The 90-minute meeting at St Margaret’s Church produced several pointed exchanges between residents and officials. Here are the key moments, presented without commentary.
On whether to revert the junction
Moderator: “One question that’s come consistently from many people I’ve spoken to this morning is why can’t we just go back to the way it was?”
Simon Hogg (Council Leader): “That’s tempting and it’s clearly popular. I think it’s really difficult from where we are now because you’d have to close the road again, you’d have to tear it all out, we’ve spent the money doing it. But also I think we have to be honest that the existing, the initial road layout wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t actually nice or safe for pedestrians. We wouldn’t get permission to go back and build that sort of layout again. So I think plan A is to make the layout we now have, which is better for pedestrians, work properly. And it’s also acknowledging that the scheme wasn’t actually implemented as pitched, so the scheme itself can work if actually we make the changes required.”
On the need for concrete action
Sean Pooley (Festing Road resident): “I work in the world of commerce. If someone had a critical problem in my business and it was then ten months later and you’re still listening to the problem, I would have been fired by now. So the question I have – and I do sincerely, genuinely recognise that you are doing the work of listening – but the question I have is: what are the top three actions, other than changing the traffic lights for five seconds and two seconds, with all of the meetings you had, what are the top three actions that are going to be implemented in the next two to three months? And by the way, if it includes changing the traffic back, I still haven’t had a good reason why we couldn’t. But just in the next three months, what are the top three actions that are going to be executed?”
Fleur Anderson (MP): “One, I think, is the on the Lower Richmond Road to Putney Bridge junction – that’s the way it became three lanes to two lanes. Quite a few people are saying that, really look at that, that seems to be – and I’m not a traffic engineer – but that seems to be to everyone, all the residents, that was part of the problem, bringing that down. So look again at that. The second thing is going to be the synchronisation. I think I might say more than three points. The third one is this driver changeover time and the stopping of the buses on Lower Richmond Road and outside TK Maxx. They are identified by TfL, by the bus operators, as being a serious cause of the congestion.”
Pooley (follow-up): “When?”
Anderson: “Well, it’s not up to me. I can’t make – I can’t say when they’ll be. I can say please do them. And the council have done all of their part for each of their actions. They’ve put in all of the plans to Transport for London, and it’s Transport for London that need to get on and do that.”
On safety concerns
Harry (Erpingham Road resident): “There’s a point that I think maybe you’re all missing because nobody’s mentioned it yet. You’re talking about delays because of the traffic, but there’s one key thing you’re missing and it’s safety. On the Erpingham Road, every morning frustrated drivers are racing up that road as fast as they can to get around the traffic, and that’s a school road. There’s people taking their kids to primary school, there are people walking their dogs across the road. At some point somebody is going to be killed. In addition to that as well, you’ve got mopeds and cyclists weaving through all this stationary traffic. We are scared to cross the road now because of this. It is a safety issue. You have a duty of care towards all of us and you’ve been warned now about this. So you’ve got to get on with this and fix it before someone is hurt, please.”
Hogg: “One hundred percent, that’s the core of it. It’s about safety. And as I say, the scheme was introduced and we used all of the experts we had, we consulted widely, we listened to the Putney Society and everyone said we think this scheme will make the neighbourhood safer. You know, plainly we don’t do things that we think will not help. It’s not working, we got it wrong, we’re sorry about that, we’re going to change it. But what we can’t do is just tear it out and reinstate it overnight because that plainly will take time, it will cause more disruption, and we’ll go back to a layout that people agreed wasn’t safe in the first place.”
On the junction design
Kieren McCarthy (Putney.news editor): “This has been a little disappointing. I was kind of hoping you would come here and recognise what we all know, which is that junction doesn’t work. It’s not going to work. Five seconds and two seconds here, it’s not going to make any difference. The changes that have been made are not working. Cyclists don’t feel safer, buses aren’t getting through. It’s going to have to change… The Putney Bridge Junction simply doesn’t work. What you can do, if you’re not currently persuaded of this fact, is you can set up, as you have done at the council before, a Task and Finish group… and they will tell you, I guarantee you, we need to redo this junction.”
Hogg: “We haven’t said it works. I don’t think you’ve heard from me that I think that it works, and that’s been the basis of – that’s why we forced there to be a review of it in June, before the schools break up. That’s because we’ve accepted straight away anyone can see it doesn’t work.”
McCarthy: “You can turn this meeting around right now by saying you’re right, we will redo the junction, and all the communications from now on will be how we’re gonna get there and how long it’s going to take.”
Hogg: “Everything is on the table to change this. I’m just making the point that if you were to start again, you’d have to reconsult. That would take several years to get consensus around a new design.”
On impact on vulnerable residents
Gail Renard (Head of Erpingham Road neighbourhood watch): “Fleur, thank you for everything you’re doing. As for the council, you act like this is the first time you’ve heard about this. We have been complaining since January. We live off the – we live Putney Common Way. The Lower Richmond Road is chock-a-block from 6:30 in the morning, from Putney Bridge to Putney Common, sometimes on a good day to Rocks Lane, which takes out the side streets as well. We have elderly people in tears because they can’t get a bus. Here’s an extra one for you: the 22 now in the morning is stopping at Putney Bridge, so they’re not even accessing the common. TfL has just told us they’re considering stopping the 485 going from Putney Common all the way to Hammersmith Bridge. They want it terminating early. Now, for a start, that’s the only accessible tube in the area. Putney Bridge tube is not accessible, East Putney isn’t. That’s the only way.”
Renard (continued): “I mean, I’m lucky, I can walk. I have to walk over a mile to get to transport from Putney, from Putney Common, from Erpingham Road, over a mile every day. The weather is good right now. We’re getting into winter. We have to carry things. What’s when it’s icy? What’s when it’s snowing? What happens to the elderly and the disabled? Putney is totally inaccessible. It worked before. It is not working now. And to be very honest, there is an election, the local council elections in May, and we will use our votes if this is not rectified soon, because you have made our lives intolerable in what was a great area.”
On Hammersmith Bridge timeline
Councillor John Locker: “My question is for Fleur. I remember a year ago you spoke with great enthusiasm about the Hammersmith Bridge task force. I just wonder, a year on, and you’ve talked about some of the developments that have happened, so thank you for that update, but could you please just ask the government to give the people of Putney and of Hammersmith a timetable for when this will get fixed? That is what we need, because then we can plan everything else around that.”
Anderson: “You’re right, John, we’ve waited for far too long. We’ve all been involved in this campaign for over six years. So I asked for exactly that to the Secretary of State for Transport in Parliament. I raise it wherever and whenever I can. I have a picture of Hammersmith Bridge on my door so that any MP that passes by – and I’m quite close to a junior minister for transport – can see. I honestly ask this everywhere. But we need this. We need – it’s not enough to have a funding, it’s not enough to have a plan that has to be agreed. That means that the Transport for London and the mayor need to agree with the council to have a joint bid in, and that needs to be agreed, and the work needs to start. Until that happens, I will not rest, absolutely.”
On political accountability
Sue (Montolieu Gardens resident): “I really don’t understand: the national government, TfL, you Fleur and you Simon are all Labour, and you’re saying you can’t get through to TfL. What is going on?”
Anderson: “Why can’t TfL act? As an organization, it’s totally part of our frustration all the time. They’re not a Labour organization. They are a company.”
On communication
Moderator: “A lot of people really wanted to hear from you both today and we’ve heard a lot about what you’re doing. The obvious question is therefore: how does everyone in this room keep updated? Because you’re both committing to a lot of actions, a lot of consultation, a lot of lobbying effectively with other parties including TfL. How do they hear about how that’s progressing?”
Hogg: “That’s a good question, and as I started by saying, I’m sorry that we haven’t kept you up to date. We haven’t brought you on the journey of all of these meetings we’re having, the plans we’re submitting, the shouting down the telephone and everything else, because we think that you probably don’t want to hear all that. You quite rightly want to know: what are the outputs? What’s going to happen? But as I said, I’ve committed that – I mean, I hope everyone here, certainly everyone in the immediate neighbourhood, will get a letter in the next couple of weeks to set out what we have done. But I think we do need to go beyond that. We need to find a way which will work with you and other council officers on a way of doing that, whether it’s a mega WhatsApp group or an email list or something else.”
On taking action
Hogg (closing remarks): “I’ve heard exactly the anger, the frustration that we haven’t moved faster, that we haven’t got new results, we haven’t communicated as well as we should have. What I haven’t heard is a single person defending the current setup. You know, usually these things work for some people and not for others. This plainly isn’t working. So just to be clear, that’s our position. You know, everything is on the table to change this.”
Anderson (closing remarks): “You are absolutely heard on the junction, and I don’t think you’ve heard at all that we don’t think it’s working. No one thinks it’s working. It’s how we can make that junction work. If there’s going to be a junction there, there is a bridge, there are three roads going into it, we need to make it work. So, but how we make it work is absolutely urgent, really urgent, and I will be taking the anger in this room – I hear it – to the meetings that I have during this week and beyond as well.”
You can listen to the full unedited, hour-long audio recording of the meeting below. Or download it here (87MB).
