Thamesfield residents are furious after a traffic-calming measure backfired this weekend, causing gridlock on residential roads.
Drivers on Felsham, Redgrave, Charlwood and Henry Jackson Roads could not reach or leave their homes for most of Saturday afternoon. Some abandoned their cars in other streets and gave up trying to get home. A bollard was knocked over on the pavement outside a primary school on Felsham Road as motorists tried to manoeuvre around traffic.
The issue is Weiss Road’s new one-way system. Wandsworth Council predicted three weeks ago that it would push traffic onto exactly these streets, and used an order that gave residents no right to object before it started.
“We couldn’t get anywhere, had to turn around and go back home,” wrote a local resident on their street’s WhatsApp group, on Saturday evening. Another: “Yes we couldn’t get home so had to abandon the car in another road which I’m sure those residents would appreciate.” A third, describing the scene at the junction itself, wrote: “Cars at all angles. Like something from a film.”
The cause was the Putney Bridge junction, which failed again that morning and stopped Lower Richmond Road. With the main road stationary, nothing behind it could get out. Biggs Row, the last side-street exit onto Lower Richmond Road for that block, filled and backed into Felsham Road. Drivers forced their way onto Lower Richmond Road by blocking the cross-traffic behind them, which sealed Charlwood, Redgrave and Henry Jackson Roads in turn. Temporary traffic signals were also in operation on Lower Richmond Road at Festing Road that for water works which added to the problem but did not cause it. The junction did.
The decision to turn Weiss Road one-way has not been met with enthusiasm by local residents who predicted exactly the kind of gridlock that Saturday saw. They are also frustrated at the lack of consultation with residents, despite the council claiming otherwise in official letters.
While relieving Weiss from solid traffic, it means that there are now two one-way roads in parallel and in the same direction (Weiss and Bemish), causing confusion and providing capacity in the wrong direction – away from the Lower Richmond Road onto back streets when residents want to get out and to other parts of London. The council says its measure will help with rat-running.
The council told eight streets in writing that this would happen. Its letter of 12 August, signed by Henry Cheung, assistant director of traffic and engineering, said the change “will likely cause some displaced traffic onto adjacent side roads”. Cllr Robert Morritt, the council leader and Thamesfield’s own ward councillor, named the street directly in August, saying that Bigg’s Row was “likely to be the preferred route for those who don’t stay on Lower Richmond Road.”
His ward colleague, Cllr Salvatore Murtas, predicted the opposite: that “the incentive to rat-run along Felsham Road, Salvin Road and Biggs Row will diminish” once sat-navs caught up with the change. What really happened was that satnavs displaced traffic onto roads that were previously gridlock-free.
The change was made using a temporary traffic order, the kind used to close a road for the Boat Race. It carries no right of objection. An experimental traffic order, which the council could have chosen instead, would have given residents six months to object while the trial ran. The council has said it will monitor traffic on Felsham Road against an action threshold of 300 vehicles an hour, a figure it has admitted has no methodology behind it, and which Felsham Road had already crossed twice at weekends before this scheme began.
Putney.news put questions to Wandsworth Council about the Weiss Road scheme on two occasions in August. Neither drew a response. Questions about Saturday, including what the council’s own counts show for the affected streets and whether its 300-vehicle threshold was crossed, have now been put to the council, Cllr Austin and Cllr Morritt.
The Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which oversees the junction and the schemes around it, has not sat since 11 February. It meets again on Thursday 24 September, twelve days after Saturday’s gridlock, its first chance to put what happened into the public record. Residents have watched eighteen months of fixes arrive at this junction and leave it where it started.
What you can do
The three Thamesfield ward councillors represent the streets behind Saturday’s gridlock: Cllr Robert Morritt, Cllr Salvatore Murtas and Cllr Ethan Brooks. Residents can also contact Cllr Nick Austin, the Cabinet Member for Transport, whose portfolio the decision sits in, or the council’s traffic and engineering team, quoting “Weiss Road one-way”.
The Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee meets on Thursday 24 September at 7.30pm. Agenda papers are published on the council’s democracy website in the days before.
Wandsworth’s letter of 12 August, “signed by Henry Cheung, assistant director of traffic and engineering, said the change ‘will likely cause some displaced traffic onto adjacent side roads’.”
You can’t but laugh at the stupidity/blind ignorance of this claim; if the dummy had only looked, he’d have seen that there was **already** a great deal of traffic rat running north on Bigg’s Row and Salvin Road, with Bigg’s Row in paticularly afflicted!
Not helped by it being the second weekend in a row without the district line. 15 minutes to drive from near Putney Bridge to Wimbledon shopping centre at 8am. Sixty five minutes for the return at 1140am when it would be ten minutes by tube. This area is under siege by incompetent politicians and TFL. Road and Tube are a disgrace.
Also, what is meant by Putney Bridge junction failed? A new item with the lights or just that it cannot cope with normal Saturday noon traffic?
Open Hamersmith Bridge . Im sure wdening Putney High st by Tk max by 2 foot will cure the traffic problem .
We wonder why council tax is going to rise.
Open Hammersmith Bridge??? Its already open to pedestrians and other self-propelled folk: between 15,000 and 20,000 use it every day. And opening it to motor traffic would have a minuscule effect on Putney don’t be fooled by the hype on this from the motor lobby!