Progress is visible on Putney High Street this week, with road widening work underway opposite TK Maxx and the hotel corner demolition advancing rapidly.
The carriageway expansion work promised since November and confirmed last week has begun, with orange barriers lining the pavement and excavation visible along the stretch between M&S and Boots. The work aims to give buses more room without blocking traffic behind them.
It’s a workaround solution. The council wants to indent the bus stop properly, but that requires relocating two BT phone boxes first. Planning permission has been submitted to move them one block up, but while that bureaucratic process grinds on, the council is widening the road opposite.
The complication: TfL owns one side of Putney High Street, the council owns the other. So the council is doing what it can while waiting for the phone box relocation and TfL coordination needed for the permanent solution.
Whether the pavement will be restored once the proper bus stop indentation is complete remains unclear. What is clear: this interim fix adds to the mounting costs beyond the £1 million junction redesign including £169,000 in emergency measures already spent fixing problems the original scheme created.
Meanwhile, at the junction corner, the hotel development is making rapid progress. The top floor of the buildings that once housed Ramna, Gadget Xchange and Preto has been nearly demolished, with scaffolding and protective sheeting in place as the site prepares for its transformation into a 198-room Hub by Premier Inn hotel with ground-floor retail.
After squatters were evicted and a theft ring exposed last autumn, the eight-year-delayed development is finally moving forward. Construction is expected to complete in 2028.
In related High Street news, the planning application to install gates across Russell Yard next to the returning M&S has been withdrawn. The application had cited rough sleepers as justification for blocking public access to the passage.
The transport committee meets in February, where councillors should – but won’t – be pressing for answers about who approved the junction design on faulty data and poor traffic light timing that necessitated all these costly fixes in the first place.
Have the roadworks affected your journey? What else needs fixing at the junction? Let us know in the comments below.
Poor Putney!