Wandsworth may be asked to help pay for repairs to Hammersmith Bridge, after the government abandoned a seven-year-old funding agreement that split the mounting costs equally between central government, Transport for London (TfL) and Hammersmith and Fulham Council (H&FC).
Since 2021, the cost of repairing the bridge has been notionally split three ways; a formula that has resulted in paralysis, in large part because H&FC can’t even hope to cover its part of the estimated £240m costs.
On Tuesday that split was walked away from during a debate in Parliament that was secured by Putney MP Fleur Anderson. Unprompted, the Minister for Local Transport signalled that other boroughs, principally Wandsworth and Richmond, could now be asked to contribute.
The shift is far from a solution. Wandsworth has twice refused to contribute to the costs of reopening Hammersmith Bridge, once at a closed meeting of the bridge’s “Taskforce” and again last week at an election hustings in Roehampton.
Minister for Local Transport Simon Lightwood MP told the House that the Department for Transport would “assess higher contributions and additional third-party contributions favourably” on any funding bid for the bridge; the first time such language has been used.
It was the only thing that moved during the session. Despite impassioned pleas from MPs, including Anderson, Richmond Park’s Sarah Olney, Andy Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith & Chiswick), Olly Glover (Lib Dem, Didcot & Wantage) and Greg Smith (Conservative, Mid Buckinghamshire), everything else in the debate stood still.
The debate did produce an unexpected result: just a few hours later, at a hustings in Southfields, the Labour candidate declared that she had heard from Anderson directly that funding had “now been agreed”. There was no evidence of that during the debate and we are treating the claim in the same way as a recent claim by the Liberal Democrats that they have resolved the decades-long signalling problems with the District Line on the Wimbledon branch: with a healthy dose of pre-election salt.
The fourth debate on Hammersmith Bridge in five years produced no new funding, no date for a funding decision, and no timetable for restoration.
Anderson’s closing remarks confirmed the pattern, cleanly and in her own words.
“I thank the Minister for his response. I am obviously disappointed that he did not suddenly announce when the taskforce will be, when the funding will be given, when the funding will be reconsidered and when the restoration will happen. I live in hope.”
The shift
Andy Slaughter knows Hammersmith and Fulham Council from the inside. He led it before entering Parliament, and he was blunt in his assessment. Referring to the amount H&FC has already put into the ailing bridge, he said:
“I did not believe it was feasible to add the £50 million in there. Hammersmith and Fulham council deserves a huge amount of credit for that, but the idea that it will make another substantive contribution towards the bridge is for the birds. The money is just not there. If we are saying that, we are saying the bridge will never reopen. We need a little bit of honesty here.”
The 1 June 2021 funding principle, agreed under the previous government, had split the repair cost three ways: the Department for Transport would pay a third, Transport for London would pay a third, and H&FC would pay a third. That principle has sat on the table for nearly five years without any funding actually being released against it.
Lightwood’s reply, a few minutes later, walked the principle away while talking about the new “Structures Fund” that the current Labour government announced nearly a year ago and for which applications opened last week. He said in his debate response:
“It is also an expectation of the Government that the local contribution toward the cost of any future repairs for Hammersmith bridge is provided. That is the case for all projects being assessed for funding through the structures fund. Although at present there are no plans to specify a minimum level of contribution, my Department intends to assess higher contributions and additional third-party contributions favourably. Some hon. Members mentioned a historical agreement to split the funding into a third, a third and a third. Obviously that was under a different Administration; I just know where we are today.”
Anderson confirmed the walkaway in her closing remarks, noting it as a small piece of progress in a debate that had produced no larger ones.
“I am also heartened to hear that the third-third-third funding structure is being reconsidered. It is not necessarily the structure on the table.”
The minister did not announce a new funding model. He did not commit a single pound. What he described was a disposition, not a decision. But a disposition stated in Parliament, in answer to a question five years in the asking, is the most movement on this issue since 2021. And the direction of movement points across the river.
The scorecard
Readers who followed Tuesday morning’s preview story sent seven specific asks to Anderson’s office via an email form after she specifically requested input from constituents.
In truth, none of the seven was raised as framed. Two were adjacent. One, which concerned inviting other benefiting boroughs to contribute, was the one whose territory ended up being moved by the minister, though it moved because Slaughter forced the ground open, not because Anderson raised the ask directly.
The others were designed to force specific answers: a named civil servant accountable for delivery, a date for the strengthening business case decision, publication of all Taskforce minutes, a statutory basis for the Taskforce, a yes-or-no on Spring 2026 fiscal event funding, an invitation to other boroughs to contribute, a yes-or-no on motor traffic.
The questions actually asked across the debate were different and almost all procedural. When will the Taskforce meet again? What is the updated cost estimate? Has an application been made to the Structures Fund? When will a decision be made? Each of those is answerable with “in due course”, and no minister can fairly be called evasive for saying so.
Olly Glover MP gave the structural reason for the gap.
“The Hammersmith bridge issue speaks to a structural problem for London infrastructure, in that the relationship between Transport for London and councils is not always best placed to ensure that planning and decision making on significant infrastructure happens on an effective cross-borough or cross-city basis.”
We made the same argument earlier this month. It is worth noting that a cross-party observation of a structural problem is not the same as a cross-party demand for a specific remedy. Without a specific ask, it tends to produce answers without commitments, which is what happened here.
Wandsworth
That leaves a question for Wandsworth Council. In her opening speech, Anderson described the council this way.
“I have worked closely with residents and with Wandsworth borough council, which is also fully engaged and supportive of the restoring of the bridge.”
That characterisation sits against two pieces of evidence already in the public domain.
The first is the Taskforce minutes of its last 30 January 2025 meeting, released to Putney.news earlier this year. At that meeting, H&FC Leader Cllr Stephen Cowan asked the Taskforce directly whether boroughs benefiting from the bridge should contribute to its repair. The minutes record Wandsworth’s reply in six words. “Cab member says no money. Disagrees with figures, suggests there is increased traffic.”
The second is on the record of a public hustings held in Roehampton last week. Wandsworth’s Cabinet Member for Transport, Cllr Jenny Yates, told residents:
“Wandsworth Council has never been formally asked to contribute financially and we’re not position to do so. We need our capital money to keep our own bridges safe.”
Both statements were calibrated to refuse a borough-to-borough request, and a council is entirely within its rights to do that. What changed on Tuesday was the form of the question. There is now a government policy statement on the table. The Department for Transport has said publicly that it will look favourably on higher local contributions and contributions from third parties when judging any bid for Structures Fund money. Wandsworth is the most directly affected neighbouring borough, and Roehampton, the ward most cut off by the closure, is the ward Yates represents.
The cost of the closure to Wandsworth residents was set on the public record by Anderson’s own debate speech. Ninety per cent of those she surveyed described the closure as “extremely disruptive”. Vehicle numbers on Putney Bridge rose 16 per cent between 2020 and 2023 (a claim disputed by the official figures). Six bus routes across the river have been withdrawn.
The local elections on 7 May will settle the composition of Wandsworth Council, but the government’s position on third-party contributions does not change depending on the result. Whoever leads the council on 8 May will have the question to answer.
What happens next
Three things to watch.
H&FC has not yet submitted its Structures Fund bid, though Slaughter expected one “quite shortly” in the debate. Bids close on 3 August 2026. Decisions are expected in autumn 2026.
The next Taskforce meeting, which had been the stated mechanism for unblocking the funding question, is now explicitly deferred until “once funding awards are made through the Structures Fund and agreed.” That is not soon, and it means the Taskforce will meet to confirm a decision rather than to help shape one.
Between now and then, the bridge remains open to pedestrians and cyclists, closed to motor traffic and buses, and costing Hammersmith and Fulham Council around £2 million a year to keep safe.
This piece draws on the Westminster Hall debate of 21 April 2026, the DfT Annex A released under FOI-00060732 on 27 February 2026, a transcript of the Roehampton hustings on 15 April 2026, and Putney.news’s published reporting on the bridge since January 2026. Quotes from the Westminster Hall debate are verbatim from the Hansard transcript.
