point,

have a think about our local plan

and the next supply of housing.

So in terms of proportions within that,

that's why we've provided in that table for council

is kind of an idea of proportions,

because proportions perhaps more adjust

for that economic viability policy aspect whereas absolute figures may be a

little bit more susceptible to the land availability so I hope that answers your

question if I haven't then please do let me know thank you councillor thank you

mr. Goodman that's been really helpful thank you so my second question and you

touched on the London local plan and thank you once again there's a sort of

breakdown on the differences the GLA had with the ones with plan review it

It's just a technical question.

Obviously, a number of applications potentially are not accepted by the council and end

up being called in by the GLA or appealing to the GLA.

When that happens, which plan takes precedence?

Is it the local plan still or is it the London -wide plan particularly in areas

where there is differences between them, such as on the percentages of houses,

of affordable houses, etc., in the mix. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. So in terms of the legal basis and the case law on this,

you know, whichever... So the Local Plan and the London Plan are both part of what we'd call the Development Plan.

So, you know, in a sense they're not distinguished in law in that sense,

other than what the law says is that more recent development plan documents take precedence over older documents.

So the ones with local plan partial review, when hopefully it's adopted,

would take precedence over the London plan by virtue of the fact that it is more recent.

And one of the key tests, the legal test that the local plan partial review will have had to have passed,

is that it's generally consistent with the London plan.

And it's probably worth saying that at this point, having gone through the process,

there is no longer really any uncommon ground between the GLA and the council.

And the GLA's latest consultation response, which is after these modifications,

really just points to the fact that there was no longer any concern with them because any concerns they had

have either been addressed fairly through the examination process or have resulted in modification which they support.

So just to answer the question in a slightly different way,

I mean, where an application comes to a decision maker, whether or not it's PAC or whether or not it's the mayor.

Ultimately, they have to make a decision on the basis of the development plan.

The exact weight to be given to different issues is ultimately for that decision maker.

So the fact that the local plan partial review is more recent is material and

That should be something that they weigh into the factor.

But at any given time, obviously,

there's moving picture on policy.

And so I think the important thing to say

is that really, at the point of decision,

it's for the decision maker to make sound planning judgement

on all of those factors.

But they are required to make a decision in accordance

with the development plan unless there are strong reasons

to do otherwise.

Thank you.

That is really helpful.

I did not know that.

So basically, it's the most recent plan

that takes precedence.

That just prompted me.

You hinted at that there was going

to be a new London plan, which will be starting

the consultation process.

I happen to know from working on the Wandsworth plan

that these things take two years or more,

because I worked on the last one.

So we're about four years in.

We're having this revision.

What are the dates for the London plan,

i .e. when will that kick off in terms of consultation

come into effect?

And is it also 10 years?

Thank you, Councillor.

So I don't have the exact dates in front of me, but I can confirm them because they are public.

So I can confirm them outside the meeting.

But my understanding is that they are planning to do a consultation later this year on a draught of that London plan.

So that will only hold limited weight because it will be a draught.

I believe it's their plan next year to then publish the kind of final version and

go through their version of examination.

That will take time.

I envisage that that's going to take at least a couple of years from where we're at now to have a final London plan that's been,

I think they don't use the word adopted, they use the word approved, but essentially the same thing.

But there's a margin of error on that of probably a year

either side based on wider changes with national policy

legislation and perhaps a discussion

item for another day.

But there's lots of changes planned to the plan -making

system in this country that are being introduced shortly,

which will also revisit the question of what

a local plan is, what a London plan -type document is,

how long they take to reduce. I feel like I might bore councillors if I talk about that

too much but just to say it is a point that's changing. But yeah, if it's okay, Chair, I'll

confirm the actual published dates for the London plan for all councillors so that they

know what the GLA are likely to be planning to. Thank you.

I'm just going to let Councillor Dickard come back on that specific point.

I just want to clarify if there's an anxiety that by moving this forward and then the London

plan changing, on the internal splits within the affordable housing percentage, they've

historically given precedent to councils to choose up to the 30%.

That's why we didn't go for an 80 % to 20 % social housing intermediate split because

the London plan says you can do what you like as long as 30 % at least 30 % is intermediate.

So that's why we moved from 70 to 30.

So in the new London plan, if they change that, it wouldn't have a material impact on

the internal split unless they did something drastic, which I'm sure in our response to

the consultation we will ask them not to do.

But you wouldn't – there isn't a risk of us suddenly being pipped to the post with

a 50 -50 split later down the line because we still have local authorities have discretion

over the internal split.

Oh, thank you.

Picking up a couple of things.

First of all, I'm always very interested in the local plan, so please don't have a discussion just with Councillor Locker.

Next thing is, I don't think we've mentioned when we hope to hear back from the inspector so this could be finalised.

So that would be helpful to know that.

I'd also like to make a point about the high percentage of social homes.

I think we also need to be thinking about the people who live there and the effect on our local economy.

And we do have people who have lower paid jobs.

And if they move away from the borough, actually it then becomes more difficult for us to recruit into areas that we would wish to recruit into.

I think for example, prison officers, there's a bit of a problem at the moment for us in Wandsworth.

And so thinking about these homes, what it will mean, should mean is that there may be

people who we would like to keep here who keep our services going that will then be

able to live here and won't be looking to work elsewhere because it's going to cost

them to commute.

So that's my sort of political point.

And then my real question, my question is around, now we've made these changes and

we're hoping to hear, where does that place us relative to other London boroughs and particularly

our neighbouring boroughs in terms of their planning?

Thank you, Councillor.

I mean, just to pick up quickly on the first point.

So really the only thing left in the process is for the Inspector to issue his report to

us, which I'm not being deliberately evasive when I say, you know, it could land tomorrow,

it could land in a month's time.

It's very difficult to know with planning inspector, but ultimately,

from our understanding, all the procedural parts in the process have been fulfilled.

So really, it is frankly just an issue of when he has the capacity to issue us that report.

And when it goes through any internal cheques that are required, but we're hoping, obviously, that it will be very, very soon.

Sorry, please forgive me. Please remind me of your second question, sir.

Just on the first question, that's fine. I wasn't looking for a date. I was just looking

for is it next month, is it in the summer, is it a long time off. No, the second question

was around what our position is relative to other London boroughs in terms of their local

plans, and also particularly maybe thinking about our close neighbours.

Thank you, Councillor.

Yes, so I mean in terms of the policy position we have, I mean a lot of London boroughs already

have this 70 -30 tenure split in favour of social rented housing because obviously a

lot of boroughs like Wandsworth, although there will always be differences, have that

greater need for social rented housing.

So that was one of the key aspects I think of the examination process was actually that

the 70 -30 tenure split was the norm in lots of London boroughs and therefore it was far

from unprecedented.

So I think on that aspect it does bring us in line with the majority.

There's a requirement in the policy around seeking contributions from smaller sites,

so financial contribution.

That is relatively rarer, although it does exist in Richmond and I think a handful of

other boroughs in London.

London, but that's particularly useful, I think, where, I mean, A, the kind of development

viability of the local area supports it.

So, you know, clearly where sales values are higher, there tends to be a bit more capacity

to seek those kinds of contributions.

But also, I think where need is greater, because it does then, you know, provide a kind of

financial source that we can then use to acquire affordable housing or build affordable housing

ourselves.

So that's quite a useful aspect.

In terms of some of the other aspects, some of the stuff we're looking to do around student housing, for example.

I think that's fairly innovative, actually, in terms of what we're looking to do around seeking conventional affordable housing contributions from student schemes.

I believe Lambeth have a policy on that, but otherwise it's fairly rare.

Although there's lots of kind of indications in the London plan

pre -consultation document which was released last year that the mayor is considering that.

Because I think what we all recognise is that certain types of development like student housing,

like co -living, because they, at least in Wantsworth, they don't pay towards CIL.

And they tend to command quite a high sales value and currently they don't contribute conventional affordable housing.

That's kind of made them ultra viable, which means they get delivered,

but it does tend to mean there's this kind of displacement effect of general needs and affordable housing.

So we think that actually that's quite an innovative way of kind of making sure that there's always public benefit if those sites do continue to come forward.

In all other respects, I think there are parts of the policies that are fairly new,

but I think most plans are seeking one way or another to maximise affordable housing delivery.

I think what what we have in Wandsworth is perhaps a unique economic position viability position to support more ambitious

Policies, I think something that council licker demands made it kind of hinted at earlier

You know, there are parts of London which are genuinely really struggling to deliver

Schemes, but we don't think that's us. You know, we think there is there is a lot more capacity

It's particularly in the long term to deliver that

So on some aspects, I think we've been very ambitious in other aspects

we've kind of regularised our plan in line with others.

And it kind of depends, different plans,

try and do that in different ways.

But I think there's kind of bits and pieces

that are mirrored elsewhere.

Thank you.

I'll keep it brief.

Transport links are not core to the paper.

But housing increases will drive transport demand.

So, exclusion of investment or infrastructure capacity vis -a -vis housing growth is essential.

Will we see some quantified traffic modelling impact on bus cycle routes and integration

with transport strategies as a result of all this increased housing?

Thank you.

Thank you, councillors.

So, I think it's probably important to say that these partial review policies, the six

policies as part of this, you know, when they are hopefully adopted, they will then sit

alongside the many policies in the ones with local plan.

They'll directly supersede some of them.

So across that entire ones with local plan, there's very many policies that talk about

what sites are suitable for what types of development, how much development, etc.

And there are detailed transport policies that transport colleagues in the room will have helped to offer around how development needs to mitigate its impact on transport.

So because this review isn't looking to increase the overall amount of housing delivered, but

rather kind of changing the type of housing delivered.

That hasn't prompted a need to revisit those assumptions.

Excuse me, but inevitably as local plan cycles get back into system and

we look at a future local plan, there will be that need to revisit those things.

But I think because we're talking about the type of development, not the amount to some extent,

that hasn't prompted that need at this point.

Thank you.

Any further questions on this paper at all? Councillor Belton.

Given the government's pressure to, sorry this is speaking as the chair of the Planning Applications Committee,

given the government pressure to reduce planning delays as they like to term it,

Is it going to be much more important that we get the site -specific elements,

give them much more thorough public consultation? And as I read it now,

once it's in the local plan, which of course is all very nice,

but very few people actually on the ground look at a site around the corner,

which is appearing in a plan that might happen in 20 years time.

and they feel about it very differently when the next week there's an actual application

for a 30 -storey block.

And does that mean to say that when we get to the site allocation, which we presumably

get to review, question mark, are we?

And do we look at that much more closely and consult on that much more closely?

Because I'm not quite sure that the public know what they're letting themselves in for

when we agree local plans.

Thank you, Councillor.

I mean, just as a general point, so I think as I've said,

it's the nature of local plan cycle that everything comes to be reviewed eventually.

Or at least things should be reviewed eventually.

So there will no doubt at some point be a need to kind of revisit site allocation policies in Wandsworth and

consider where kind of future housing is going to come from and what we'd like to see on individual sites.

So there will be a lot of emphasis, undoubtedly on public and stakeholder engagement on that process.

We're very lucky, I think, in our team to now have a planning engagement function that very kind of innovative in terms of how they look at that stuff.

So I think the short answer is yes, there will be a need.

I think there's always been a kind of need to emphasise those points.

But as the plan making system changes, I think local plans are likely to be, people will be very relieved to hear, shorter and slightly punchier and more concise.

Not repeat things that are already stated and things like that, more digital.

That's very much the government's vision for them.

I think that what we will see is there's a bit more emphasis and a bit more time perhaps for

councils to do meaningful engagement and focused on the things that they are covering.

And a lot of that will be around sites.

But possibly a discussion for a future day around strategy for that kind of stuff.

But as I said, we have got a very good planning engagement team within our service now.

And no doubt we'd work with counsellors and others to define that strategy when the time

comes.

Thank you.

Thanks very much.

Any further questions on this paper?

No?

Cool.

In that case, we'll say thank you very much to Councillor Dickard and Mr. Goodman for your contributions on this paper.

4 Review of the Walking and Cycling Strategy (Paper No. 26-32)

We are moving on to the fourth item on the agenda, which is the review of the walking.

I'll just give colleagues a moment as we move around.

Thanks very much.

Yes, so the review of the walking and cycling strategy.

So as members will be aware, this strategy was first approved in November 2022, which

seems ages ago now.

And this paper sets out progress over the past year and also includes an update on the

Putney Junction scheme, as of course this was initially implemented to improve that

junction for those walking and cycling as well.

The strategy focuses on identifying processes, projects, programmes that will help to enable

more people to walk, wheel and cycle.

And there has been a lot of progress, which I'm sure members will want to highlight as

we go through the paper and look at what more could be done as well.

So I'll just pass over to Mr Tiddley in case he wants to add anything to that introduction.

Thank you, Chair.

I don't think I need to add too much because hopefully the paper is

self -explanatory on all the good work that's been done right across the council and I think I'll probably start there by

by saying you know, this is this is a paper that's had input not from various teams in the department of in growth in place

but also

considerable input and

And advice from colleagues in other departments particularly residents services children services

and within the chief execs teams as well and noticeably the climate change team and the air quality team.

So it's very much a corporate effort to ensure that more people walk and cycling and travel sustainably and actively.

And to pick up on the previous discussion, the encouragement of walking and cycling

and the use of public transport helps with the provision of additional growth in the borough.

And we've seen, for example, significant population growth in the borough for the last 20 years,

and it hasn't been accompanied with an increase in motor traffic at all.

And that's primarily because of significant investments in public transport,

but also changing the balance to encourage active travel, walking and cycling,

and also encouraging people to travel by different modes,

and also the educational programmes that the Council runs.

So just to pick up on a few of the highlights,

I think, or rather the way the sort of strategy has changed in the last 12 months,

for the first couple of years, it was relatively,

it was quicker for us to get some of our mass action programmes off the ground.

So things like the delivery of additional cycle parking, cycle training, providing schools with school streets.

Those are things we could do relatively quickly and scale up relatively quickly.

And we've mentioned in previous years how we've been able to do that.

I think what's probably changed a little bit in the last 12 months is that there were,

is that some of the larger infrastructure projects take a little longer to design, consult upon.

and then get down onto the street.

And probably the biggest change we've seen

in the last 12 months is that quite a lot of those

are now being delivered.

And just to highlight a couple of them,

which would probably have the most significant impacts.

Queenstown Road, which is a very high cycle route

and pedestrian route and a bus corridor

had a really poor accident record,

particularly amongst walk but pedestrians and cyclists and that's having sort of step segregated cycle tracks being installed as

Well, not as I speak because it's nine o 'clock, but sort of you know being being on ground at the moment

And then the other one that again that members will see probably on a daily basis is is the improvement of Old York Road

And again, you know, it's quite clear the sort of effort that's gone in there

That's not a solution that you would do for every road in the borough, but that road has a particular character and importance that we've been very keen to improve.

The paper then goes on to discuss or to point out some progress on targets and on delivery in a little bit more detail.

I don't think I'd probably need to say anything more at this stage, but obviously I welcome any questions that members have.

And I have Mr. Chung and Mr. O 'Donnell here who have been sort of instrumental in delivering some of the infrastructure schemes noted in the paper.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for that helpful introduction.

Any questions from members?

Councillor?

Thank you and thank you very much for that update.

Just turning to page 16 in the Putney Bridge Junction walking and cycling safety improvements.

Obviously we heard a lot on this at the last meeting, but one of the things I mentioned

at the last one was in relation to the bus driver changeovers.

And I was wondering what progress there had been made with TFL on changing the locations

to reduce waiting times on Lower Richmond Road.

And also we had a walkabout just before Christmas

that Councillor Leonie Cooper and the Assembly Member

kindly organised with TFL and Councillor Brooks

from Tumsfield Ward involved the Action Group in.

And one of the areas that came up was about changing

the width on the High Street and an issue with a disused

BT pay phone box.

So we were just wondering if the Council's

executive is not writing to the CEO

to ask him to remove it from BT

as it's very important for the wider high street scheme.

Thank you.

Yep, in relation to bus drivers, oh, sorry,

Henry Chung, Assistant Director of Engineering.

In relation to bus drivers changeovers,

we have made progress on that,

and we've set that out in a letter recently to residents.

TFL are looking to do drivers changeover elsewhere

away from bus stop M on two of the routes and that is starting to take place in March.

We have a follow -up meeting with CFL this Friday and we're hoping all that to be confirmed

exact dates so that we have those details which we can update on the website.

Regarding the BT phone boxes, I'm pleased to say, you know, Fleur Anderson and our local

MP has been championing that on the council's behalf because BT have labelled the phone

boxes to be removed but as of yet have not made any progress on that.

Council and the local MP has written to BT asking for a relocation of those phone boxes

or the removal of the phone boxes.

Councillor Locker.

Thank you.

First of all, can I thank the officers for the paper?

There are lots of schemes here.

I'll touch on some of the others because I think I agree with Mr Tiddley that the old

York Road scheme is an exemplar for the borough and a reminder that we introduced that originally

on a temporary basis during COVID and it worked so well that we decided to make it permanent.

But I think it's just probably best that we just focus a little bit of time just on the

Putney update right now, which is very useful.

I thank officers for it.

I did see that there is now a web page as was requested at the last meeting by the deputations

that we had.

But let's be honest, we've also had a lot of feedback in the last 48 hours from residents

who all have received emails.

There are still problems with the scheme.

I know that the walkabout was useful, but I have just three points or questions just

on the Putney scheme.

The first is what progress is being made with residents on the residential side streets

in designing measures to cut through traffic or rat running?

Because I think that some of the residents after the meetings that they've had with officers

and counsellors are expecting feedback with some options, designs, suggestions, et cetera,

that they can ponder over, consult on, or petition about.

The second point is about the green light change.

So we're really pleased to see that that's now been

implemented on the Lower Richmond Road, Putney High

Street Junction, with the change in the green light phasing.

I think I've got that right.

So it looks like that is making a positive impact.

So thank you for doing that as we requested.

But could we also just cheque again in terms of the lane layout at that junction what more can be done because there is still issues with the way that the lanes have been reduced causing the traffic to back up very quickly on Lower Richmond Road.

And then just my third point in terms of some of the questions that residents have raised is that they note that in the

appendix of the paper

that there is no pre scheme baseline for general traffic and

They wonder why when we've got one for busses

Is it something that we could perhaps go back and fill in and put on the website? I wonder

Thank you

Thank you councillors regarding residents and deterring through traffic on residential

roads on Lower Richmond Road.

We've had an email from a partner action group in the last couple of days.

They have suggested alternative meeting dates to what the council proposed at the walkabout

we had in January.

We did share some initial ideas verbally and what we hope to do was to have a sit down

meeting with them to explain the pros and cons of some of the ideas that

officers have come up with equally to consider ideas residents would like to

put forward so that we can discuss and finalise what could potentially be a

public consultation for residents to consider and the interventions to reduce

free traffic on the lights of Elsham Road.

There are other residential streets as well like the Deodar Road grid at

Chelverton Road etc so what engagement are we having with those?

So at the present time we haven't prioritised those for engagement but we are monitoring

those roads, Theodore Road, Shelverton, Werther, Disraeli, all of those roads are being monitored

so we do have some initial data and we were hoping to publish those before the committee

on our website but they are still being checked and those will be shared on the website in

due course.

The reason why we are not prioritising those side roads off of Botany High Street just

yet is because we appreciate Lower Richmond Road, there's very, very limited further interventions

that the council can offer.

And the reason for that is after the fine -tuning in terms of the signal timings in October,

in early and late October, there is the only thing that is feasible now is to review the

two bus stops.

And this is bus stop P and bus stop Q outside and opposite Kenilworth Court.

We are still in ongoing discussions, you know, with TFL concerning the two bus stops and

the cabinet member this week has written to TfL again asking for further support in this

matter and those conversations are ongoing.

And the reason why the side roads like Chilverton, Disraeli and Wurzer have not yet been prioritised

is because we recently made changes in early January to remove the left turn for cyclists

from Puntley Bridge Road onto Puntley High Street and that has allowed for the additional

green time being allocated to Puntley Bridge Road and that's evidenced in Appendix 3 which

which is a whole document provided by Transport for London

to showcase the improved green time

and for vehicles traffic.

And the council is also working on

outside Marks and Spences,

where we have redone the curb line,

so we shaved that by approximately .8 of a metre.

And the benefits of that would be

that it will allow vehicles to overtake the parked bus

in both north and south direction,

and when they're occupying at bus stop M, which is DK Maxx.

And we're also looking to

Remove the central island outside snappy and KFC and that will create additional space

And on Putney High Street for the northbound traffic going towards the bridge

I mean, I also like to stress that currently, you know the amount of green time allocated and to putney bridge Road

Occasionally you see there's a green light but cars do not proceed and the reason for that is because of the yellow box junction

And most importantly there is a lack of space on Putney High Street to receive the vehicles. This is why it's important. We need to

that widen the carriageway outside of Marks and Spencer

since he came back and that will then allow us

the opportunity to remove the island

and to create more free -flowing traffic

from that section off from Puntley Bridge Road

towards Lower Ridge Road on Puntley High Street

and that will create the extra capacity

and that would then allow TFL to relook at the timings

for each of these two junctions.

Thank you.

Could I suggest that if members have contributions

not about Putney but about this paper

that we focus on Putney now to continue that conversation

and then come to others?

Just one more thing to add.

It's regarding the appendix on the baseline.

So we do have that baseline data.

That baseline data was shared in the November committee

and I guess in future we can include that

and for future monitoring.

But I think what's important to highlight

is that this is a walking and cycling scheme

and the biggest change that has resulted

in lots of vehicle agreement time

is the new crossing, Cross Putney Bridge.

And because we had to remove the very impractical

and traffic refuge islands and we changed the crossings

from a three -stage crossings to a two -stage crossings

as we currently have.

And the bus data which TFA provided,

you know, their baseline currently has been reset

to April 24.

And the reason for that is because during the initial baseline periods that was where the COVID period and a post COVID period

Where my traffic volume and there was somewhat reduced

Was so a more realistic and fair baseline to assess that the scheme itself

It's is data pre the changes in December 24, which is why April 24 bus. I was they to have been used by TFL

Thank You councillor belt and then Chris harden

I thought it was worth saying that just to reassure some people who might be watching,

that we all, well I think we all, I certainly have, have had our 70 odd emails or 80 odd emails today,

and congratulate you on a good campaign.

Though if I was doing a campaign, I'd try and make sure that the third paragraph

didn't always start with exactly the same sentence on each particular letter.

You can always recommend people change the order of the paragraph,

So we kept a weight looking at it.

I reassure you that, I started off jokingly,

I hate to say this, but in a way, 14 elections ago,

in 1974, at the last transport committee,

the thing we argued most about was Putney.

I can remember it incredibly well,

it was an argument about Putney High Street

and what we should do with it and the difficulties involved with it.

And Putney High Street has had masses and masses of consideration ever since.

I'm not saying that with boredom, but with clarity to show how difficult a problem it is.

And it hasn't been for want of trying on both sides, I think, to make sure that we can resolve all the problems.

We've gone with different parking schemes, different timings of traffic lights,

well, so many variations over the years and it's very difficult.

And the problem is, of course, that it's essentially a mediaeval

or very nearly mediaeval street structure dealing with more and more traffic, 21st century style.

And the fact that we've kept it going at all, I think, is actually quite a good mark in the circumstances.

especially since we're lowering pollution levels there, are we not at the moment?

So well done to everyone who keeps on top of it and makes it work.

One of the... I'd like to ask a quick question.

When did we start the present version?

Because my other experience from a lot of elections,

and this is to do with engineering,

is if the engineering work is going to take so long,

my advice to everyone is don't start a major scheme

within two years of an election, it's just not a good idea.

So make sure you do your work on these things early on,

unless we can get the whole process speeded up a little bit,

which is tricky.

I'm not sure there's any question there,

but I thought there's a few comments that might be interesting.

Councillor Cressy.

Thank you.

My notes on this said,

I understand Putney High Street's always busy.

like Tony Belton said at the last committee and has just said. What I think

I would also like to do is pick up again what Mr. Cheung said. I think I

appreciate for the residents it is very frustrating and it is slow but we all

need to remember I hope colleagues on both sides will agree this was a scheme

that is there to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists and we have

recently got, we have a road, we're trying to minimise road deaths and we have had people

die on our roads. We've had a young girl recently killed up in my area in Tooting and I think

what we have to keep reminding ourselves is that's why we're doing it because we do not

want other families to suffer because unfortunately if a pedestrian and a car meet, the pedestrian

comes off worst. The other thing I would say is I've had a look at all the emails.

I'm particularly grateful for those residents who actually gave us an

address in their email and that made me pick up about the Chelverton Road.

Though I also understand that what Mr. Cheung is saying, that the team have always

said is there's a lot of tweaks and changes to be done and I suppose the plea

would be to residences with as Councillor Belton says we are doing our best and we

probably we need to see everything because if we try and make a change

while we don't know what the results of all the other changes are we'll probably

just make it even worse so that would be my plea to everyone who wrote to me and

I was about 70 and counting by the time I looked out earlier on

Councillor de Lessez -Jules. Thanks, a few more questions I'm afraid.

Just in terms of bus, if you look at the bus data it will show that every corridor is still

much slower than before the redesign, so just wondering at what point does that trigger

a fundamental reconsideration of the junction design.

And then my second question was about sort of broadening from partner a little bit in

in terms of the issues you see in there,

but what monitoring are you doing of congestion

spreading towards Wandsworth town?

And do you have any contingency plans if West Hill Road,

which is already quite clogged up,

becomes even more so because of what's going on there

in Putney?

Regarding busses, CFO and the council are monitoring that.

They obviously have transponders on their busses,

which is why they were being able to produce the graphs

as they have.

So if you look at Appendix 3, look at some of the graphs,

the data currently is showing the post scheme

is comparable to pre -scheme in terms of bus journey times

by and large.

So this is evidence where the line is drawn

straight across the start of the graph

and the end of the graph.

That gives you a sense of where busses are currently at.

Now as part of the scheme, we also implemented

a new bus lane on Putney Bridge.

We've extended bus lane hours on Putney Bridge Road

to help busses move along.

And we are currently trialling the suspension of busses

outside Odeon because that makes it easier

for traffic from Lower Richmond or from Putney Bridge

to join Putney Bridge Road.

So there are a number of things that the council

and TFL are working on collectively to make sure

that we do as much as we can for busses

and protecting the bus journey times.

And these graphs are an ongoing picture.

So these ones already show the benefits of the time saved from

from suspending the left turn and therefore punty bridge and

Road onto punty high streets and when the further changes are made and which is where we're currently working through in terms of allowing

Two northbound lanes to start from punty bridge Road up towards punty bridge then we expect journey times to improve

for both busses and general traffic

I just wanted to raise a wider point as well, which is the Transport for London towards

the end of January introduced or announced its London on the Move initiative.

And that's sort of stated as the first ever London network -wide strategy spanning all

of London's highway networks.

because and it's primarily to deal with introducing new technologies both on the street and within

busses to try and get busses moving more efficiently and quicker because the challenges facing

busses are not unique to Putney High Street and there are quite a significant issues with

bus journey times throughout London which TfL recognise and I imagine there will be

a more also in addition to the specifics on schemes that we might be able to introduce

improvements, there will probably be – there will also be a more – a wider context throughout

London on improving past junior times.

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Councillor Hamilton.

Thank you.

This is just a general one.

I thank you for sharing the examples of the comparisons and how things are going in terms

of the week -by -week and the baselines from May to the present day.

I think it's been shown to all of us this remains an issue, I think, of huge public

concerns.

So can I just formally request that we keep this on the agenda for future meetings because

I think it is one that residents want to see real action on so we can all agree that it

can stay the next time.

That would be great.

If I'm still here then yes.

If we're all still here yeah.

Any other thoughts on specifically on Putney?

The one thing I forgot to cheque because it's slightly unclear is when do we think all of

the schemes, all of the changes are likely to have been done?

And Mr Cheung, I'm not asking you for a specific date.

If you go early summer, late summer, Easter, that sort of thing is fine.

So the aspiration is to try and remove the traffic island outside Snappy and KFC in the

summer months, but that is the absolute optimum timetable

because we are still going through the design process

with Transport for London.

And the fallback on that date would potentially be

October half term because what we want to do

is make sure the works are done on the fiscal holidays

and if possible, look at night works

to deliver those improvements.

Councillor Rocker.

Thank you.

As was noted at the start of the meeting,

I'm not standing again for re -election

because my private life is taking me elsewhere.

So I just want to make an appeal.

My memory unfortunately doesn't go back as far as Councillor Belton's to the mediaeval times.

And when the roads of Putney were originally laid out,

however, I would stress this has had a real impact

on the quality of lives of the residents of my ward.

It hasn't had the intended consequences, sorry,

outcomes that we had hoped for when the various designs were put in front of us.

I'm really pleased to see council officers have been engaging, particularly in recent

months with residents, to try and make improvements.

I appreciate every improvement that has been made.

Please continue that.

Please don't stop just because politicians go away and have an election in the coming

months.

Continue to talk to the residents, continue to talk about schemes that can help their

individual roads, to avoid rat running, and all of those sorts of things.

Continue to put the pressure on TFL.

It's really important that they make the changes that they have to in terms of regulating where

busses have their changeovers, sorting out the traffic light phasing, et cetera, et cetera.

Let's make sure that this scheme works for everyone is my appeal.

And I think if we work together, we have the ability to do that.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you very much Councillor Locker and before we move on I guess just I assume

those in the gallery are here for this issue so thank you for coming along I

know it's a bit of a one -sided process committees but we do appreciate you

being here and taking the time to do so thank you very much. Moving on to other

elements of the paper Councillor de la Sejour first. I just want to ask a question but

another bridge, Wandsworth Bridge, if that's okay.

Just moving a little bit further east, I guess.

There's a comment in the paper about Wandsworth Bridge.

I'm just wondering what is actually happening

to the layout there.

I think it's all quite confusing with the cycle lanes

on the pavement.

Can you just share a bit more information,

and if you've got any graphics you could share

with the committee by email later,

that'd be really helpful, particularly as a ward councillor

for obvious reasons, thank you.

Mr. Sheng?

Yes, so the scheme is looking to provide a step track on both sides of the footway.

So you have the footway next to the parapets and then you have the cycleway on the inside

and then you have the bus lane going northbound towards Hammersmith and Fulham and then you

have your normal two running lanes.

And then immediately next to that there will be a step track cycle lane and then a slightly

raised footway and then you've got the parapets.

So it will be an awesome advancing scheme that meets all the requirements of the latest

designs and it will ensure that pedestrian and cyclists have the

comfort because the existing provision on the bridge is it's one and a half

metres approximately and these will be increased to two metres.

Do you have any schematics you can share with us later? I'm just quite a visual person that's all.

Yeah we do have finalised designs the schemes hoping to go through in May and

we've got all the permits secured.

We can share some of them with us. Thank you very much.

We'll be happy to share that with the committee.

I think Councillor Tiller next. Yes, thank you, Chair. Yes, I'm very glad to see new

pedestrian crossings spinning up across the borough and wondered if officers could tell

us a bit more about the future of the pedestrian crossings. What else have we got coming?

So we currently have a rolling several crossing programme across the borough.

So these are either generated from school petitions and all as part of the safety streets

for schools.

We've also got residence petitions and where they think their crossing is needed.

So we have a rolling programme and I can try and share some upcoming schemes with committee

members via email if that's okay.

Thank you.

Councillor Locker.

Thank you.

Just a very small point.

It's about planters.

It's about the public realm, so I'm going to try and skew it in.

But planters, people also might remember in COVID, and it was sort of inspired because

I went on a breakdown to Exmouth because it was that period when you couldn't go out of

UK on holiday and I came out the station and they had a wonderful plant and a

lady tending it from Exmouth in Bloom. So I'm really glad to see that we have

some planters now in Wandsworth. It's great to see Old York Road with its

plantings. Can I make a bid for more or plea for more in the next administration?

Because they really do help, I think, beautify the public realm and the ones

that we've got, could we try and keep them looking good? I noticed one recently

on just near Wandsworth town station which was looking a bit tired and I don't know if

there is an opportunity to try and get in touch with some of the voluntary groups to

try and help them get them involved in keeping them you know weeded, tended and watered and

all those things because that's how a lot of other towns and places do it. Thank you.

Councillor Owens, then Critchard, then Hamilton. Thank you. Just turning to the Burntwood Lane

walking and cycling improvements.

I just heard a couple of points.

Obviously, there's been quite a lot of thought

and work done on all of this.

Just a bit of a plea, might have mentioned it before,

but there are three schools on Burntwood Lane.

If you take Nightingale Academy,

which is right on the corner,

there's Grave Knee, not far from there.

Children's cycling all the time.

As far as I'm aware, the road markings

haven't all gone back down with the changes.

And if you're trying to cross, it's not brilliant.

The other one was the, obviously you've got some,

quite a few zebra crossings,

talking about zebra crossings coming in on that road.

And my Wandsworth common colleagues have mentioned

that the one that's planned right at the top

is perhaps not as popular as some of the others.

I also had a zebra crossing, back to zebra crossings,

in my ward Northcote recently,

where very close to Honeywell School on Webbs Road.

This is in spite of that, for years we were told

we couldn't have one.

But having said that, some of the local residents

were not very happy about the lack of consultation

on it and I went to speak to them about obviously it was planning it was planned to go in and

then it was stalled because of issues with drainage etc etc but again they were unhappy

with the consultation around it obviously the school was pro it thank you.

Mr Chen.

So just on Burton Wood Lane I'm happy to follow up on the row markings yes the council

recently did a consultation or notification that was proposing a crossing on Limage Gardens

and that is a crossing which was originally in the committee paper which was presented.

However, Georgia's safety concerns because of vehicular access and we later removed that

crossing but we subsequently received a petition later on from the residents of that area supporting

the closure and reinstatement of a separate crossing which is what prompted the notification.

With that recently closed, we are currently reviewing the feedback and comments from that.

And we will in due course present those details to the cabinet member and the board councillors

with an officer's recommendation on that.

Regarding the system of crossing on Webbs Road, I would say that that was prompted from

the local school, which started a petition.

We followed our standard processes in terms of engaging with local residents and notification.

and we received lots and lots of comments in particular and

Several residents who have particularly concerned for a individual member and on that road residents

we've done lots and lots of outreach work in terms of trying to address some of the concerns that's been raised and

we've gone even gone as far as getting an exemption from the Department for transport and to make a special exemption and

To try and support our local residents

So I would say we are doing everything's reasonable and practical in terms of implementing a safe crossing for the school

But also about adversity impacting local residents in that area

Critchard councillor Chris. Excuse me, and then councillor Hamilton

Okay. Thank you. I've actually got quite a few questions, but I'll try and pick them up in groups

Yeah, just checking again on on the boat would laid improvements. I've just reread this the road

resurfacing

Is due to happen?

and after March, yes?

Because currently the road clearly needs some resurfacing.

And I would also say, having gone on cycling the other day,

I noticed that is not as smooth as I would have wished it to be.

Lots of edging and the trouble with edging is you hit the edges, you can swing over.

So could you confirm when that will be, when it should all be beautiful?

Again, I don't want an exact date, but a rough season is good.

And the other thing that happened on that scheme,

I was out the other day talking to residents,

who actually live relatively close,

and they were wondering what was going on.

So I wonder if this is another scheme,

because it is taking a bit of a while

and there's been some extra things that have slowed it down,

whether that's something we could also look to,

make a note of on our website,

then residents will be able to go,

oh yes this is what's happening and this is the next step and then I've got some

other things but if you want to do Burntwood Road first

yeah so it's surfacing that's currently scheduled for the 23rd of March and

that'll run into early April so at the present time the the works gang outside

Burntwood school and they're progressing with carrying on the footway repairs I

I do appreciate the road at times a little bit bumpy because we had to take out the existing deflection islands

And which is why it's not currently a complete smooth surface

There was various patches that's been added

But once the road is resurfaced and that will ensure the structural integrity and under the very smooth surface recycling. I

Hope so, I would also add that crossing through Springfield Park is great

If you're riding if you're riding back from the football game

I wouldn't normally threaten to physical violence against Councillor Hamilton, he's

normally so polite, but maybe that one might go for it?

Do you want to ask your other questions or you want to give Councillor Hamilton a shot?

I'll ask my other question, seeing this is on TV. Working through the paper, I've noticed we have

Clean Air Day in June this year. I'm thinking that we obviously six streets were closed and

for Clean Air Day which is in June, it's going to happen before the next committee. I wonder if

there's anything that we can do in terms of public awareness and possibly working with schools about

not clean air day, if that's something that the officers could take on so

that there is a programme of activities around that and whether that merges into what happens with the environment team.

But I just think that would be a good opportunity and it might also be a good opportunity to

take the message home to parents about trying to walk and not idling cars and such like on that day.

I don't know if that's something where we should make a small recommendation or whether that's something officers can take away

That's the first one

I'm more than happy to take that away and discuss it with colleagues. We have found in previous years. We've had a lot

Sometimes we have great many closures other years

We have relatively few and part of that is to do with other reasons for closing the road

So there was a lot of royal events in the recent years which resulted in large numbers of closures

Which then meant that clean air day that came a week or two later often sometimes didn't have so many

But I'll take it away and we'll try and make sure we give it adequate

We also have car free day in September which is when there's more

It's just the clean air day seemed to might be good opportunity for education for schools and education

Councillor Hamilton and then we'll come back to you.

Thank you very much. Just a couple of quick questions. The first on the quiet cycle routes.

I think this is something which obviously there's been a lot of resident interest in

and I would just ask is it possible we could have a more detailed report of this in a future

meeting? I think the status update here is interesting but I think it would be good to

get a bit more information, a bit more clarity on this, particularly given that they are

valued by residents. The next question is relating to the Tooting

town centre references. I wanted to get the point in when Councillor

Locker was talking about planters. I think many of these improvements are great.

I've certainly seen some of the improvements myself living quite close to Amen Corner.

The thing I would say about planters, however, is the, I think they're called plant locks,

I've learnt this evening. Many of those are looking, I think, a little

shabby already simply for the fact that bikes are parked up so close to them and

whilst I'm a huge fan of seeing more of these planters I just wonder if they're

the most effective way of delivering that because essentially you have a

situation where foliage spills out of them and I think bike users where you

are parking them on there whether they want to do it or not are damaging them

and I fear that actually they may they may look even shabbier after a few weeks

so just that one. I would also ask about Mitcham Road there's obviously a

here to how the council administers that road. Would again appreciate a bit of an

update on some of the further improvements there in terms of paving

because there is still some uneven paving there and as you go back onto the

main road heading towards Tooting I know those areas are maintained by TFL but

they continue to be in quite a poor state of repair so any pressure that you

can put on TFL to improve those roads would be would be good because as so

often we have well maintained pavements coming off the roads administered by Wandsworth.

And the second you get onto CFL areas, the degradation begins.

I'll start with the first one.

So yes, so this paper's something of a catch all of a lot of schemes and

it's not really intended to provide substantive update on the schemes within it.

With perhaps the exception being Putney High Street,

because we knew that was likely to come up.

So yes, it would be the intention to bring

a quiet roots paper to the committee in future.

Should that be what the new committee wishes to have, yes.

Yep, regarding the plant locks,

that is something we're trialling, and we have noticed that.

And it is something that we'll be looking at more closely.

I mean, the aspiration is to actually have in situ planting.

Those are the most effective.

but they also need time to grow

because initially the vegetation might not be very full

and that could lead to littering concerns

or people treading on it.

So this is something we are working with

our contractor to look at the best way forward on that.

We are due to do a consultation in February,

later this month, just on Church Corner

and that will have a little bit more detail

in terms of in -situ planting

and the wider works we're proposing.

Councillor Critchard. Thanks. I'm going to try and take them through

in order. Queenstown Road in Para 20. I just wanted to cheque something related to the cycle

routes. Yeah, there's Clapham Common route 17 which is currently being assessed on your paper.

So currently, thank you by the way Mr. Tilly, thank you for my map, I do like a map.

Currently of course if you're trying to do Queenstown Road, if you're coming from Battersea Park

and if you're coming out of the park you end up with that very very nasty right turn, lots of

nods going on here. Will that in the future, I know it's some time in the future, will

the Plan 17 deal with the route that goes under the railway line and gives you a right

turn so you miss the dip under the bridge, but you then end up coming out onto Queenstown

Road?

I'm not sure I entirely follow, but I think the response would be, let's discuss this,

because I think we're at a relatively early stage of route 17 and we can take any comments you have on board and see if we can pick that issue up.

And then if I can keep picking up, Totterdam Street which is of great interest to me as it's an area I represent, could you just confirm when that's due to be totally complete please?

We're hoping around mid -April time,

so currently we're undertaking the works outside phase one,

which is outside Tooting Market,

which is laid in Yorkstone.

Most of that is already done,

and similarly we've done the resurfacing

on Blakenham Road just on that corner.

You will see some of the new planters have gone in,

the new by -laws have been set.

In terms of the phase two,

this is from the Sink -Sip Pre -Inns

working back towards the A24,

and we are working with and liaising with TfL to ensure that we can deliver

that works and also making sure that the businesses are catered for in terms of

loading and access.

We should go and have a look at how you're getting on tomorrow.

And then something we haven't touched on particularly but we also in paragraph 40 we talk about the

targets that we've been trying to go through. So I notice we've done very well

on bike hanger spaces, though I would like to know

what the delay is for bike hangers,

and I really feel that residents I speak to

would like us to get a quicker turnaround

on getting a bike, more nods,

on getting bike hangers installed,

because it is quite a long process at the moment,

and obviously if you've got a bike,

you want somewhere to put it.

school streets, but then the difficult, the one that's rather difficult is the percentage

of the population within 400 metres of the strategic cycle network. And that, we don't

seem to have made a lot of progress on that. And I wondered if we could talk a bit more

about what progress looks like and when we would hope that there should be a change.

And I'd also probably also just again pick up on the people sick, killed or seriously injured.

To remind everyone that this is obviously something we do not want at all.

And again, things, what we can be doing around that.

Okay, thank you, Councillor.

So on the bike hanger programme, so I think the last couple of years we've installed over 100,

and we actually have the largest installation programme,

I'm pretty sure in London at the moment.

So over 100 are going in a year

and I don't think you'd find that anywhere else.

That said, as we put them in,

we're also then learning from the process

and therefore able to introduce improvements in the process

for the next stage.

So, for example, the sheer amount of consultation

that we did on some of the earlier stages,

We don't really need to do any more because we've got the the process back better worked out one thing

I can say is that you know what the council is committed to continue this year and next year with yet another large programme of

bike hangar delivery

Okay, but mr. Tiddley I'm still going to press roughly how long is that process and you've said you've we've done things to improve it

But yes as a resident

There's no bike hanger space in the ones nearby, so we're after a new bike hanger.

Roughly, how long will that take?

Well, there is a large waiting list.

And I say we're putting in well over 100 a year.

That tends to be the sort of capacity, not just at the council side, but

also within the other teams of the responsible and indeed the manufacturers.

because at the moment we're effectively,

what we have done to try and also speed up the process

is we've actually identified second

and third manufacturers now as well.

So we've got more suppliers on board that can help.

But as I said, I think we're doing extraordinarily well

on the bike hangar delivery.

I appreciate that there will still be people

on the waiting list for that.

If it helps, I've been on the waiting list for three years.

And the other day I found out I've moved up to spot number four of my local bike owner.

I live in Hope.

And just to pick up as well just on that, I think just about everyone, there may be

one out of the seven, one or two out of the hundreds on the street, they are full.

So there's clearly a demand for them and we're very keen to continue to meet that demand.

You mentioned the target on the numbers of people living within 400 metres of the strategic cycle network.

It's a TFL set local implementation plan target and it's quite a difficult one to get your head around to a certain extent.

partly because as the sort of definition of what counts as a cycle route changes within

the demand standards, it can affect that number without the council actually doing anything.

So we can go up or down depending on how that's assessed.

I think the other thing, probably a couple of things worth mentioning, is that it tends

to be one of these indicators as a little bit feast and famine.

So for example, once Queenstown Road is completed,

then there will suddenly be a jump in the numbers there.

It's not an indicator that tends to be a linear progression.

It tends to be quite a lumpy one.

And then I would also highlight the cycle network,

which you were looking at before,

will ensure that significant numbers of people

within sort of we are relatively good distance of the

Decent cycle route and then the final thing I would probably say is that our effort of course is to try and make all roads

Safe and conducive for walking and cycling so whilst yes

We're keen to ensure we improve cycle routes and people live near cycle routes

People should be safe using any road and that's it. That's a key element of our strategy as well

Oh, sorry, could I just come very quickly?

So when we have the more detailed talk about these routes, perhaps one of the things that

you could also produce would be a map that like a heat map of how close we are to how

many people fall in that 400 metres, if that's easy enough to do.

Councillor Allens.

Thank you. Just a point Councillor Critchard made earlier, just about, and go back to the

point of the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads, and Councillor Critchard

mentioned a little bit earlier about the terrible accident in her, in a while in Tootingbeck

just before Christmas. And I was wondering, obviously a lot of people knew the child involved,

what the council could be doing in terms of working with schools to make sure that the

children know to use the crossings, not just the,

especially as we're pushing in place all these new,

probably these new crossings,

not just the children at the Wandsworth schools,

but the children, the private schools,

the children that are in the schools

that are maybe just on the border in Lambeth,

because obviously it's come out of that.

But also, I'm just curious on the ones,

people that are seriously injured on the roads,

obviously we all know people who,

including myself, who've been hit as a pedestrian

or just broken bones, fortunately nothing more serious.

But I wonder just that that's obviously information

that's collated from the hospitals and passed back.

But of course there are so many accidents all the time,

people coming off their bicycles

and I'm sure that's not included

if it's just the old broken arm or leg.

But it'd be interesting to hear more about that, thank you.

Okay, thank you, thank you, Councillor.

So I can't really speak to an individual case, I don't think.

and I'm not sure where anything is on that.

More generally, we have a road safety team managed by Mr Chung there,

which is responsible for sort of pedestrian and adult road safety awareness training

and for cycle training and does an enormous amount of work mainly,

and the majority of that is with schools.

So we do have a very active, let's say, cycle training and road safety awareness programme.

The overall trend, and I think it was picked up in the comments that the ones with cycling campaign picked up as well,

that the rates of accidents are down when you take it, particularly when you take into account rising population

and rising and increased numbers of people who are walking and cycling.

That said, in absolute terms, the numbers do raise concerns. It's a London -wide issue.

I mean, there's nothing unique relating to the casualty numbers in Wandsworth, but I

would anticipate that all councils and Transport for London will give additional sort of priority

and sort of responsibility to address in that trend, because at the moment, the trajectory

isn't going to meet vision zero at the proposed date.

So I'd expect, so for example in things like

Transport for London when they're funding

borough schemes will probably start giving

extra weight into those which will deliver

road safety improvements and more quantifiable things.

So I do expect there will be some greater attention

given to that in the coming years.

One further question on that.

Would you have any information on Trinity, Tootingbeck Road and Trinity Road, which I

think are earmarked for TFL to reduce to a 20 mile an hour limit soon, aren't they?

If we've got any idea about when, it might be quite helpful, because that's obviously

an issue.

So based on what TFL advises, they're looking to implement those by end of March this year.

Just one more thing to add to what Mr. Tiddley

has said really regarding road safety and injuries.

I think the council is installing lots and lots

of crossings and lots of new schemes.

So the one up up near for example,

that's with widening footways, better pedestrian facilities.

These are all things that are designed to improve safety

of cyclists and pedestrians.

And the one at Tooting and the town centre

on Mitcham Road.

So we are currently working through proposals

and specifically focused on missing links

in terms of where pedestrians would like to cross

and haven't been able to cross

at a controlled crossing point.

And again, these reduces the amount of people

just trying to chance it and get across the road.

And that's what ultimately drives the improved road safety.

Thanks very much.

Any more on this paper?

Just a quick note on language,

just only because it's something that I work in

in my day job.

But we don't really say accidents anymore.

It's collisions because accident implies that no one is at fault, whereas of course, in

a collision between a vehicle and a vulnerable road user, that is someone has responsibility

over that action.

And it's been – don't smirk, Council Hamilton.

It's come through guidance from DFT.

So that is official.

It's not something that's made up and it's not an accident, you know, people don't just

get hit by cars, someone is controlling that car and there is an outcome to that.

Moving on to paper number five, the highways maintenance programme.

Any, sorry, move to an instruction from Mr O 'Donnell.

Thank you, Chair.

5 Highways Maintenance Programme (Paper No. 26-33)

So Nick O 'Donnell, Director of Traffic Engineering.

This is our annual paper which sets out our plan for the 26 -27 financial year as part

of the £100 million investment over a 10 -year period that was committed to in the roll -out

of improvements, planned improvements to our roads and our pavements across the borough.

This year we've kept to the very high levels of investment that came in the preceding year

and indeed we've got a little bit further funding from the Department for Transport

to supplement that as well.

So we are now at record levels of investment

in relation to our network.

We'll be pushing into nearly 11 million pounds

worth of investment and that is at the maximum capacity

we could deliver on the roads as well.

And we've obviously set out an appendices

that sets our provisional programme

of where we will definitely tackle the roads and pavements

and also a reserve list where if we can

we will try and eat into that as much as possible.

Thank you very much.

Any questions or comments on this paper?

Councillor Tiller.

Thank you, Chair.

I was very intrigued to see in paragraph 3 .18 that artificial intelligence can help us monitor

road and pavement surfaces.

And could we have some more detail on that?

Yes, certainly.

So for the last two years or so, we've been talking to a number of the leading market

suppliers about how we can seek to get more efficiencies in monitoring of the road, both

in terms of how frequently we do it, but also the sort of skills and resource required around

it.

The traditional way someone walks up and down, does the inspection, notes it down, it's quite

resource intensive and it's quite costly.

There are a lot of new technology now that can either be attached to a vehicle or a person

can even potentially have on their person that allows that monitoring to happen.

And we are likely to go out to the market in the coming months to look to get some quotes

back on how we may do that in our forthcoming condition survey across the borough.

Councillor Hamilton, then Owens.

Thank you, just a quick one.

Thank you to officers from in the past sharing the very long document which

does summarise why certain pavements certain roads are done

and certain than not. I think we're all familiar in our own wards with

questions from people who say why were the two roads next to me done and not

mine and I do refer them to that document to explain that there is a

process for doing that. It might just be quite useful to put a condensed version

of that that maybe summarises the process in more detail somewhere on the

Council website for us to point people at because it's a difficult one.

It sounds as if we're being disingenuous or waffling, if I'm being honest.

I don't think residents really believe us when we do give what is a pretty honest answer.

So I just think we'll have a useful handout there.

Certainly, Councillor Owens.

Thank you. I was just going to ask about Garrett Lane and obviously we've seen some obviously quite a lot of work that's been done down the sort of the

the southern end of Garrett Lane as opposed to as you go further up towards

Wandsworth town in the town hall just running on the pavements because when I talk to businesses

I know the area and you know everybody's very happy with a lot of the improvements particularly the

Way a lot of this you know the area itself has improved a lot in the in recent years for businesses

But the pavements do come up time and time again, and I realise this has been going on for a long time in terms of

conversations about improving them.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, it's very fair comment in relation

to the fact that Garrett Lane has perhaps

been one of those major links that's required

investment both in road and pavement.

We focused primarily initially on the road

because it had very poor condition

and was, I wouldn't say dangerous,

but it was at a point where we were concerned

around the condition enough that we had to intervene.

So the council put its own funding in

and then matched that with future funding

we had from Transport for London, we've now got DFT funding as well. So we have a greater

funding envelope now that we can expand further to look at the payments on Garrett Lane as

well as hopefully continue some of the resurfacing that's happened there.

Councillor Cripshire, then Lockhart.

Okay, thank you. Two things, slightly unrelated. First one is I understand that actually obviously

laying new tarmac is pretty tough on CO2 emissions and are we able to do something to actually

make ourselves greener in terms of the way we deal with roads, other than totally greening

them over, but I suspect that wouldn't be popular locally. And the other question I

had was we the pavement envy and all residents all want new pavements but I

was particularly struck when I was out the other day talking to a wheelchair

user where the pavement along the stretch isn't it doesn't obviously

doesn't meet the standard for intervention because it's not in here

but for somebody in a wheelchair actually it really does is there

anything we can do to look at areas that affect particularly wheelchair users and

those with very limited mobility to improve their specific bit of pavement

to make it easier getting from the house to the car you know to usually to their

vehicle so two things thank you. Yeah no problem so in relation to the first

point we work very carefully with our term contractor FM Conway always

looking at best practise across the market, looking at ways of improving our environmental

outcomes and CO2 emissions. Good examples are that we've used electric planers that

have taken down CO2 emissions in relation to various jobs. We've got one coming up in

Garrett Lane. It's just the machine that's used. It doesn't produce so much output in

terms of CO2. So again, we're going to do some press work around that in the coming

month or so, but we're always looking at best practise. And the one thing I would caution

is that there is lots of exclamations,

I call them empress close claims from various companies

about all sorts of environmental improvements

that can be used and can be achieved.

The industry is seeing a lot of those come and go.

We have to be very careful that we do carefully test

these things that they do match what people say they do,

as well as still being efficient on site.

We've obviously adopted more standard practises

around doing more upfront work,

looking at things like tar removal,

which is a big factor in some of the environment,

trying to reduce spoil, reusing granite curbs,

those kind of items.

So we do have practises in place

and we're always pushing the contractor

to continue to improve on that.

In relation to your second point,

I'm sure it's well known,

but this is the planned budget

for full resurfacing of pavements and roads.

We have a reactive budget as well,

which is about kind of smaller scale interventions.

So if there are particular spots

or more localised improvements that are required,

we can look at those, particularly if they are very specific in terms of a point of difficulty

for wheelchair user, we're happy to go out there and have inspectors look at that and

see what they can propose and fix in the short term.

That's very helpful and hopefully I can, I think I've already put in a request, but I

can also let the resident know, that's good to hear.

Councillor Locker and then de la Seychelles.

Thank you, Chair.

This is just more of a thought for the future.

The paper does mention drainage and cleaning the drains, which is good.

But I've noticed, and I'm sure others have as well, that weather patterns are changing.

We're seeing longer periods of rainfall, and we're seeing pooling of water in different areas.

I doubt that there has been a proper consideration of the drain grills and where they're cited in this borough for decades.

Possibly as long as the mediaeval road pattern that Councillor Melton was talking about earlier.

And it's clear to me that when I look at some of the things,

it's been exacerbated by interventions

that we have made over the years.

So for instance, last night I had to go and see

my daughter at Burntwood School in a play.

And as I was walking around the corner from Burntwood Lane

onto Garrett Lane, we've installed a wonderful crossing,

a push -button crossing, and of course we've lowered

the pavements and sloped down to the road

so that people can cross and push their pushchairs,

et cetera, across.

When it rains like last night, it is like a lake and it was impassable.

So I just wonder as part of future schemes, not this list, that when you're considering

which roads to resurface, that there also is just a little bit of a tick list where

someone goes down and cheques where the drain grills are and where the water pools.

And if it is required that we instal an extra drain grill or relocate them, I would have

thought the time to do it would be when the road is being resurfaced.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. It is often an issue where curbs are lowered to ensure good access

for pedestrians, particularly wheelchair users, but generally the profiling of the carriageway

does come with wear and tear when utilities take it up, et cetera. It's not the ideal

opportunity to do it as part of resurfacing works because it takes time to set a new gully

and that takes a number of days for that to set

and resurfacing normally typically happens

and over one night for certain areas.

But it is something that we can pick up

and there are specific locations that you're concerned about

we're happy to look at those.

What I would say is that the council has introduced

a new IT system now in terms of managing gully cleansing

and this gives us the opportunity

to identify troubling sites

and allows the contractor to report those back

directly to us and as clients we can review

those specific sites where they have concerns, whether the silt level is an

issue, where there is detritus in the channel which prevents the water from

going to the gully. But again, you know, it is site specific so we're

easy to look at each case and on a case by case basis. Thank you very much. Any

further questions on this paper or comments? Oh sorry, yes. It's a question

slash a moan and slash I'm not quite sure but and it's whatever understanding

and how much influence or how much the processes TFL and roadworks and the

reason for asking about that is to give it at the wall that I represent just at

Mary's Ward and there's been endless road works pretty much for the past year

and think of obviously basically bridge road York Road has been incessant and

there's been a number of temporary traffic lights and we always cycle to

And I go through St. Mary's, through Battersea Park, through 9 AMs.

I don't think in the last year there's been any weep, there's been no road works.

And I know it's TFL, I know it's not you guys, I completely get that.

But is there anyone at the council who sort of tells TFL, hey, hang on, do you realise what you're doing here?

It's just making a nightmare for our residents.

Can we try and stagger those works a bit better?

I understand some of it is reactive, I get that, but some of it will be planned maintenance.

So what can we do as a council to sort of stand up to TFL and say, look, can we just

slow down here?

So we have a network management team led by Camilla Stonley, who has regular meetings

with various stakeholders, including TFL.

We share our programmes with them so they know what we're doing.

We give them a kind of forward plan of this is what we believe is coming up.

They do share their information as well, and we do our best to try and coordinate.

so there isn't an overlap, there isn't that kind of difficulty.

Unfortunately, what we're seeing quite a lot of is more and more applications under emergency

works where companies are coming in saying we have to go in because there's a gas leak,

there's a water leak, whatever it may be.

We have no control of that and neither do TFL and it's one of those things that's very

frustrating and we get it, why residents get upset, but we have very little control over

that.

So outside of that, we do our best to coordinate, but I'll take the point away to Kim Ellis

and have that conversation with her just to make sure that again, it's been raised as

a key point tonight.

Thank you.

Yes, on your list of all the roadworks in the ward and beyond, it's just endless.

And it tends to be the major junctions, which just blocks the traffic endlessly.

Thank you.

Kathleen.

Yeah, no, thank you very much for everyone for your comments on the paper.

Thank you, Councillor Hamilton.

I think that's an excellent point about having a page on our website that makes it really

clear on what basis the roads and pavements are assessed and how that technical process

is done.

Because obviously, it is a technical process rightly,

and we need to triage and then prioritise.

But I did want to make the point that when

I became the government member of transport in May 23,

I was very shocked to hear from officers that our road

and pavement network was in what they called managed decline.

So i .e. every year it was getting worse and worse.

And that is why we made this commitment

to this through the Decade of Renewal

to this really very significant increase

is funding over ten years because obviously as Mr. O 'Donnell pointed out earlier, you can't suddenly put in masses of funding all at once.

There's capacity constraints and we don't want to inconvenience residents by resurfacing too many roads and pavements all at the same time.

So the budget went up in 24, 25 to 8 million.

Then it went up to 10 .25 million for four years and then it's a 10 million for the next five years to make the 100 million.

Now it's going to take five years to get with that increased funding,

because we prioritised particularly pavements within that increased funding because of the point that Councillor Critchard raised.

But it's so important that people can use our pavements safely.

And so that money should get all our pavements within five years to the sort of expected standards.

And obviously we're working to DFT standards.

So, but, and it will, you know, it will make improvements to the roads and stabilise the

condition of them.

But it is an incredibly important investment programme and it really needs to continue and

be sustained.

And, you know, obviously we are fortunate in Wandsworth, we've had a lot of developer

levy income from all the new, you know, house building in the borough and Nine Elms and

elsewhere.

And it's just so important to invest that in our public infrastructure.

As Mr. Tiddly said, we've had a significant increase in the population of the borough, so more people using our roads and pavements.

Although I think it is incredibly important to note, as he did earlier, that fortunately we haven't had an increase in traffic volumes on the roads.

So yeah, agree with many of the points raised.

Thank you for raising them.

And yeah, we'll go on implementing this.

and I am very grateful to our officers because obviously to scale up from what it was 4 .5

minutes ago for, you know, what will be nearly 11 million this coming financial year and

it is about that amount. This financial year, you know, that is a really big increase in

the work programme and they've done a fantastic job in mobilising the resources and getting

on with that and improving the roads and pavements for everyone.

Thank you, Councillor Yeates. Moving on to our final paper of the evening, which is car

6 Car Clubs (Paper No. 26-34)

clubs, and Andy, Mr Andy Flood, is going to give us a short introduction on the current

situation. Thank you, Chair. I'm Andy Flood. I'm a principal

transport planner in the Transport Strategy Team. So this paper is an update on car club

provision in the borough. Just to briefly say what a car club is, it's a pay -as -you -go

access to have a car when you need one but without having to own a car yourself.

So you can use a car when needed but you don't have the ownership.

Car clubs are run by car club operators that are accredited by Como UK which is

a charity which runs an accreditation scheme among other things to do with

shared mobility. So the impacts of car clubs in general are they result in

lower car use overall, a reduced number of vehicles privately owned, and therefore the

temptation for people to use a car just because it's on their outside their house or on their

driveway is reduced.

So it reduces parking pressure as well.

Car club members typically drive a lot less and use public transport and walk and cycle

more than the average.

So we've had car clubs in Wandsworth since 2007, so nearly 20 years ago.

And that's long enough, I think, to say that there's, when I describe this, two models

of car clubs.

One of them I can even say is traditional because it's been for that long.

The round trip model, which has been operated by Zipcar and Enterprise, two of the accredited

operators, and that's where the car has a dedicated parking bay and the member of the

car club makes a booking, picks up the car from the bay, and once their booking is finished,

They pay by the hour and they return it to the bay for the next user.

And there's also been a free floating scheme that's only been run by Zipcar called Zipcar

Flex and that's an A to B option where you can pick up the car anywhere essentially parked

in an operating area on street and drop it off at another location in the borough.

And there's been an annual fee for each of these, a permit based scheme for the round

trip model, so each operator is paid an annual car club parking permit, and there's been

a pro rata per vehicle fee for the free -floating model.

Now, it's been quite well reported that recently, Zipcar announced its withdrawal from the car

club market in the UK.

It had been offering the vast majority of provision, not just in Wandsworth, but across

London.

They cited market conditions, costs, etc.

The market operation for car clubs, probably since the pandemic, has not been as good as

it had been previously.

They've suffered rising costs and loss of some of the discretionary trips that some

car club members would make due to cost of living.

So they've had rising costs and pressure on the amount of use at the same time.

So, this has all come to a head with Zipcar's withdrawal.

And because Zipcar are the biggest operator, this is going to leave lots of ones with residents,

potentially without access to a car club, without further action.

And we've got something like about 7 ,000 or more regular users of car clubs historically

with Zipcar and Enterprise.

So without access to car clubs, some of those may be tempted to go into car ownership and

that may add to parking pressure and add to further vehicle trips being made.

The free -floating model that I mentioned, there's no other operator in the UK offers

that, so those vehicles will have gone anyway.

The round trip model, we have currently 133 on street parking bays.

And with the withdrawal of Zipcar, 122 of those will become vacant.

But due to the benefits of car clubs, we sought to take action to encourage other accredited

operators into the borough as soon as possible to take up that vacant space.

And some of the actions as described in the report, they're simplified terms rather than

a complicated contractual process.

And one of the most important things of those simplified terms is one of the costs that

is in control of the Council, rather than the other costs that operators are facing.

There's many other costs, but the one that's in control of the Council is the annual permit

fee.

So, we've waived the permit fee until April 2027 to encourage other accredited operators

to come in and take up some of that vacant space.

So, since we've done that, we've already had interest from the three other accredited

car clubs.

So, Enterprise will be adding some more vehicles next week.

That's three additional.

Co -wheels, who don't currently operate in the borough, they're looking at an initial

five with further to follow.

And Hi -ya Car have also expressed an interest and we expect further details.

But just to stress, these are just very initial numbers of vehicles.

The other operators, of course, they were not aware that Zip Go are going to go and

that this availability might be there.

And of course, those other operators were never operating on the scale of Zipcar in

London anyway.

So they want to see what the market's like, have an initial view, get some vehicles in,

and build up from there.

Having said that, we're talking about 122 bays that are vacant without additional operators

coming in.

And the likelihood is, realistically, that not all of those will be taken by other car

clubs.

And there may have been some over provision by Zipcar historically.

So we're proposing within the paper that if bays are repurposed to other use, that active

travel and sustainable transport use would be in preference to residential parking.

But we'd look at each case in honest merits, and we want to give sufficient time to the

those vacant spaces before converting them to other use.

We recognise that won't last forever, so I think aim to be fairly pragmatic on it, but

the intention is that we've got a lot of car club bays that are vacant.

We've got a lot of car club members who want to remain car club members.

We've taken these actions to try and ensure as quickly as possible that there is alternative

of Carlecourt provision for them and that that will be built up again over time.

I think it's also important to say we're in a bit of a competitive market

with other boroughs here because a lot of them are in the same boat and I think

some of the actions we've already taken have been seen to encourage other

operators in already to make that commitment. So happy to take any

questions. Thank you very much. Councillor Belton.

Thank you, Chair.

I used car club, zip car actually, for about five years consistently before inheriting a car.

Now I've gone back again.

I wondered whether there's one weakness in the analysis.

I mean, best of luck about maintaining service and

hoping other service providers will come along.

But I just wonder whether the immense growth of Uber and the technology that Uber uses

and the remarkably low prices, I'm just thinking I was a car club member 20 years ago and using

Uber 20 years later, I wonder whether it's changed the dynamics of car clubs completely

and whether in fact car clubs was just a something that happened relatively briefly,

but that organisations like Uber will be taking the market with time.

Don't know what to say about that other than that seems to be another reason for the decline of car clubs.

Well not yet the decline but at least the withdrawal of one of them.

Councillor Critchley. Oh sorry Mr. Blodreich, would you like to comment?

Yeah, thank you, Councillor. I think the rise of Uber and other shared mobility, like e -bikes,

e -scooters, may also have had an impact on Zipcar's decision. On the other side of the

coin, the other operators are very much interested. They do see a future for car clubs in London,

perhaps not to the same scale that Zipcar had, but there is an opportunity for them

there. At least that's the way they see it, and I think that's what we're trying to encourage

with the actions that we've taken. Councillor Cripshire. Thank you. I'd be quite

interested if you've done any work on the age profile of the car club users,

the Zipcar users, partly because I just wonder if it's a pure guess whether

it's particularly our young renters because our young, we've got a very

large proportion of young renters in the borough and most of them do not have a

car because it's expensive and there's other things but they do need to quite I

guess quite a lot can drive and they they would be interested so I wonder if

there's anything we could do to look at who uses it and therefore how we can

help or whether that would be something for the car club users and I'm also

going to put in a plea for the free floating model because that was the one my son used all the time

before he inherited a car. So I just thought and the bit that amazed me was when the car got left

outside our house it was usually gone within 15 minutes. Okay this was probably pre -covid but

I couldn't believe how much it being able to pick it up from somewhere and leave it at the point

when you're unloading and it was unloading that did it was good.

And the last thing was I see how the scale Para 25 of the order,

my own of repurposing the bays.

As we've heard that there's a big demand for cycle parking,

which can't be, which we need to meet but we do it slowly.

And I think the e -bike and e -scooter bays are actually quite useful because it gives

residents an idea that there is somewhere we can put in.

I actually think we shouldn't be repurposing to resident parking.

I think that's probably a contentious view.

But once you give a bay back, then you get back into the argument of taking, you're seen

to be taking parking away.

and actually I think I wonder if we can get ourselves out of a hole by not doing

that and if there was a support I would be suggesting that if this goes forward

as a recommendation that we should actually not think about putting it back

for residents parking because of the problems when you then have to take it

away again. That make sense?

Thanks, Councillor. The first one about the age profile. There is a lot of research for

London as a whole. It wouldn't be broken down by borough. But KOMO UK publishes annual surveys.

So there will be information in that about the age profile. I don't have it to hand at

the moment, but I'm happy to circulate that to the committee afterwards. The free -floating

model, I agreed it serves different purposes to some of the round trip.

Unfortunately, as I said, Zipcar is the only operator in the UK that operates that.

None of the others that are accredited do so.

In fact, nobody does.

And that's partly because of the extra cost of the telematics involved and the operational

cost.

There are operators who do that on continental Europe, and some of those may come in, see

that Zipcars left, there's potential for them to come into the UK, see an opportunity in

London and perhaps that's something that might happen over the coming months and years.

So I wouldn't say it's definitely gone for good, but for the moment with Zipcars withdrawal,

it no longer operates here.

And in terms of the repurposing, there is an order of preference there with residential

permit parking at the bottom and that's the general order in preference and it does say

dependent on location.

I suppose it's for the committee to decide whether there's a recommendation that follows.

Thanks.

I mean, I would just put it out there, I would be saying that's not repurpose.

I don't know if I've got agreement amongst the committee members, but that's what I'd

say.

I'd say it's the first three.

On the same kind of subject area, I don't know in the officer's case, but I do know

of many planning applications where car club membership parking is part of the conditioning

instead of private parking.

I hope we're in discussion with the development control people about how that's going to operate.

Thanks Councillor.

Yeah, there is some text in the paper about the existing development related car clubs

that Zipcar are or have run.

The Zipcar are talking with the developers and with other,

hopefully they're sharing information

with the other car club operators

so that there's potential for them to replace

the Zipcar provision with the other car clubs.

This is going to be an ongoing process

because there's quite a lot of them.

But the obligation will remain with the developer

to provide a car club unless it's not proved to be viable.

So it will be up to the developer to make that argument that they no longer need to provide a car club

And clearly when we're looking at future provision through planning

Where we believe that a car club is required will still require that

It's just that there's one fewer operator out there who provide who's able to provide it

Council Owens

Yes, I was going to pick up that point about planning having sat with council belt and for three years and numerous

for the car club based in the new developments, particularly Springfield, sprung to mind.

I was just with your point about Uber as well.

One of the things I would have thought, I'd be interested to see the breakdown of people

who do use them at some point, but I think they are fantastic.

I mean, I know you've mentioned that Uber, everybody's using Uber, e -bikes, et cetera,

but actually if you compare, are you having to use a Zipcar to get from A to B, because

your kids to a match somewhere,

it is a heck of a lot cheaper in a car club car

than it is by Uber if you break it down.

So, and also given that you guys extension, et cetera,

lots of people I know, we did,

we got rid of our second car for a lot of people

that got rid of the only car they had.

And I certainly know my ward,

a lot of people who do rely on these dicky single parents.

So welcome the paper and obviously it's interesting

that there's lots of reasons why they're no longer,

that would not all gots it cars but clearly the congestion charge they now

have to pay since beginning last month for EV vehicles and as well as the

they're claiming that obviously the costs for the parking bays individual

boroughs a part of that but thank you for the paper just two points from me

abusing my position as chair one it strikes me that our shared cargo bike

scheme is quite has historically been fairly successful and expands I've used

one of them to help a friend move house before and that's I see what some people

use it cars for is there the potential to look at upscaling that programme to

try and fill some of that demand would be my first question and then the second

question is I don't know if we came back to council Hamilton's points earlier

about foliage and place making and an old road.

Could we, I don't think we have any parklets in the borough.

Would there be an option to trial a handful of parklets,

i .e. some nice benches with flowers so that they're not,

if we're gonna hold some of them back anyway,

and they can't be used for any of these purposes,

that we could trial just a handful of, you know,

brightly coloured seating and places where people can sit

and play in their street might be a nice option.

Perhaps I'll take take that one. So on the shared cargo bikes. Yes

There's definitely an opportunity there, but there is a significant issue

Insofar as those bikes are generally funded by the council. So we buy the bikes

Clearly a car club is something that we don't have a financial

Involvement in the tool, but I wouldn't rule it out if there's a case for moral cargo bikes that we could do that

And then in terms of parklets, there are colleagues elsewhere in the council who are looking at potential locations where parklets could be delivered.

So, yes, that's also an option.

Councillor Critchard, I'll allow you to canvas softly for opinion for your recommendation and see if we need to move that forward.

Kasmeiorkas, I actually think yours is a really good one.

So I wonder whether what we could do, the idea of if the space becomes available,

that it can be used for something locally in the community.

As you say, you can put some planters in.

I think we should make that number four as what we do.

So I'd canvas opinion for that and maybe take out.

And then we can go for do we want to take out putting that residents parking but I

Really think that would be a good idea, and I think that would also be a good opportunity for trialling these things

because I've

We're having a discussion of one of the roads in my our ward about whether that would be used

You know useful into it also in terms of helping slow traffic sometimes

So I know the car companies normally at the end, but could we go for that idea?

How much and then locker?

Thank you, but I'm perfectly perfectly content to go with the direction of council Chris charts

suggestion and I must confess I remain to be convinced by Park let's

Simply because of the examples I've seen in other boroughs. I think they are

Introduced with the best of intentions, but very often turn into I think some quite poorly maintained areas of

seating that often attract rubbish often degrade quite fast so if we could agree

that it would be consideration be given to using the space for a project of

community interest whether that is a park let's whether it's even the storage

actually frankly of e -bikes as we do have a shortage of the bikes parking

spaces if we could keep the recommendation quite general I think

that would give us the flexibility to try different things with the space so

just to try and see where we are.

So we would suggest removing point four,

bumping it down to point five,

and including a point four which references

keeping open the possibility of community assets,

i .e. parklets.

Parklets or invitees.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Is that the?

And sorry, are we removing point four,

we keeping are we sorry are we removing resident parking or just putting it

below that councillor thank you I mean if I could just offer some observations I

think with some of these things the best thing will be to be pragmatic and

consult with board councillors because I've seen some of these things work in

some areas and some not in others and it could be the same solution.

I take Councillor Hamilton's point.

There have been cases where we have introduced little parklets,

the little bench types with some sort of flowering stuff.

For instance, in Putney near the High Street, it attracted rubbish,

it attracted urination and things like that, and we had to remove them.

I've seen the same solution work on some residential streets in other parts of

perfectly. So I think I would just I would add the point four that you say

sort of lower down point the current point four but put it as number five

because there will be other areas. I mean for instance if I just look at this

table there are 15 empty spaces coming up in Ten's Field Ward that is a lot and

you'll find that different solutions will will afford themselves to each of

different roads they're being talked about but I do like the point and I

think officers has probably heard it that the committee would really counsel

against changing one of them back to resident parking to then have to change

it out again at a later date so I think that's the overall message I think just

work your way down the list and consult with the ward counsellors would be my

recommendation as to what solution that you put in there could I suggest them

that in paragraph 25 we would say something like,

unoccupied by car club operators

after a reasonable period,

and in consultation with ward counsellors

to other uses, something like that.

And then, so one is e -bike, two is bike hangers,

three is EV, four is exploring opportunities

to provide for the space to be used as a community asset,

and then number four, so five then becomes resident parking. Yeah agreed?

Perfect. Any further comments or questions on this paper? Okay. All right

that concludes the business meeting. Thank you everyone and a huge thanks to

officers for all your work into all these papers. Transport is not an easy

subject to keep people happy and we really appreciate it. So thanks very much.

We welcome your comments

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Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Wednesday 11 February 2026, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Transport Overview and Scrutiny CommitteeWednesday, 11th February 2026 at 7:30pm

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Twitter

Forums

Speakers

Feedback

Votes

1 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

2 Declarations of Interests

3 Local Plan (Paper No. 26-31)

4 Review of the Walking and Cycling Strategy (Paper No. 26-32)

5 Highways Maintenance Programme (Paper No. 26-33)

6 Car Clubs (Paper No. 26-34)

Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Wednesday, 11th February 2026 at 7:30pm