Author: Caroline Pook

Public meeting 20 February on Heathrow Noise

Justine Greening, MP for Putney, will be holding a public meeting on Wednesday, 20 February at 7pm at the Community Church in Werter Road, Putney.

Heathrow has published a consultation on its future operations with proposals for how it will operate three runways at an expanded airport and plans for the design of airspace to accommodate that, but also proposals for how to use its two existing runways in the meantime.  There is a postcode checker on feedback@heathrowconsultation.com the consultation website which can show you where the new flightpaths could be and how they’d affect you. The consultation runs until 4 March 2019 and is online at www.heathrowconsultation.com. You can also email views to feedback@heathrowconsultation.com.

Wandsworth on the road to be a leader in electric car charging

Work is now underway on a major project to install new electric vehicle charging sockets in around 250 street lights across the borough.

Wandsworth’s goal of becoming the best place in London to own an electric vehicle has been boosted by the signing of a contract with electronics giant Siemens to install this charging infrastructure as part of a £400,000 deal.

This will give EV owners two options in terms of connection. They can either use a ubitricity cable which also brings the customer’s own electricity tariff, or they can use a standard cable, scan the QR code at the charge point with their mobile phone or tablet and charge via DirectAccess, the pay-as-you-go-option.

This latest investment in is helping the council meet its target of delivering nearly 900 on-street charging points in total.

Aircraft noise consultation

An 8 week consultation is underway on noise impact of new flight patterns. which will bring 35,000 additional flights to Heathrow. Just one of these consultation events will be in our Borough and residents are urged to attend the event on Wednesday 30 January at at the Elm Grove Conference Centre in the University of Roehampton, SW15 5PH 2pm-8pm. Written consultation is available on http://www.heathrowconsultation.com/

The Ultra Low Emission Zone or ULEZ

TfL introduces the Ulez to congestion charge zone on 8 April this year meaning that liable vehicles will pay £12.50 (in addition to the congestion charge) to enter the zone.

Less has been said about the extension of the ULEZ in October 2021 to all areas within the North and South Circular roads. The consequence for Wandsworth residents (and their tradesmen) with a diesel vehicle registered before 2016, or a petrol vehicle registered before 2006, will be significant. Not only will dinner out with friends in Clapham cost them £12.50 but, more seriously for the environment, will be that a trip to the tip (or B&Q if it is still open) could be expensive. The impact will be widespread as non compliant cars are very common: more fly tipping, more refuse for the council to have to carry from households and more car mileage as the nearest tip will be Morden.

Meeting Report: Battersea Power Station

Jeanne Rathbone & Alex Baker gave a fascinating presentation to an audience of 65 (a record for January). Jeanne galloped through 300 years of history of the site culminating in the story of on-off re-development plans since the power station stopped operation in 1983. Alex then gave us an update on current plans for this giant mixed use scheme of apartments, office development for Apple and others, small work spaces, leisure, a shopping mall and more including public open spaces. A fuller report will be in the February 2019 Newsletter.