Wandsworth Council says the Weiss Road one-way, which starts today, is “not subject to consultation” and “will likely cause some displaced traffic onto adjacent side roads”. Its leaflet to those side roads said the scheme followed “extensive talks” with residents.
The council is making the change under a temporary traffic order, the same kind it uses to close streets for the Boat Race or a summer fete, and a temporary order carries no right to object. It calls the one-way a trial and promises a formal consultation before it, “or any other trials”, are made permanent. Further measures in the area, it says, “would also be introduced through the use of a temporary traffic order”.
So the cars that have been cutting down Weiss Road to dodge the Putney Bridge queues will go somewhere else, the council expects it, and the streets they go to cannot object.
The council says it will “closely monitor traffic movements along Felsham Road”. Its Putney traffic web page says it also counts cars on “a selection of side roads” off Lower Richmond Road, without saying which. Neither names Bigg’s Row, Henry Jackson Road, Salvin Road or Roskell Road, the four streets residents expect the traffic to reach.
Which street gets the cars
Council Leader Robert Morritt, who represents Thamesfield, says Bigg’s Row is “likely to be the preferred route for those who don’t stay on Lower Richmond Road”, that “Biggs Road isn’t residential in anything like the same way” as Weiss Road, and that “we are concerned about the roads west of Weiss”. His ward colleague Salvatore Murtas says the opposite: once sat navs pick up the change, “the incentive to rat-run along Felsham Road, Salvin Road and Biggs Row will diminish”. Cllr Murtas also describes the decision as “the fruit of extensive talks with local residents, council colleagues and council officers”.
“That uncertainty is precisely why residents on the surrounding roads should have been consulted,” says the resident of one of those streets whose leaflet through the door first raised the scheme. He has asked the council what traffic counts it holds for the four streets, what would trigger action, and “if conditions worsen, how quickly will the Council act?”
The council acts on a side road once it carries 300 vehicles an hour, and its own figures show Felsham Road, at the far end of Weiss Road, has already crossed that line twice at weekends, although we should note that the council had previously admitted that this 300 number has no methodology behind it and as such is an arbitrary number likely developed after the fact.
A trial residents cannot object to
An experimental traffic order lets a scheme run while residents object to it for six months, and the council’s own traffic orders page lists experimental orders for traffic measures such as a banned turn. Every temporary order on the same page is for an event. The council has not said why Weiss Road is different.
The real fix, Cllr Morritt says, is to alter the Putney Bridge junction and remove Bus Stop Q so that Lower Richmond Road flows; until standing traffic sits east of the Half Moon “there is then no incentive to rat run down Felsham”. That work is TfL’s and “could take months”. Weiss Road is what the council can do now, and nobody on it “wants the gridlock”. The resident’s answer: “solving that problem shouldn’t mean transferring more of it to neighbouring residents.”
If the traffic comes down your street
The council’s Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee reviews the scheme on 24 September at 7.30pm; papers appear on the democracy website beforehand. Ward councillors: Ethan Brooks, Robert Morritt and Salvatore Murtas; cabinet member for transport Nick Austin; traffic and engineering, quoting the reference “Weiss Road one-way”. If you count the cars on your street this week, tell us through the contact form.
