Living Streets in Wandsworth
Wandsworth is a London borough situated in the south west area of the city. Living Streets undertook a major community street audit in Balham Town Centre during January 2002. The report led to significant changes in the area, including what we believe to be the first double diagonal pedestrian crossing in the UK.
Following a meeting at the Furzedown Community Centre in 2004, a new branch was formed from the Furzedown community. We also have a local Contact who covers the Putney area, who can be contacted through London Living Streets office.
In 2004 Development Manager David Early co-ordinated a brief taster audit of Furzedown with members of the new branch. It is hoped that this will eventually pave the way for a commissioned Community Street Audit of the Furzedown area by Wandsworth Council.
Wandsworth Cycling Campaign (Affilliated Group)
Contact
Susie Morrow
Latest News from Wandsworth
We have a group of 6/7 local residents in Furzedown who meet monthly to try to get things moving. We have a chatgroup on Yahoo, and are linked to the Furzedown Community Network chatgroup.
On 5th February 2005 a group of local residents carried out a street audit of Moyser Rd SW17 and took over 60 pictures of defects and other problems that needed attention. One colleague subsequently listed over 120 separate items for attention by the Council!
On 25th February we held a meeting with senior council officers and demonstrated through our pictures the concerns we had as local residents over the quality of the street scene, over maintenance, enforcement etc. Subsequently, the Council has started to tackle some of the problems -albeit slowly.
One success has been the thorny issue of the forecourts to the shops which are privately owned and in poor surface repair. The argument is ( as in many such cases) whether these forecourts are maintainable at public expense because they have had open to the public for scores of years. Wandsworth position at present is 'no'. They have, however, struck a deal with local shopkeepers to pay 50% of the cost of resurfacing the forecourts. About 66% of shopkeepers have agreed to pay. The work will go ahead in the near future.
Some of the bigger liveability concerns such as Wandsworth's vision for local shopping streets like Moyser Rd are currently not on their agenda. However, we plan to meet a senior manager from the Highways & Transportation Dept to discuss opportunities for funding bids. We also plan to engage the Council Members in the liveability concept.