There’s something grimly fascinating about watching a committee called “Transport Overview and Scrutiny” spend two hours carefully avoiding any actual scrutiny.
Last night’s meeting had the feeling of Alice in Wonderland, or Wandsworthland at least. A resident asks if the Putney Bridge Road bus lane could be suspended on Sundays to ease congestion. Good idea, except TfL is extending the bus lane hours.
Pressing a pedestrian crossing button can shut down the junction at rush hour, creating mile-long queues? Isn’t it wonderful that pedestrian numbers have increased? No figures needed. Residents noticed problems within days while the official sensors took three months? That’s just good practice.
Welcome to Wandsworth transport governance, where problems are solutions and evidence is optional.
The nearly-full public gallery – not bad for a cold, dark Thursday evening in November – had come with survey evidence from over 1,700 residents showing 91% report worse journeys through Putney Bridge junction. They heard about missed chemotherapy appointments and children who can no longer safely cycle to school. They were presented with a paper requesting £169,000 in emergency fixes for an £835,000 junction that hasn’t worked since it opened.
And councillors spent considerable time worrying about removing cycling infrastructure no one uses.
The art of deflection
The meeting revealed a masterclass in avoiding accountability through strategic deflection.
When talking about the appalling traffic data, Cllr Matthew Tiller asked how many days of terrible traffic had also had roadworks at the same time. Council staff responded by talking about roadworks in Queenstown and Chiswick Bridge. No maps necessary.
Council officer Nick O’Donnell actually tried to blame other London boroughs for the traffic when the actual problem was sitting right there in the dozens of pages in the paper.
Cllr Tony Belton offered the wisdom that “Putney High Street has always been a problem” wandering back to 1971 at one point and left it at that. There’s a fine line between institutional memory and learned helplessness. Belton has crossed it.
And when discussing whether two lanes rather than one on Putney Bridge Road might help more cars move through, Cheung said: “I looked at the modelling and can assure you there’s not.” Is this the same modelling that created the malfunctioning junction this entire two-hour discussion was about?
The magic number
When pressed about progress, Cheung estimated work completed represents roughly “30% complete.”
What happened next was remarkable. The figure immediately became the meeting’s focal point – allowing councillors to reframe a year of chaos as simply an unfinished project rather than a broken one. Committee chair Cllr Jack Mayorcas eventually noted the figure had “run away,” but by then it had done its job.
Fran Odedra from the Putney Action Group had to stress that the junction was 100% finished – they were talking about 30% of the fixes being implemented because it had gone so badly wrong. But councillors had found their escape hatch. In Wandsworthland, you can be 100% finished and 30% complete at the same time.
Critchard, attempting to sound thoughtful, noted that “any change is very, very complicated.” A non-insight explaining complexity to people who’ve been living with the consequences for ten months.
The 15-second bicycle turn
Later in the meeting, Cheung discussed plans to remove a cyclists’ left turn that costs 15 seconds per signal cycle but sees “relatively modest” use. He meant literally no one uses it.
Critchard immediately pipped up – she was “worried” about what removing it would mean. She appeared to be thinking about all the future cyclists that are certain to come soon: if they can just find their way through the gridlocked traffic.
The only Putney resident, Cllr John Locker, was the exception throughout. He asked clear questions, pointing out some of the absurdities of being a scrutiny committee while refusing to scrutinise even the paper in front of them. He repeatedly held out a red pill for his fellow committee members. No one took it.
Locker isn’t standing in May’s elections. The council is losing one of the few councillors who seems genuinely committed to scrutiny and responsiveness.
The authority that won’t show up
Here’s the most revealing detail of the evening: Transport for London (TfL) declined to attend. Again.
This is becoming a pattern. TfL didn’t attend October’s public meeting with residents and Council Leader Simon Hogg. Didn’t attend the Putney Society meeting about buses. And now declined the transport scrutiny committee’s invitation.
TfL sees no need to explain themselves to anyone – not residents, not councillors, not democratically-elected local authorities. The council, supposedly the democratic authority, has no apparent mechanism to compel TfL attendance or accountability either. Cheung noted that councils rely on consultants and “TfL marks their homework.” Somewhere in there is where governance has broken down completely.
Locker asked what the committee could do to improve the TfL relationship. The question drew applause from the gallery and silence everywhere else. TfL has veto power over the Strategic Road Network but apparently no obligation to show up when things go wrong. It’s not hard to imagine why: no one likes hanging out with lotus eaters if there’s work to be done.
Many thanks for all your work, as well as the PAG.
When individual Cllrs put their needs first and make decisions based on personal experience and opinion rather than the will of the majority of their constituents and sound data, it seems clear that they need not be re-elected.
Thank you, and yes, it was striking how often personal instinct seemed to outweigh both evidence and the experiences of thousands. When that gap opens up between what residents live and what councillors choose to see, accountability becomes not just a principle but an inevitability at the ballot box. It doesn’t need to be like that.
I attended this meeting and I think your write up reflects proceedings very well – though you could have added that Fran, on behalf of PAG, got a hearty round of applause for her statement to the committee. I was particularly disappointed by the quality of the comments made by most of the councillors attending. None of them live in Putney so they don’t see what is happening on the ground and didn’t seem to care very much. As a cyclist (albeit a fair weather one) I don’t feel the junction is any safer despite the creation of clearer cycling lanes, especially if cycling either way on the bridge itself and coming from LRR and on to the High Street. Gridlock does not create a safer environment for cyclists and there is always the danger of someone opening a car door unexpectedly.
The council has a lot of work to do to rectify the current situation and they’ve got a lot of work to do in improving their comms with affected residents.
Thank you – and yes, Fran’s applause absolutely deserved mention. I’ve updated the story to include it.
What struck me most last night was how surreal it is to watch elected representatives confronted with clear evidence of a failing junction – thousands of residents delayed, stressed, or put at risk – and respond not with urgency or empathy, but with an almost studied denial. As if the problem becomes less real if they collectively agree to look past it.
Instead of the obvious human reaction – “this is bad, we need to fix it, sorry everyone” – we got defensiveness, downplaying, and the familiar ritual of pointing at TfL. Residents describing their lived reality felt like they were disrupting a pre-written script.
It’s curious behaviour. When reality knocks loudly, most people open the door; last night, several councillors pretended not to hear it. The public, at least, seemed under no such illusion.
Thank you for the detailed report of the meeting last night and for the continued scrutiny on behalf of residents.
I am shocked by the ineffectiveness of this committee meeting. What was the purpose of this particular meeting? How can there be no solid action points coming out of it? How can a matter which is creating misery for thousands, and where a solution has, if my understanding is correct, been presented and can be rectified pretty easily (albeit if money was not an issue), be mulled over and very much not committed to by people who for the most part have not actually bothered to come to Putney to see it in action?
I don’t know what any of us can do next but I am making a note of the councillor names involved and the party they represent in order to use that at the ballot box next year. I’m sorry to hear that John Locker won’t be standing again.