It was too hot to eat on the terrace at Nando’s on Upper Richmond Road this week – and the restaurant has a fix. It wants to swap its two small awnings for one canopy that covers the whole outdoor seating area.
The new design is a full-cover retractable canopy, with a new aluminium frame the drawings call a ‘pergolino’, plus planters and festoon lighting. It’s a fallback. Wandsworth’s own pre-application advice told Nando’s to drop its first choice, a permanent front extension, and find something that kept the frontage ‘open and non-permanent’ instead.
Wandsworth registered the application, 2026/2553 last week and is taking comments until 27 August. Nando’s points to the awning at Pizza Express further along the road as a local precedent, and notes that a pergola already stood on this exact frontage under a planning consent from 2001. Wider works, costing up to £2m, are pencilled in for September to December.
Nando’s is quite invested in its Upper Richmond Road branch and there’s a simple reason why: its corporate headquarters is directly opposite on the other side of the road. Which also explains – in case you were wondering – why the service is so extraordinarily good.
Mural
Further toward the High Street and just on the other side, another food place is leaning on a neighbour’s precedent too, this time for a mural.
At 165 Upper Richmond Road, above the Tash Grill, the building’s landlord wants permission to paint a mural on the blank flank wall facing the street. The application cites the illuminated digital sign consented next door at 205 Upper Richmond Road as its precedent, arguing that an unlit, hand-painted design is the gentler option for the same conservation area.
There’s just one problem. Nobody has actually seen what the mural will look like. The application’s own ‘proposed’ drawing shows a blank white rectangle where the artwork should be.
The Putney Society spotted the same gap. In a letter to the council, buildings panel convenor Andrew Catto wrote: ‘We quite like the idea of an “old school” painted sign on this shabby blank wall… which now detracts from the wider setting.’ Then he asked the obvious question: ‘The “proposed elevation” shows a blank white wall. What is actually proposed?’
It’s not a formal objection (the Society supports the idea in principle), but the letter still lands a dry aside about the neighbouring illuminated sign, noting that its consent “expires in 5 months time” and that it is “often a lot brighter than the allowable night time level.”
The mural application, 2026/2371, was registered on 10 July. Wandsworth’s official three-week comment period on it closed on 31 July, but the council has not yet decided the case.
It’s the latest entry in Upper Richmond Road’s other recent changes, a run that has included a new sauna club, an empty café, and, this week, a new chip shop further along the road.
