No one from Putney sits on the board that runs the Commons. You have a vote to change that

No one from Putney sits on the board that runs Wimbledon and Putney Commons. This month, the people who run it are coming to Putney to ask whether that should change.

Mauro Mattiuzzo, the Conservators’ Chairman, and Colin Cooper, their Chief Executive will be at the Putney Society’s open meeting on Monday 28 September, to explain how someone becomes a Conservator and ask whether anyone from this area wants to stand at the next election, in March 2027.

The Conservators are eight people who run Wimbledon Common, Putney Heath and Putney Lower Common under an Act of Parliament from 1871. Five of them are elected every three years by the people who pay for the Commons. The other three are appointed by the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Right now, none of the five elected Conservators lives in Putney.

You are probably one of the people who gets a vote

If you pay council tax in a large stretch of Wandsworth, Merton or Kingston, you already fund the Commons, and you may already have a vote for who runs them without knowing it. The levy applies to anyone within three-quarters of a mile of Wimbledon Common’s edge, and separately to anyone inside the old Parish of Putney as it stood in 1871, a boundary drawn from a nineteenth-century map that still decides who pays, and who votes, today. More than 28,000 Wandsworth households paid the levy in 2023, taken automatically through the council tax bill.

The vote itself was not originally one person, one vote. The 1871 Act set out a scale of voting that gave some electors more votes than others, based on the value of their property and how close they lived to Wimbledon Common. How that scale actually works, and whether it still applies today, needs its own explaining, and we’re checking directly with WPCC (see the correction note below).

Standing is open to electors who meet the Act’s rules on who can be a Conservator, and Cooper and Mattiuzzo are expected to explain exactly what that involves at the meeting. At the last election, in March 2024, six people stood for the five seats. Mattiuzzo was one of three new Conservators elected that year, alongside two returning members.

Cooper will also update the meeting on what has been happening on the Commons this year: conservation work on Putney Heath and Putney Lower Common, progress on the orchard at Putney Lower Common, and the findings of a hydrology study commissioned after a summer of drought, heatwaves and sudden storms. Questions from the floor are welcome. You can also ask them what’s happening with the tennis courts and Oasis Academy but expect a shorter answer.

The Putney Society’s open meeting is on Monday 28 September at the Community Church, Werter Road, SW15 2LL, with the meeting starting at 7.30pm (the Society says refreshments are from 7.15pm). It is open to members and non-members alike.

The Conservators also hold their annual Open Day on Sunday 13 September, from 10.30am to 5pm near the Ranger’s Office on Wimbledon Common, with stables, equestrian displays, a dog show, fairground rides and stalls.

Correction, 4 Sep: A reader who has stood in a WPCC election says that in his experience, the vote wasn’t weighted as this story originally suggested.

The 1871 Act’s original text does set out a weighted scale, but the Act has been amended several times since, including by regulations rather than only by a fresh Act of Parliament, which is a quieter route for something like this to change.

We can’t yet confirm whether the original scale is still what’s actually used. We’ve amended the paragraph above and we’re asking WPCC directly. You can read the discussion, and our fuller response, in the comments.