Hello All

We have a date!

Transport For London will begin installing a pedestrian crossing on the north side of Battersea Bridge on 23rd October*. It is scheduled to be completed by 6th December.

I had a highly constructive meeting at the bridge on Friday with the key TFL officers handling this project. Everything is in place. I was told that this build is happening in record time - these things normally take 18 months-two years. High-Five to everyone at TFL making this happen.

In basic terms, the Green Man crossing will function when traffic heading north-south on the bridge is on Red; as traffic begins moving from east-west on Cheyne Walk, the vehicles wanting to turn left onto the bridge will be held at a new Red light. This Red phasing only ends when the safe crossing on the bridge ends (are you all keeping up?). There will be a countdown timer for pedestrians.

New traffic lights on the bridge will also be set back to seven metres to give safer turning room for buses and lorries, and a box for cyclists. Kerbs on the corners will also be built up for further safety. Basically, the entire crossing as it currently exists was a poorly constructed, ill-conceived mess and will be entirely re-built.

Unbelievably, I learnt that the Cheyne Walk crossroads is one of the very last remaining four-way crossroads out of roughly 1,800 on the TFL network that does not have at least ONE signalised pedestrian crossing. Thankfully, this soon will be history.

At the meeting, we had a long discussion about the installation of crossings on the other arms of the crossroads. Various complications (too long-winded for today) are facing what is being called "Phase 2". I will file an up-date on this at another time.

But the good news is - I am told that there is a "strong political will" at TFL to complete the other works. Hence, I believe they WILL happen. I intend to keep going on this and do whatever I can as a "neutral" to help TFL work with two local authorities to see the wider project through.

Thanks to you all for staying on board with this campaign. If you prefer to stop getting these up-dates pinged to your Inbox, there is an Unsubscribe link in your emails from Change.org. No offence taken. Well not much! (RM: 6/9/21)

*TFL has asked me to flag up some date wriggle room in case of unforeseen circumstances (flooding, hurricanes, or Thames Water bursting a pipe). Oh, OKaaay!