Wandsworth Council has approved a controversial housing development at one of Southfields’ worst traffic pinch-points — the narrow Penwith Road bridge — without once addressing congestion problems that local residents have raised for years.
At a Planning Committee meeting this week, councillors voted 5–2 in favour of allowing the developer of 150a–170 Penwith Road to retain 19 residential units and six affordable flats — despite serious policy breaches, years of evasive behaviour by the developer, and widespread local frustration over traffic.
Yet nowhere in the council’s 30-page report [pdf], nor in the hour-long debate, was the Penwith Road bridge even mentioned — despite being the sole east-west road link over the river Wandle in the area and a notorious single-lane bottleneck. Residents of Penwith Road, Haslemere Avenue, Strathville Road and Ravensbury Road routinely report gridlock at school pickup times, delays for buses, and rat-running during rush hour. The bridge is the only way to filter traffic between Southfields and Earlsfield.
Transport report assumes residents won’t drive
The council’s decision relied on a Transport Statement [pdf] submitted by the developer in 2019, which was never updated — even after the scheme grew in size and an M&S Foodhall opened on the ground floor. The report predicts just 10 vehicle movements during the morning peak hour, and 7 in the evening — covering all uses combined, including residents, commercial tenants, servicing, and deliveries.
These figures are based on idealised car-free developments elsewhere in London. The report assumes residents won’t own cars and makes no mention of the Penwith Road bridge, local congestion, or surrounding rat-run routes.
But in reality, the M&S alone likely generates multiple deliveries per day, as well as staff and customer vehicle trips. No mention was made of delivery lorries, waste collection, or parking pressure from visitors and staff. There is no evidence of any updated highways assessment or comment from Wandsworth’s transport officers.
Local knowledge walked out of the room
Perhaps the most telling moment came at the start of the item, when Councillor Guy Humphries (Con), who lives close by, left the meeting citing a conflict of interest. That meant the one councillor with daily first-hand knowledge of the bridge’s problems recused himself from contributing.
The rest of the committee did not raise the bridge, nor did planning officers, despite extensive documentation of traffic pressure on the street. Councillors focused almost exclusively on the affordable housing component, which had been quietly reduced from eight units to six — all of them one-beds — over a series of planning variations.
Developers pushed boundaries – and were rewarded
The original 2019 application was refused by the council for undermining protected industrial land use — but overturned on appeal by the Planning Inspectorate. Since then, the developer has repeatedly returned to vary the conditions, including attempts to reduce the number and quality of affordable homes.
At one stage, the developer refused to sign the legal agreement tying them to six affordable homes, demanding instead the right to convert commercial units to flexible use. That application was refused. They then came back seeking to reduce affordable homes to just two units, which was again refused. Now, with the scheme nearly complete and tenants already living on site, the developer returned with a revised application offering six affordable one-bed units, and councillors reluctantly approved it.
Officers admitted that the developer had “pushed the envelope” and acknowledged that the council would struggle to justify enforcement against a built and occupied scheme. They also warned that refusal could trigger legal action, delay sales, or require notices to be served on existing tenants.
But none of that pressure came from residents of Southfields, who were not mentioned once in the discussion.
A pattern of deference — and silence
Councillor Tony Belton (Lab) chaired the meeting and acknowledged “no one’s totally happy — including the officers.” Councillor Jamie Colclough (Lab) said the move set a “bad precedent” that invited developers to build non-compliant schemes and regularise them later. Councillor Emily Apps (Lab) criticised the dramatic loss of family-sized affordable housing — from two- and three-bed units to one-beds only.
Yet the ultimate decision was framed as a “balance of harms.” No one raised the potential harm to traffic conditions, to emergency response times, to air quality, or to the hundreds of residents who live with crushing traffic.
The irony is stark: the council bent over backwards to accommodate developer viability and tenant pressure — yet ignored the transport reality that residents have complained about for over a decade.
A development shaped by excuses, not context
What began as a bold mixed-use scheme — combining housing with retained employment floorspace — has ended up as a high-density residential block on an overloaded access route, with no mitigation, no modelling, and no plan for how its impacts will be managed.
Wandsworth Council’s refusal to update its assumptions, or to confront the real-world impact of this scheme, reflects a deeper failure to ground decisions in place-based knowledge. The fact that the bridge wasn’t even mentioned says it all.
Residents of Southfields know exactly what’s coming. And now, thanks to the council’s silence, so do their car bumpers.
