Dear neighbour,

Welcome to our February 2024 e-newsletter. Read on for:

1. Success for our local road and pavement resurfacing campaigns – more Northcote locations added following extra central Government funding
2. Northcote Library update – the Official Opening Ceremony date has been announced, and the Wandsworth Times reports on our campaign for extended opening hours
3. Still time to take part in our Safer Streets Survey – have your say
4. New cycle routes proposed on Wandsworth Common and linking Clapham Common and Wandsworth Common – the Council will open up a consultation soon

Please help us spread the news about our local campaigns by forwarding this email to friends and family who live in the Northcote ward – it really helps our work as local councillors. 

As ever, if there is anything we can be of help locally, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at northcote@wandsworthconservatives.co.uk

Best regards,

Cllr Aled Richards-Jones

Cllr Emmeline Owens 

Success for our local road and pavement resurfacing campaigns

More Northcote locations added following extra central Government funding

Last month, we reported that Wandsworth Council had been allocated over £200,000 as part of the latest round of extra central Government road resurfacing funding. We asked you to get in touch if you knew a particular road or pavement which could benefit from resurfacing. Thank you to all those who emailed us – we were able to ensure your suggestions were fed back to the Council’s transport officers.

Following this month’s meeting of the Council’s Transport Committee, we’re pleased to report that the following roads and pavements have been approved for resurfacing in the 2024-2025 municipal year.

• Road resurfacing: Wisley Road, Darley Road, Dulka Road, and Wroughton Road (between Chatto Road - Broomwood Road).

• Pavement resurfacing: Berber Road, Bennerley Road (between Leathwaite Road - Northcote Road), Montholme Road, Culmstock Road, Grandison Road, Leathwaite Road, and Mallinson Road.

We did put forward a number of other locations in Northcote ward which have sadly not been put on this year’s list; however, Council officers have said that these are on the list for future years. Please do get in touch if you think there are other locations which should be placed on future lists. 

Northcote Library update

The Official Opening Ceremony date has been announced, and the Wandsworth Times reports on our campaign for extended opening hours

The “official” opening of the new Northcote Library has been set for Thursday 14th March 3-5pm – please do join us to celebrate this fantastic new asset for our community. The ribbon cutting will be held by local author Isobel Losada with speeches and tours of the new facilities.

The Wandsworth Times has also reported on our campaign calling for opening hours at Northcote Library to be extended, following a Council Committee debate on our petition this month:

Wandsworth Council has revealed it is reviewing borough-wide library opening hours after a petition signed by more than 150 residents…

It comes after 154 residents signed a petition from Wandsworth Conservatives demanding the council increase the opening hours at Northcote Library in Battersea from four days a week to at least six days a week. The new library opened in April last year to replace the previous 1960s building opposite. The scheme was approved under the council’s old Conservative administration, before Labour took over in May 2022.

The petition said the new library is more sustainable as it uses solar energy and air source heat pumps, slashing energy costs, while it has workspaces that can be hired by businesses. It added, “These design options were deliberately chosen by the previous Conservative administration so that opening hours in the new Northcote Library building could be extended beyond the hours offered in the old 1960s building, which was expensive to heat and had limited commercial space to hire out…

Responding to the petition, a council report revealed a new library strategy is being developed in Wandsworth – with work underway including an assessment of residents’ needs. It said a full review of library opening hours is being carried out across the borough as part of this process to determine “how the current hours are performing, what residents need and what changes might be both beneficial and affordable”.

The council’s environment committee also discussed the petition on 6 February. Matthew Eady, assistant director of environment and community services, said: “We are appreciative and understand the local community’s appetite for extended opening hours but at the moment we are dealing with a cost-of-living crisis, understanding the different uses and reviewing our library strategy model in preparation for a new library strategy.”

He added:, “Once we’ve undertaken that strategy I think that will be the right time therefore to make recommendations on the opening hours across all of our libraries to make sure that they’re meeting the needs of our residents but also within an envelope of what is affordable.”

We’ll follow the progress of the review closely, and make sure Northcote residents’ voices are heard throughout. We believe there is a strong case for extending library hours at the new Northcote library.  

Still time to take part in our Safer Streets Survey

Have Your Say

There’s still time to take part in our Safer Streets Survey, which seeks residents’ views about crime as well as other local matters. We are interested in the top three issues you would like the police to focus on as well as measures you would support to cut crime in the area. We know that crime continues to be a growing concern, not least because of the disturbing increase in local muggings of school children.

Please do fill out our survey here.

New cycle routes proposed on Wandsworth Common and linking Clapham Common and Wandsworth Common  

The Council will open up a consultation soon

The Council has announced that it plans to consult on 13 new proposed Quiet Cycling Routes in Wandsworth. Two routes which run through, or close to, Northcote ward are:

Bellevue Road to John Archer Way (Wandsworth Common): The Council’s press release explains that this “Connects Bellevue Road to John Archer Way on Wandsworth Common. It would follow an existing pedestrian route, with most of the route already having the sealed surfacing required to allow cycling.”

Clapham Common to Wandsworth Common: The Council’s press release explains that this will be designed “Linking the two commons via Clapham Common West Side, Thurleigh Road, Blenkarne Road and Bolingbroke Grove.”

So far, the Council has not put out any further information about these proposals. We’ll circulate more information when the Council releases it.

In the meantime, frequent users of Wandsworth Common might be interested in this piece jointly published by the Friends of Wandsworth Common and the Wandsworth Common Management Advisory Committee:

QUIET CYCLE ROUTE ACROSS WANDSWORTH COMMON

You may have seen a recent Council news release about a forthcoming consultation about new Quiet Cycle Routes in the borough, including one across Wandsworth Common from Bellevue Road to John Archer Way. You can read it here, though it contains few details.

A joint MAC-Friends Cycling Working Group, comprising both cyclists and non-cyclists, has engaged with the Council since 2023 about an objective in the Common's Management and Maintenance Plan (2019) to permit cycling from North to South across the Common, which is currently not legally possible.  

The Council has approached the discussions in the context of their Walking and Cycling Strategy, which envisages Quiet Cycle Routes across the borough, to encourage cycling as a mode of transport.

The MAC and Friends are in favour of the encouragement of responsible cycling borough-wide and support Common users being able to cycle on such Common paths as the byelaws permit. 

However, we have concerns, and in some cases objections, to the route the Council is proposing and have requested a further meeting to discuss them before the consultation goes live. We also lack information about the technical specification of a Quiet Route, especially as regards its width and surfacing and therefore its wider implications for Common users, trees etc. The route proposed would be entirely on existing 'no cycling' paths, which would become 'shared use'.

Shared use Quiet Routes already cross the Common east-west, from Bolingbroke Grove, across the Cats Back bridge to Dorlcote Road and to the path to Trinity Road onto which Routh Road backs. 

Once we have more information we will give you our views to inform you before the consultation goes live. At that point we will be encouraging as many of you as possible to respond to this important consultation. 

Published and promoted by Harry Todd on behalf of the Wandsworth Conservatives, contactable 1 Summerstown, SW17 0BQ.