UPDATED Wandsworth Council wants to spend £450,000 moving the pedestrian crossing on Putney Bridge that it built two years ago.
Anyone crossing on foot would go back to doing it in three legs, waiting on two islands in the middle of the traffic, where today they cross in two. Drivers turning left out of Lower Richmond Road would get the time that buys: a steady 42 seconds of green instead of the 25 they get whenever someone presses the button. The crossing runs on demand, and in the morning peak it is pressed constantly.
Ten months ago the same council under a different administration was defending the same crossing. The new two-stage arrangement had “proven to be well used especially in the morning peak hours”, it told councillors in November, and was “a highly valued feature for pedestrians as there is now more direct access across the bridge”.
Going back was not an option, that paper said. The old islands “suffered lots of pedestrian crowding and congestion”, people gave up waiting and crossed on a red man, and “the old layout had indirect crossing points and required a 3-stage crossing compared with the current direct 2-stage crossing”.
The paper [PDF] published last week mentions none of those reasons. It says only that “a more radical solution is necessary to ease traffic congestion at the junction with Putney Bridge”. The council said in July it would investigate removing the crossing, and this is the first document to put a price on it. Councillors on the Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee see it at 7.30 tonight, and Cabinet decides on Monday 12 October.
The junction cost £835,000 to build. Putting it right is about to cost as much again. The council spent £100,000 working out what had gone wrong, identified £250,000 of measures last November, and now wants £450,000 more: £800,000 to repair a junction that cost £835,000 in the first place.
The high cost is because the it’s not just a matter of removing one crossing and put in another: because of the regulations surrounding placement of traffic islands, all of the other crossing on the junction would also have to be moved – sometimes just by a few feet.
A second paper [PDF], added to tonight’s agenda as urgent business after it was published, tells the same councillors that the council’s capital programme has been “reprioritised so that investment is focused on essential, affordable schemes and future borrowing costs are reduced”, with lower priority schemes released or paused, and that pedestrian crossing improvements will be delivered while “prioritising schemes more carefully within a reduced budget”.
The same paper promises “urgent measures to reduce congestion on Putney High Street”, and names the Putney High Street paper as one of the things its spending review covers.
What the paper does not contain
For a decision due in three weeks, the paper leaves a lot out.
It does not mention road safety. In November the council promised councillors that “a final Stage 4 RSA will be done September 2026 once we have 12 months of collision data”, a safety audit of this junction, due this month. Whether it has happened, the paper does not say.
It says “the modelling indicates that this proposal will achieve acceptable capacity”, but the modelling is not published. The recommendation is “subject to TfL’s agreement”, but TfL’s view on moving the crossing is not given. It sets no target for queues or journey times, and no measure by which the £450,000 could later be judged to have worked. There is no date for the work. And the drawing behind it is marked DRAFT, with “XXX” in the boxes for checked, reviewed and approved, under a note reading: “This drawing is not suitable for scaling from.”
What is not in doubt is how the junction ended up here. The design was modelled on traffic counts taken in July 2021, two years after Hammersmith Bridge shut and while Covid was still shaping how people travelled. The London-wide assumption used at the time, agreed with TfL, was that Hammersmith Bridge “would be open in 2026”. It is still closed, Albert Bridge has since closed too, and Hammersmith and Fulham has put restrictions on the approaches to Wandsworth Bridge. The traffic those decisions displaced comes through Putney.
TfL, which controls the lights, has now put in writing that there is no going back. The islands built in 2024 “cannot be reinstated” at their old size, it says, because the smaller ones do not meet current design standards. That is why Lower Richmond Road stays at one lane for traffic turning onto the bridge, while two lanes are restored on Putney High Street and Putney Bridge Road. The council quotes the passage without saying who at TfL wrote it, or when.
We put questions to TfL on Tuesday, including whether it has agreed to the relocation.
TfL responded: “Safety is our top priority and we are supporting Wandsworth Council as they develop proposals for changes at the Putney Bridge junction, including options for the pedestrian crossing. These proposals are being developed by the council, and any changes would need to be carefully assessed to ensure they work for everyone travelling through the area, including people walking, cycling, using public transport and travelling by road. We will continue to support the council as they consider their plans.”
What you can do
The committee meets at 7.30pm tonight in Room 123 at Wandsworth Town Hall. It is open to the public, and webcast from the meeting page on the council’s website. To find out how to have your say, contact Michael Flowers in Democratic Services on 020 8891 7275 or at Michael.Flowers@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk.
Cabinet takes the decision on Monday 12 October. The Cabinet Member for Transport is Cllr Nick Austin. The junction sits in Thamesfield ward, whose councillors are Robert Morritt (also leader of the council), Salvatore Murtas and Ethan Brooks.
The councillors examining the plan tonight have not met since February. Their June meeting was cancelled.
Update, 10.30am. TfL has responded. The response has been added to the story.
The usual tinkering at the margins – making life more difficult for pedestrians whilst letting a few more cars through – without looking at the real problem, which is too much traffic for the road network to carry.
Yes – for every proposal to let more cars through I would like to see equal time, attention and funding given to helping those on foot, bikes and public transport get around. Half of households in Wandsworth do not have a car and they deserve equal consideration. Also my challenge to the Editor: In the “what you can do” section, how about adding some positive things things that people can do to make a difference & reduce their own individual contributions to car traffic as well as making complaints and lobbying councillors for more car space – e.g. make one less trip by car each month/week (or if you truly cannot encourage neighbours and family members to do so), lobby for safe routes to school etc etc
I would like to take issue with the suggested modification works being described as repairs.
The current layout is a significant improvement from a pedestrians, and I imagine cyclists perspective.
The junction is significantly safer to cross as it now is, to enact this “repair” proposal will make the pedestrians life more difficult.