Passenger Transport Liaison Group - Thursday 26 September 2024, 6:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Passenger Transport Liaison Group
Thursday, 26th September 2024 at 6:30pm 

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this evening's meeting of the Passenger Transport Liaison Group.
My name is Councillor Fraser, and I will be chairing the group meeting this evening.
I can confirm that apologies for absence have been received from
Councillor Leonie Cooper,
Ritchie Sharma from British Transport Police and Sam Russell from Ibiza.
Members of the group
I'll now call your names in order of representative group attendance.
So please do confirm,
switch on your microphone and confirm when I get to you please. So first of all we've
got ones of councillors. Councillor Hamilton. Present, good evening. Thank you and Councillor
Yates. Hi everyone, good evening. Okay I'm just going to go round on the order on my
screen so if those people can unmute and I think most people on here do know each other
but I think it's just always nice to do a little introduction as people go. So Councillor
Hamilton, you had your hand up. And you're on mute.
Sorry, I should have said that when confirming my attendance. My apologies, but I have a
grants committee meeting at 7pm this evening, so I'll have to drop off then. But apologies
for my rudeness in doing so.
And thank you for letting us know. We'll know that. And yeah, thanks very much. So I'm going
to go around my screen in order that I see you on here. So Michael Flower.
Good evening Michael Flowers, Democratic Services Officer.
Thank you. David Wilby.
Hi, I'm the Regional Development Manager for South Western Railway.
Thank you. James.
Hi, I'm James Picard. I'm the Local Communities and Partnerships Lead for London Borough of Wandsworth representing TfL.
Sidoni.
Good evening, I'm Seadoni Forest -Brown, Senior Transport Planner for Wandsworth Council.
David. Hello, I'm David Tiddley, I'm the Head of Transport Strategy for Wandsworth Council.
Yvonne. Hi, I'm the State Water Manager for Govea, Thameslink Railway and that covers Southern and
Lovely. And finally, Malcolm.
Yeah, Malcolm Clarage representing RATP, Dev Transit London, the local, but one of the local bus companies for Wandsworth.
Thank you very much, all. So first up on the agenda, we have the minutes of the last meeting of the group held on the 14th of March.
To note, I'm told to say that members did not have to be have been present at that meeting
in order to agree them, but just checking that the accuracy of the minutes are a fair
and true reflection of meeting.
Is that agreed?
Great, thank you very much.
So agenda item two, declarations of pecuniary interests.
Does anyone have any interest to declare?
No?
Okay, great.
Thank you.
you very much. So agenda item three, we have the crime figures. So the crime figures were
circulated to the group electronically following the publication of the meeting agenda. Michael,
you did a quick update for us earlier on that. Is there anything else that you wanted to
add?
Apology, no, that's just to confirm that the crime figures you've received are the up -to -date
ones at the time of the agenda.
Okay. David, you've got your hand up. Yeah, it was just to make a quick comment on them, I think,
which is that there does appear to be quite a lot of red on the table and quite a lot of the
numbers seem to be moving in the wrong direction. It's probably something we'll need to pick up with
British Transport Police on an individual station and sort of a fence basis. Actually,
I remember a couple of cycles ago they had a separate meeting with members which I thought
was quite interesting so maybe we can put one of those in the diary in a few months' time and
have a longer debate about the crime figures.
Yeah, and I think that's a good suggestion. I think I'm speaking up to him and I think
other people. I think there was a lot of value from that meeting. I think we all saw in having
it that discussion that way. So perhaps it's that twice a year we do have a meeting of
that kind of that sort where we can discuss the crime figures and wonder whether we do
want to take that away as an action from this evening's meeting.
Yes, I'll take that away.
Great, and thank you. Sorry, that wasn't me assigning it. David, I think it was more
that we have it noted, but thank you and I'm agreed on that point. Is there anything
anyone else wants to make, any comments on on the crime figures this evening?
But no, I think from my perspective, that meeting will be useful to discuss those figures
and then we can see whether it's something that we can tie into some local areas if there's
a particular area that we want to focus on and perhaps it's talking with the local policing
teams there about any action that's being taken.
But yeah, we can progress that when we've got that meeting in.
So thank you all for that one.
Next up we have got item four on the underground and thank you Councillor Hamilton for requesting
as well a specific update on the closure of Clapham South station as well. So just to
moving to James for that one.
Evening everybody, yes so this is an agenda item that was on the last meeting we had and
unfortunately it seems to have appeared here again but there does appear to be an issue
with staff in the area having issues with staff sickness again that that was the reason
I was given last time and it seems to be happening again so I've asked the area manager to update
on if there's any resilience planning going on because it obviously is happening quite
often. I don't have exact details of how many times it's been closed recently but I'm informed
that they were recently hit by a COVID outbreak within the staff and in that scenario unfortunately
They do have to close the station occasionally to try and combat that obviously.
I think I explained last time it sits within an area where the staff have to share between
Clapham Common, Clapham South and Clapham North stations and that Clapham South sometimes
is the station that unfortunately does have to shut to keep the other two busier stations
open.
But yeah, I mean if there's any kind of specific concerns or days that councillors wanted to
highlight or anything like that then I can take them back and investigate them but obviously
we're just apologetic at this point and looking to find out what we can do to make the issue,
you know, not happen again as much as possible. So again apologies for that but yeah I'll take
any questions you might have. Yeah and thank you James. Councillor Hamilton.
Thank you very much. Now I really appreciate you providing that update and we had heard
there was issues with staff sickness which is obviously very regrettable. I just wondered
if you may be able to give just a bit more clarity in terms of the timelines of when
you may be able to report back on what's being done to boost resilience. I only ask because
you know like a closure once in a while is no problem but you know we're receiving very
very frequent resident emails saying look it's Tuesday morning at eight o 'clock and the
station shut so I wouldn't usually mention this if it's just a one -off but there is such a clear
pattern that I do think something needs to be done relatively urgently particularly as you're moving
to the winter months when we can usually assume that sickness will tick up amongst the workforce
rather than decline. But thank you for your efforts. Sure, so I mean I have raised this up
at the highest level within the sort of Northern Lion structure internally and basically they are
coming back to me hopefully very shortly with a bit more of a plan. I think one is being worked
on as we speak so I'll come back to you with a firm sort of timeline on that as soon as I'm able
to but yeah I agree, agreed it's obviously at the time of year it can be quite difficult so
I'll update the group on that as soon as possible.
Great, and thank you very much, James.
I'm sure that we'd be grateful to receive a response on that one because, yeah, obviously,
as Councillor Hamilton says, the staff sickness is completely understandable, but just, yeah,
if there is a continual pattern there, it's just useful to understand what has been done
to try and reduce that in the long term. So yeah, that's appreciated. Thank you. Were
there any other updates specifically on the underground that you wanted to give James?
There's nothing really in terms of day to day that I have noted down at this point,
but obviously happy to take any questions that people might have on London Underground
issues.
Yeah, I've not picked up anything specifically from what's been happening.
But, Councilor Hampton, you've got your hand up.
Thank you.
Just one more question that's tube related is, last year we suffered from mould on a
couple of occasions at Ballym station.
Again, a couple of messages from residents.
Some were a little concerned about the health implications of that, which I understand actually
from TfL are not particularly notable.
but is there a plan, particularly after heavy rainfall, to make sure that there is actually
proper ventilation in tube stations so we don't get the mould coming back this year?
Sure, I think this again was raised and I did take this up with the area manager again,
and basically his feedback to me was that basically we would be looking to clear up
mould as part of our regular maintenance around the station as much as possible. Obviously if
it's in more difficult areas that require, you know, issues with sort of access and sort of
safety then the implications then it might be slightly more difficult and slightly less regular
but it yeah the from my understanding what the the area manager had to say was that it seems to
be it should be being picked up in normal processes but I've asked I'll highlight that again to the
at Balham specifically and if there's anything further they can do to it.
I mean if you do have any pictures or if you hear by it from, if you do go through the
station, please feel free to send it to me and I'll take you out with them.
Just before I go to David, I mean when I came through last night, I think the issue is that
Balham, there's a leak down from, on to the barriers when I talk about that level.
there's a leak and so there's some sandbags that go around it just before you go up the stairs to
the upstairs. So that is where it's coming from and obviously with the kind of the type of,
I mean it can sound very British, the type of rain that we had over the last couple of days,
obviously it's quite heavy, quite sharp, it clearly comes when that happens. So that's,
you know, I'm no expert on mould or weather but I think that's where it's coming from and you can
of see they put barriers around it so it's just at the bottom of the stairs but David you had your
hand up. Yes I wouldn't want to put James on the spot now but some a few weeks ago TfL announced
a number of stations that they were going to be investigating for step free access and one of
those was Tooting Broadway so assuming James wouldn't have an update on that today perhaps
at the next committee, it might be useful if at the next meeting, it might be useful if we could
find out a little bit more about what that will, what work that entails and how long it will take
and when we will get an outcome so that that feasibility will. Yeah so I'll certainly be able
to provide an update at the next meeting for that David. Yeah that was great news that it's going to
be taken forward as part of a feasibility study so yeah hopefully things should start moving on that
relatively quickly, but I'm not entirely sure of the prioritization for that because obviously
there are a couple other stations as well, especially on the northern line that we're
looking at. But yeah, hopefully I can get some clarity on where Tooty Broadway sits
within that field, that feasibility study field.
Thank you. And I think, yeah, just an indication even on kind of rough timelines or the future
of it would be useful for a future meeting.
So thank you for that one.
Yeah, Councilor Yates, put your hand up.
Yeah, thanks Claire.
Yeah, just regarding the mould at Ballam Station,
you mentioned Claire, this is due to a leak
and it sounds like it's been going on a while.
So I just wonder, James, do you have any update
on what's being done to fix that leak
or maybe you could come back to us on that?
I appreciate sometimes leaks are very difficult to fix,
but it's clearly very important that they are.
Yeah, so I'll hopefully be able to get a full update
on the leak specifically.
My understanding was that they were cleaning it,
cleaning the mould as part of normal sort of station,
upset up cleaning regimen.
But yeah, obviously there seems to be something
a bit more to it.
So hopefully we can nail down exactly where the leak is coming from and get that sorted.
So I'll provide an update for the group on that as soon as I have one.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
While we move on, anyone else have any other questions or queries on the underground?
Okay, we'll move on to the next bit which is buses, we've got quite a few items under this bump.
Yeah, so the first one is around the bus driver facilities at Bessborough Road. So my understanding
is that this facility is now up and running. It was finally signed off on the 18th of July,
so things are, have moved forward there significantly from the last time we met, so that's good
news and that facility is now up and running.
Great, thanks. I don't know if anyone has any questions on that.
Yeah, I just thought I wrote in case anyone, but it's yeah, that's good news on that one,
because I know that one's been on there for a while.
Yeah. Next one around the 315 extension and the works at Glenburnie Road to facilitate
and that extension to the Springfield Hospital. So our understanding is the work is due to
be completed on Glenburnie Road at the end of next month which will basically allow us
to then install the stops and correct carry out of route test which is both necessary
obviously to get that extension through. We've obviously been working quite closely with
Henry Cheng at the council to get that through so we wanted to note thanks to Henry for helping us
out with this. We're hoping to have, we set a target date for the 4th of January to extend the
one back to the Springfield site so hopefully by the time we meet next I should have a more
firm update on that extension date and be able to provide you with some good news hopefully.
Lovely thank you very much and good news on 315 pausing there quickly.
Okay thank you, so next is monitoring bus routes 14, 430 and 436.
Sure I mean so for these three routes I believe it's fair to say that the performance hasn't
been great recently. Basically my understanding is obviously that they all go through Putney
and Putney High Street where they encounter significant delays due to the traffic in the
area. We also obviously, one thing I wanted to note, I'm not sure if anybody wants to
come back and have any questions about the performance generally, I don't have the exact
numbers in front of me. Unfortunately, I did ask our performance data team to provide an update
for me on that, but it's one of the many services that TfL have had issues with. Unfortunately,
following the recent cyber attack that's ongoing at this moment in time, so access to our data
fields is being affected as a result of that, unfortunately. So, that's what I'm told from the
So accurate data for more recent months isn't available at this point but we're
hoping this to be able to sort of produce that hopefully in the next
couple of weeks. The latest data we have is back in June and yeah it's
not that those routes are not particularly performing well I don't
know if anybody had any specific comments they wanted to make on it and
I can sort of come back and take the questions on. Great, thank you. David, you're in the
agenda. Yes, thank you and I think picking up on those routes and in fact probably the next item,
which was bus services in Southampton, we did meet last week, I think it was last week, I'm getting my
weeks mixed up, but last week with the director of public transport planning at TfL including
Council of the Yeats was there. And, you know, there was an acknowledgement that the routes
are relatively poor performing. And there was a list of things which Transport for London
were doing, including in terms of strengthening the numbers of buses that were available to try
and make all the routes more reliable. And there were quite a lot of actions, some quite small,
some a little bit bigger that were taken away from that. Perhaps we can maybe provide that
sort of list of what TfL said that they would do with the minutes of the meeting.
Thank you, that sounds like a suggestion. Jenny, did you want to come in?
Yes, thanks. We did have a very useful meeting with TfL about the bus performance, particularly
of buses, you know, using Putney High Street and serving Roehampton by other routes, as David says,
and we were grateful for that. And yes, there were a number of actions which we were pleased
TFL agreed to follow up. I just had one question which was related to the minutes of the last
meeting and in that we requested, in addition to the data that we get on the waiting times
and the probability of waiting, which is helpful, we'd also asked if we could have data on crowding
levels, left behinds and early terminations. And we're particularly interested in left
look at the data, particularly on the 85, which we've been given from April to June and appreciate
you know, how difficult it's been with TfL with the cyber attack, James, and I'm very sorry to hear
that's still ongoing. So you know, there isn't more recent data. But with that quarters data,
you know, we see that the 85 has an excess waiting time is given of one minute, and that
you know, what we receive constant, very bitter complaints about from residents is the early
terminations of the 85 at the Green Man, which does make it very difficult for people to
get home, especially down to Putney Vale. Now, obviously, we discussed this in the meeting
last week. But I did wonder whether, you know, given the request at the last meeting, whether,
you know, at the next meeting you'd be able to bring any additional data or circulate in advance
any additional data on left behinds and early terminations of the buses serving one sir? Yeah,
yeah that is something I did following the meeting last time I did check with our data team and that
is something we do report on. It's not something we publish on our website generally but we do
hold that information and I can provide it to you at the next meeting. Certainly as I said,
it is unfortunately one of those things that's affected by the cyber attack, so I don't have
the most up -to -date data unfortunately, but I can certainly provide that ahead of the next meeting
for whatever period you would like to review it for. So if it's the next quarter I can bring that
along for you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Malcolm.
Yeah, just to reiterate what James touched upon regarding Putney High Street, and I can
tell you now the 85 is still a shocker. If we send it through to Putney Bridge station,
it comes back about an hour late, which means it doesn't go round again. So there are a
of early terminations at the Green Man, which is inconvenient for us as well as the travelling
public because turning around at the Green Man isn't easy, not when you're travelling towards
Putney. One thing to note there Malcolm as well is, as we discussed with councilor Yates last time
the 85 was that we are increasing the fleet size on the 85 by one extra bus. So that should,
fingers crossed, improve reliability on the route. So I just wanted to note that.
That said, there was a note put out yesterday for some works that started yesterday and they're
should help. Sorry, it's my cynicism regarding Putney High Street.
Thank you, welcome. Jenny, is that you want to come back? Yes, no, no, wait, I'm very familiar
with those, you know, the great difficulty the congestion on Putney High Street is causing
the buses and I visited the Putney Bus Garage with Fleur Anderson MP and discussed it extensively
with some of the management of Go Ahead London and drivers there. I just had a different question
actually, I wonder if James might update us on the cyber attack, given you mentioned it and
hopefully it's going to be resolved soon James. Yeah so I mean basically our engineers are still
working as quickly as possible to try and restore all of our services. From a personal experience
it wasn't, we had a couple of days where we weren't able to access any anything at all
at the beginning of it so it's been a bit of a pain but yeah I think a lot most of us are now
back online but it is still affecting unfortunately a number of platforms that our staff use to
access things like documents and data unfortunately. So hopefully they're still basically working with
organizations to try and sort it out as much as possible as soon as possible but there are still
some elements that are struggling unfortunately but obviously it hasn't affected the day -to -day
services that obviously customers access.
So that's great from that perspective,
but obviously there's a number of things that we want to sort
out as much as quickly as possible.
Thanks James and I can appreciate it's going to be a mammoth
task kind of probably getting stuff back up and running and
making sure your systems are resilient and stuff.
So I hope you all get sorted soon.
I can imagine it's not an easy task for anyone, but especially the amount of data and systems you all have.
So thank you. And just going to check with the bus routes 14, 4, 3 and 4, 3, 6,
we've touched on the next item, which is bus services in Roehampton.
Councillor Yeates, did you have anything else? Did you have some separate points?
I appreciate we kind of mixed in a couple of points there.
want to check to see if you had any other points on on Rampton that you wanted to raise as the next
item. Yeah thanks, Larry, and we have had that very extensive discussion last week with TfL,
so I don't know unless James has got anything to add or anyone else has any questions, I haven't
got anything to raise here. No, just to say that from our perspective we've found a really
productive meeting, so thank you for your time. Obviously there were a number of actions we took
away and we're working on to provide an update as soon as possible. Obviously discuss the
number of services there. Hopefully we can provide some good information to you very
quickly. So yeah, as soon as I have further details for you, I'll come back to you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. David, I was going to say, I'll check if anyone else has
got any points, but I'll come to you David.
Well I suppose just to also just highlight at this point that the council itself has been, has
sort of helped fund a couple of services in the area to benefit local people which includes the
public being able to use the Southampton University bus and that we've expanded the scope of Wandsworth
community transport to serve the area and that's partly as a result of the sort of general view
that we get from local residents that the scheduled service isn't really up to scratch.
No, and Jan, thank you very much. Any extra provision, it should be noted and minuted in
Hampton area because it's been a problem for some time so thank you for
noting David. Anything else before we move on to a separate one? No okay thank
you. Next is the Longley Road bus stand. Yeah so this was an agenda item at the
last meeting as well and I advised at that meeting that we were having
discussions with the operator go ahead on trying to improve the issues around engines running
incorrect standing. There was some issues with an eliminated advertising panel as far as I was told.
So I'm not sure who raised this at the previous one but if the issues are still ongoing please
let me know but my understanding is things should have improved there since then.
Danny, do you want to come in on that one?
Yeah, sure.
I asked for this to be added, James.
It's just, I mean, it's a long running issue.
It's been going on for a long time.
I appreciate it was at the last meeting and I've had a couple of meetings down there with
Dave Leslie and the operator.
They put a service controller on the stand for a period of time and I think that did
improve the situation, but I do still get complaints from residents and I think it's,
yeah, it's not resolved.
The buses frequently park off the stand on the wrong side of the road,
leave their engines running outside people's properties. There's a lot of
flats along there as well that are quite close to the
footway so I think the noise is just disturbing people. So it's just to
say really that although some improvement was
seen for a time it has crept back. I was hoping Pippinda would be here
so we could talk about it but I can contact him outside of the meeting but I
send him regular kind of complaints. If you're not getting anywhere with Dave or Papinda please
just copy me in and I'll try and facilitate as much as I can and obviously you're speaking to
the right people there so but if you're not getting anywhere please let me know and I'll
try my best to get things sorted. Thanks. Thank you. Can't see you. Yeah no thanks
James, but I'm concerned to hear from Sidoni that, you know, while there was some improvement
when the service controller was there, it's deteriorated again. I mean, it's such a busy
congested area. It's basically such a dreadful location for a bus stand, you know, and in the
sort of medium to long term, we would really, the council would really like to see it relocated,
but we know that is complicated. So, please, at the next meeting, James, can you give us another
update on what's being done to improve the, you know, how it is being operated by GoAhead?
Sure, I will endeavour to get a full and proper update for you at the next meeting if not before.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Just checking there's no other.
Okay, thank you. So the next one is the bus quality indicators included in the PACS. I'm
just going to give it a minute in case there's any, if there's anything anyone wants to raise
in particular or any questions specifically regarding routes. David, thank you.
Yeah, there were two I wanted to pick up on. One was the 270, which I think is one of Malcolm's
routes. No, it's not. Oh, well, there you go. You're lucky. It's just that the 270 seems
to have delays. And whilst the obvious thing to think of would be Putney Bridge Road and
Putney Bridge, it runs on the same route as the 220, which doesn't seem to have the same
sorts of problems. And my experience of traveling between Earl's Field and Wandsworth and Tooting
and Wandsworth along Garrett Lane is that there are some quite long gaps in the 270
particularly. It's probably, if the operator's not here, it's something I'll need to take
away probably. But I've just noticed how it can be a bit of a struggle going up and down
Gamet Lane. Malcolm does have his hand up. Yeah, it's just in response to that, not that I'm
wishing to defend another operator service. The 220 does have a special schedule on it
where it's got increased running times and I think it's got an extra bus as well
because of roadworks at the other end of that route which is up in Holsden to HS2.
So it runs more efficiently because it's been mitigated.
Thank you. Cassie, do you want to give me that?
Yeah, thank you. I mean, I was just wondering, we're obviously very fortunate to have you with us, Malcolm, representing our ATP group,
But I just wondered whether Go Ahead London might join this group, seeing as they run so many of the services in Wandsworth.
Is there any reason why we benefit from you being with us, Malcolm, but not Go Ahead?
Probably because I'm quite loyal.
I've been doing this meeting for about a thousand years.
I think Emperor Nero was on the throne when I first started, which brings me nicely back to the point of Longmead Road,
because I've been complaining about that for 40 years. So no, I believe it's normally
Papinda Singh or Angelina Varela who used to attend some years ago. I don't know whether
they're still on the invite or not.
Michael's probably got an answer because he's quite offended.
I believe so. But after this meeting, as a take -away action, I'm sure me and David can
contact Go Ahead and ask them if they can arrange for an up -to -date regular attendee to the meetings
and hopefully we can get a permanent person just in case membership change for roles.
Yeah I'm probably looking at Sidoni but I'm pretty sure Go Ahead and Bailleo are all well
aware of the meetings. Yeah, Papinda's around and I'll have a word with him.
Thank you. And it's a very good suggestion and one that we want to make sure we get representation
in this group from all services that operate in Opera Room regardless of the method of
transport. So a good suggestion to make sure that we benefit from Malcolm's expertise and
wise words that we have representation from the other operators as well. David, back to
Yeah, it was only to pick up the other one that I picked, Aiden, that was one of the
lower routes. The 201, which I have to admit, I had to look to see what the 201 was, but
it runs down Mitcham Lane, right in Fersdown, between sort of Streatham and Morden. So it's
not one that probably many people come across, but it's pretty shocking, really. Only two
thirds of the buses run on time. There's 20 % of five to 15 minutes late and about 10 % don't
run at all. So for a bus that only runs every 15 minutes or every 20 minutes, it looks pretty
shocking really. So it's one out again, I think we'll take away and try and find out
what was going on with that one.
I'm thinking that's not one of yours, Malcolm.
Oh, God, that was nosebleed territory straightened.
Just slightly in defense of those figures, the better those figures are and the lower
they are, the better bus service you get and the more money we get paid.
So it's not in our interest to run a bad service because TFL will fine us.
So the better that figure is, the more they have to give us.
So it's it's well, TFL would lock everything on par.
So if it says one point zero, it operates at one point zero.
But what we were trying to do is operate it at zero point seven, zero point six.
So we actually get more money. We get a bonus for that.
So if the if the services are a bit shitty, it's because of traffic normally.
Yeah, I think the anything that, not sure exactly when the data is you're looking for,
but obviously if anything going through Streatham a few months ago was affected by the LTN there
that I think has now been removed.
But it was the water work, I think it had gone in at the same time as huge water, Thames
Water Works and I'm going to assume that next time we look at these indicators there's going
some pretty bad results for anything that's running down the A3 because Thames Waterworks
has been absolutely chaotic along there this summer with what they've done so I'm going to
assume that probably if we look at these in the next time that they won't be so great along the A3
corridor. Okay so that was just doing it if there are any other bus routes that people want to raise
Okay, well thank you very much for your updates, James, on the Underground and the buses as
well.
Thank you.
And just a note of thanks, I know it's not necessarily in there, but I know that communication
has come round about the opening up of the buses.
The TFL, I'm going to use this opportunity, the opening up of the left -hand turn into
with the different road on the A24.
I think we've had some big problems there
over the capacity of the weeks
because of the Thames Waterworks there.
So the residents are very disappointed
that that timeline has slipped a lot
because the previous update was
that it would have been reversed by now.
So yeah, and it's now gone into 2025,
which is now like five years after it went in.
So not necessarily looking for a response,
but just want to note down
you know my thanks for the communication that's gone to residents but just that it is it's much
later than than any would like so yeah we appreciate that so something that um councilor
yates raised for me was to extend that um letter drop area from um just from riverden road which
we've originally done um so we're we're uh i've asked the team to uh consider that and we're going
to go ahead with that in the next uh few days so hopefully um next week that letter will be going
to the residents a bit further around the heaps of states. And thank you yeah just because those
yeah a lot of those roads that are linked and are doing detours along each of those roads so as much
as it's of interest to Riddon it's of interest to the other roads because of the traffic that
they take trying to do detours to get to get back home so thank you. Jenny did you have something
to come in on that? I was just going to ask about that but thanks very much for arranging that James
that will be appreciated I mean our residents as Claire says will be disappointed not sooner but
least they'll be glad to know when it is happening. So thanks for organising the extension of the
latter drop. I'll confirm via email when it's been done. Great, thank you. And I'm assuming you will
get some feedback soon after because yeah it's something that that comes in my inbox once every
couple of weeks. So yeah you will get some feedback I'm sure. But thank you very much for that.
Next we are on to trains and the first item on that part of the agenda is the ones with town
Access for all and second -end kingdoms update.
Oh, Malcolm, sorry, did you have a point before?
Yeah, just one last point.
The works that are taking place, it says Urban Realm Works for Wandsworth and TfL,
is that going to include a right turn from the South Circular into Putney High Street,
which I know something Go Ahead has been trying to get for years for their stuff going back into the garage?
Oh, that's gone quiet.
David's got his hand up.
I don't think it does, Malcolm. It's something that we've been interested for years to try
and provide, not least because it would allow us to run a bus from Riverside Quarter to
East Putney and Putney High Street, which we were desperate to do, but we couldn't make, well,
I think we couldn't probably make the right turn work, but yeah, it's transport for London's road,
it's their signals and it's their buses and they've always come back and said it can't be done,
but it has been done in the past to overcome roadworks and other closures, but it's something
they don't seem to want to do on a permanent basis. Yeah it's not one of mine, it was purely on behalf
of Go Head so when you do speak to them you say I was keeping their end up for them even if they're
not getting what they wanted. Thanks, Jenny.
You're on mute.
um malcolm sorry i didn't quite get that could you just repeat where is it that the right turn
would help if if you're coming up from east patney station heading towards richmond
it's it's the right turn there into patney high street that that currently never has existed
apart from probably back in the 50s okay thank you
Great, thank you very much. Just going to do a final check round for anything other TFL related
points. Yep, okay, thank you. So back to trains, you've got ones at town
so I can entrance and access for all.
take.
Hi, so Jack Wharton from Network Rail
sent his apologies. I was with him actually this afternoon and he's just
given me a quick written update on these items.
So if you're happy I can read it out. Yes, BC, thank you. So Wandsworth town
access for all and second entrance. They're finalizing, Network Rail
finalizing the plan for delivery based on the
detailed design work that's now been completed. They're working closely with the industry partners
to agree the proposed construction methodology to deliver the work efficiently whilst minimising
impact customers and will release further information on program dates and status once
this activity has concluded in the coming months. I also have heard from another of Jack's colleagues
that we will get the final cost for the second entrance probably in November, which is something
that we've been waiting for for quite a while because this will help us decide if we're able
to proceed with that. And the hope is that the second entrance and the access for all could be
delivered together next year. So that's the main update. I had asked Jack also for some visuals of
the schemes but we don't have those yet so maybe we can add this, keep this on the agenda for the
next meeting. I think I have more of an update. Queenstown Road, second entrance. The current
program is that Network Rail will commence on site in November. So this is creating the
second entrance at Queenstown Road station and finish in April, May 2025. There's some
outstanding legal matters between Network Rail and the contractor which need to be resolved
before work and then commence in November. Jack will keep us updated as that progresses.
And then I should say David will be feel free to jump in if you know anything more.
You're doing a great job, Sidonie. I'm picking up a thing or two here as well, so
I didn't know about Queenstown Road started in November.
Yep. And then Battersea Park Station, I can just give a quick update on this.
So, as you know, we have developer funding secured to make improvements to Battersea Park Station
to improve accessibility and passenger experience.
There's been quite a few delays to this scheme.
work was completed in 2021 to select a single preferred option which would see a new entrance
created on the northwest side of Prince of Wales Drive. Alongside this option, Network Rail
had indicated that we could keep the existing entrance on Battersea Park Road operating as
well, even if the main station was relocated. We had approval in 2021 to move forward with
the scheme into detailed design. And it was originally proposed that GTR, the train operator,
would undertake this work. There were some complications and delays to this because at
time, GTI were going through a new franchise and it's taken a little bit longer to kind of resolve
some of the issues that came out of that process. And then because of the, I suppose, the long gap
between the stages, it was then decided that we would revisit some of the work from the earlier
stages which was looking at the preferred options. So what we're doing at the moment, we had a
and have agreement to finally sign
the development services agreement,
which would take us to the next stage,
which is revisiting the preferred scheme
and just carrying out some of the outstanding survey work.
And to see if this is still the best scheme to go forward.
We've got approval to enter into this agreement
with Network Rail, and this will take around six months
to complete the next stage.
and we're hopefully going to start that work within the next month.
We now have regular meetings with both Network Rail and GTR so
we can keep this on the agenda for future meetings and I can keep
updating as this moves forward now.
Great, thank you. It's slightly complicated.
Any questions? Yeah so I'm just going to pause there. So there we had an update on
a few, so yeah I'm going to come to Jenny, any questions? Yeah thanks very much Zidoni, yeah I
think it would be good to keep these on the agenda, it has been disappointing how you know,
nodes with town station aspects for all, you know it seems like the date keeps slipping outwards
and I'm a bit disappointed that we don't have any kind of confirmed date, I'm obviously very
anxious to hear about the costs of the second entrance because that is something we would
like to go ahead with if possible. So anyway, if you can keep us updated, that'd be good. Thank you.
Sure. David. Yeah, just to sort of pick up on what Sidonie said there, I think we'd be
desperately disappointed if there was any further delay or problems with Wandsworth Town Station.
and a lot of effort has gone into that.
I'd be surprised if it's not, you know,
if we were to find it was undeliverable for some reason.
So I'm confident of that one.
Battersea Park Station, I think is a bigger challenge.
It seems to have gone,
doesn't seem to have gone very far very quickly at all.
I know the Department for Transport
have effectively taken this off their list
and there was correspondence with the MP some time ago about that one. So that one I think
is on the at -risk column. I'd like to think one's with Tain, there isn't. It's just too far down the
road and it's such an obvious scheme to do given the development going on there and the extent to
the council's got developer funding to help it. Thank you very much David, that's useful.
It's useful in fact to have addition to that and I think really really helps with the
understanding, so thank you. Are there any other points on either of those, on those three?
Okay, so I agree, yeah, let's keep those on the agenda. And I guess if there's, appreciative
that, you know, there are some of these meetings happen, you know, if there's an update in
November on Queenstown Road, it would be useful to have that as part of, or from, and do you
know that the operators quite often send us those things as councillors, but just not
necessarily having to wait for one of these meetings to update. So if there was an update
in the interim that will be useful to have.
Okay, to the final we've got a point
on Govia train cancellations at Tooting station.
You have one?
Yeah, I can take that one.
So there's a range of factors
that can cause cancellations as you'd expect.
So it can be anything from fleet issues,
to then the infrastructure or external factors as well.
So weather or obstructions on the line.
So I took a look at some of the issues that we'd had in recent weeks on the line,
just as a bit of a guide.
And going from this morning, there was a problem with the first train out of the depot.
For example, there was an issue there, so it could be things like that.
And then last week on Wednesday, we had several cancellations, and that was an obstruction on the
line. And last Monday, we had quite a difficult day, which was a points failure, so signaling.
And that took quite a lot of the service from about nine o 'clock up to about three o 'clock.
So it took a little while to recover from that. And then there were some ad hoc ones as well for
a variety of reasons including things like crew issues.
I suppose the key point then is what you can do about some of these things.
We do a lot of work with network rail who are the infrastructure provider,
and we work on preventing these issues in the first place.
Obviously, allowing access and working with them on key hotspot areas.
Then on a day -to -day basis,
were co -located in our control room,
which is just south of Gatwick at three bridges.
We manage the service on a day -to -day basis with them,
and a key element there is trying to recover the service as
quickly as possible so that you
contain it when there has been an issue.
That co -location means that it's good look,
liaison, but also then in incidents that are quite significant,
then we'll always do a bit of a lessons learned and
review from that to try and improve things another time. Longer term, so for things like Trespass,
we did quite a bit of work again with Network Rail, but also the British Transport Police,
and then also other agencies like the Samaritans on things like training staff in suicide prevention,
so looking to see where they can intervene on those kind of things. And then on items like
like driver availability, we've just had to go ahead to hire extra drivers.
So that will be over and above what we've normally hire anyway for people that are retiring
or leaving.
We're working on that now.
Obviously, there's a bit of a lead in time because you'll need to train people.
So that will happen over the next 18 months.
But those additional drivers that will give us extra resilience in the service,
so we'll just be in a better position to cover things like sickness or other training needs.
So that's a run -through of some of the examples,
and then some of the things we're doing about it.
But I don't know if there were any specifics from anybody that they wanted to raise.
And I'm not sure who put this on the internet, I think it's not kind of a recent thing, so
I appreciate any of those cancellations could be a result of any one of those factors.
I'm not sure.
Did someone ask for this one specifically to go on?
It might have been Councillor Hamilton.
I think they've said that way.
But that would, Yvonne, thank you very much for highlighting those points.
I think we'll keep them in review and I guess it's useful for us to know if there are any particular instances that come up that we can flag.
Yeah, that's fine. And then I can look into, you know, specific ones as well and give a couple of them a minute.
Yeah, I suspect it's some people that if they choose to go to kind of, to take the Thameslink, supposed to kind of go into Teating Broadway to get the tube,
that it's only kind of remembering, it's only once a half an hour into teaching. So yeah,
if something happens with one, yeah, that decision is then kind of, yeah, and having
done that myself a couple of times, I think, I suspect that's probably where it's come
from because it's not like, you know, if one tube doesn't come then, you know, you wait
for it. So I suspect that's where it has come from and I think that's Hamilton, the memory
stand that way. Okay so thank you very much that were there any other rail train or overground
boots? No okay thank you which moves me on to any other business um I do just double check
Is there anything amazing for me? There's nothing down there. Just give everyone a minute. Is there anything?
No, I see lots of shaking heads which is a good thing. Okay, so yeah, so the next meeting date
was due to be on the 13th of March which seems like a very long time away. I'm sure I say that
time, but being made aware that that will need to be rescheduled only to you and the availability of some of the group's members. But we'll take that away and look at it. But you've currently got 13th of March as a forward look. And so somewhere around that time will be the next meeting of the group. But Michael will be in touch. Oh, and I've had a flurry of hands as well. So you've done that. So I'm going to go Jenny then Michael.
Actually, let's go to Michael because he might be about to answer my question.
Okay.
Yes, that was just to say there is a meeting on Wednesday, the 13th of November as well.
So I appreciate it's going to be a bit closer to this one.
Yeah.
And it's probably worth saying, I think, at the last meeting, there was a discussion around
having a potential presentation on the proposed, I guess, grand plan for Waterloo station that
was mentioned a while back.
I don't know if that's still possible, David. I don't know if you'd be able to, either you or a colleague can come along and give an update on...
Yeah, it's run by Network Rail and Network Rail are pulling this thing together, but it does involve us, because that's where all our trends terminate.
So yeah, if you will help me pull the agenda together between now and then, I'd like to see something like that.
Yeah, and I think that's, I think as much as there are, it's nice to have these standing agenda items. It's also nice to have something that kind of is a bit forward looking and a bit kind of looking at how things are changing for the boroughs.
I know that would, I think that would be a nice addition for the group and any other items like that that colleagues or people want to bring then that'd be welcome if there are specific changes happening that you think would be welcome.
as much as we interrogate figures and kind of say when things are good or bad it's always nice to
hear from hear things the other way around as well so to have updates brought for us so um
something to bear in mind as well. Okay and yes you're right because I do have 13th November.
I've looked at that before I came in as well because I thought I was going to have to say
I couldn't make that one but actually I can. So yes the 13th in November and then the date in March
that will be advised upon a different one. So I think that leaves me to say that concludes the
business of tonight's meeting and thank you all for your time and your updates.