TfL has refused to back down over two of the last parking spaces near a Putney GP, while 200 metres away it keeps kerb as long as six parking spaces for its own little-used hire bikes.
The two spaces, in a lay-by on Upper Richmond Road, were painted over for hire bikes last week, prompting an immediate outcry from both patients of the GP practice and local businesses.
In its first response to the issue, however, Transport for London (TfL) has stood by the change and told Putney.news there were “a number of alternative parking bays nearby for drivers, including disabled parking and loading”.
In a statement, it told us: “We recognise the importance of ensuring that residents and businesses can access the places they need to go, and we carefully consider a range of factors when identifying locations for these bays, including the availability of other parking in the local area.”
TfL counts about 12 disabled parking spaces between Putney High Street and Carlton Drive, seven of them shared with loading, two loading bays, and 12 parking spaces for all vehicles. It also points to five council-run spaces on Oxford Road, which runs off it.
What its response doesn’t account for, however, is on which side of the road the parking lies, and the impact of cycle bays on this very busy part of Upper Richmond Road. There are now only four parking bays on the same side of the road as the Heathbridge Practice, with all others across from it on a busy red route and marked by dotted red lines on the road rather than inset into the pavement.
The bays on the south side fill up quickly and are rarely available, with the three bays that TfL has now moved to e-scooter parking serving as crucial parking for GP visitors who are unable to access the practice’s own courtyard parking (there is a barrier blocking entry), and whose spaces out front are reserved for doctors.
It is notable that TfL’s own internal classification for the parking spaces it has now given over to e-scooter parking references their intended use: they are called the “Heathbridge Practice Parking Bays”.
Between the junction with Putney High Street and the signal crossing by Little Waitrose, the only way over is a narrow traffic island opposite Monies coffee shop and the busy junction with Oxford Road: a hard crossing for older patients.
Parking on the surgery’s side was scarce for years before the new restrictions and has been the source of local tension. Drivers used to stop and park on the plaza that leads to the Carlton Plaza flats next door to the GP practice until residents complained, and Toolstation, next to it, was obliged to put up signs in its window asking people not to park there. The lay-by opposite F for Flower was one of the few places left on that side where anyone could stop for an hour.
It is not clear who TfL asked before it took the spaces. People who use this stretch every day could have told it all this.
TfL said it had told people what was coming, through “targeted communications, including letters delivered to properties and businesses located close to the proposed bay location”. Marios Zikas, who runs F for Flower directly across the road, said he had no warning. “From our perspective, the change happened overnight,” he told Putney.news.
TfL said it weighed “a range of factors” in choosing sites for the bays, “including the availability of other parking in the local area”, and that it would continue to monitor the situation.
“We will continue to monitor the impact of these bays, working closely with the council to ensure the road network continues to work for everyone who uses it.”
Significant questions remain over what TfL knows and understands about its own red route, however, as well as its consultation exercise.
TfL did not say where the 12 spaces are, and it may not be able to. In 2017, asked for a list of its red route parking bays, TfL said its system “does not have any reporting or mapping facility” that would produce one. Its advice to drivers was “to always check the signs located in individual bays”.
Putney.news has asked TfL to identify the 12 spaces it mentions. We have also asked about the consultation exercise which took place under a notice it published in December, and closed on 5 January; four weeks that ran across the Christmas holidays. The same notice cut a 21-metre parking bay outside Nos. 83 to 99, further along the same side, to make room for a second bike bay.
But what adds insult to injury for locals wishing to use the south side of Upper Richmond Road to access the GP practice and local shops is what takes up kerb as long as six parking spaces on the same side: TfL’s own poorly used bicycle service.
We went through TfL’s own hire records for Putney’s Santander docks, every May since 2018.
Members can read how few hires start at the docks 200 metres from the surgery, and how Santander compares with the Lime and Forest bikes the new bays are for. They also get what each hire costs TfL to run, and what it renewed in the same month it took the parking.
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What members get from this story
- How many hires start at the docks 200 metres from the surgery
- How Santander compares with Lime and Forest in Putney, and how far its use has fallen
- What each hire costs TfL, and the contracts it renewed the month it took the spaces
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Cllr Nick Austin, Wandsworth’s Cabinet Member for Transport, has told residents the road is TfL’s, that he first heard of the change from a post in a local WhatsApp group, and that he is lobbying TfL to reverse it. Residents who wrote to Leonie Cooper, the London Assembly Member for Merton and Wandsworth, have been told she has taken the matter up with TfL.
Putney.news has put further questions to TfL and will add its answers when they arrive.
What you can do
- Write to TfL’s Traffic Order Team at trafficordersection@tfl.gov.uk, quoting reference GLA/2026/0020.
- Write to Leonie Cooper AM at Leonie.Cooper@london.gov.uk.
- Write to the East Putney councillors: George Crivelli, Jasmin Glynne and Ravi Govindia.
Where do you park when you go to the Heathbridge Practice? Tell us at postbox@putney.news.
