Councillors consider neighbourhood improvement schemes

New play facilities, new festive lights and better roads and pavements are just some of the schemes being considered for council funding at a meeting next week.

The Wandsworth Local Fund (WLF) is a charge the council makes on developers to pay for the infrastructure needed to support the development, such as new schools, safer roads or improvements to parks.

The amount available in different parts of the borough varies depending on the amount of development taking place. As more development takes place more money will be available, so further schemes will be funded in future years.

For Putney the proposed areas and funds are:

Wandsworth carried out a detailed consultation exercise last year to find out what local people thought the money should be spent on. This resulted in a shortlist of 35 bids of schemes supported by at least two ward councillors, which went out for further consultation earlier this year.

Members of the council’s finance and corporate resources committee will be asked to consider funding some of the schemes when they meet next week.

Some projects would benefit the whole borough, including £104,000 on new festive lights in all five town centres, £70,000 for 200 new LED street lamp columns and £230,000 for improved roads, in addition to specific road schemes in individual areas.

It is proposed that some of the money be spent on improving play areas in Leaders Gardens in Putney, Upper Tooting Place, and Earlsfield’s Swaby Gardens.

Schemes have been proposed to improve the ‘public realm’ in Bedford Hill, Bellevue Road and Southfields. This will include designing new ‘street scenes’ to improve the look of an area, looing at the way roads and pavements are designed and paved, reviewing parking and loading restriction, clearing away street clutter such as unneccesary barriers, signs and railings and reviewing the location of bus stops.

Other neighbourhood schemes being recommended for funding include the Quest employment scheme in Queenstown, a trim trail in Wandsworth Park, a refurbished ball pen on Wandsworth Common, landscaping in Falcon Park and improvements to the Dover House Road parade in Putney

The WLF is the neighbourhood element of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL). CIL is mostly spent on borough-wide, ‘strategic’ projects, but 15 per cent is earmarked for projects which take into account the views of people living in the neighbourhood where new development has been built.

Finance spokesman Cllr Guy Senior said: “Wandsworth is enjoying a significant amount of regeneration and redevelopment, including lots of new homes for local people, and it’s right that neighbourhoods benefit. As Wandsworth continues to enjoy this building boom, the Wandsworth Local Fund will continue to grow and more schemes backed by residents will benefit our local communities.”

The proposals will be discussed by the Finance and Corporate Resources committee on June 25 and the Executive on June 29.

June 22, 2015