The Bridge To Nowhere, Colliers Wood, London, SW19

Is this Merton Council's greatest embarrassment?
“	MERTON COUNCIL	”
	PUTTING WHO FIRST?

Questions? Want to be kept abreast of updates? Email bridge@collierswoodresidentsassociation.org.uk Colliers Wood Residents' Association

The Bewley Street Bridge to Nowhere across the Wandle, from Wandle Meadow Nature Park

“We have as a Council ended up in the really daft position of having a half-built bridge - madness in my view. However, we are where we are and need to put an appropriate spin on it.” - Lyn Carpenter, ex Director of Environment and Regeneration Department, 23rd April 2008. [Internal email obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.]

“I can advise you now that Officers from the Greenspaces Team are currently looking into the permissions, design, engineering, construction and cost requirements of completing this bridge.” - Cllr Samantha George, Deputy Leader of Merton Council and Cabinet Minister for Corporate Resources, 21st May 2009. This is nearly a month after an email plea to sort out the problem. Erm, they have been "looking into" it for nearly two years, Cllr George.

According to the leader of the council, "we recognise that our most critical inspectors are the residents we serve and only by continuing to listen and, most importantly, responding to your needs, can we be regarded as a truly excellent council." Oh dear!

How could this happen?

Location
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"The recreation component of the [Connolly Leatherworks] development is an 8 metre wide landscaped riverside walkway and cycleway along the west bank of the Wandle. Together, [sic] with the new bridge over the Wandle, this will form a link between Wandle Park and the Wandle Valley [sic] Nature Park." (Councillor Brian White, Merton Council's Cabinet Member for Regeneration, 6^th December 2000)

View of the east end (Wandle Meadow Nature Park). A mere 2m drop.
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As you can see, it doesn't.

The bridge was an obligation placed on the developers, Bewley Homes (since taken over by George Wimpey) as part of its "Section 106" agreement to obtain planning permission (99/P9136) from Merton Council for the development - to give something back to the community, in return for being allowed to build a large number of houses and flats.

original bridge elevation, showing slope

Original plan, showing link to footpath
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The original elevation (above) shows a bridge with a drop of about 1m along its length, with the plan showing its east end linking to an existing footpath.

The Wandle Trail leaflet (dated 2003) includes it in its directions, with a footnote that it has (i.e. had) a planned construction date of 2005.

View of the west end (Bewley Street). Lovely bollards.
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The last property on Bewley Street was sold in May 2003 - Bewley/Wimpey had their money, so what was the "thoughtful, responsible house builder" doing for the community in return?

At some stage the Environment Agency objected to the design of the bridge as it could form an obstruction to the flow of water in flood conditions. No part could be lower than the North Road bridge just to the north, resulting in a 2m drop at the east end which would need to be accommodated. Furthermore, the approach would not be allowed to interfere with "flood plain storage" so would have to be a fabricated, open structure rather than solid banking. The cost of this was suggested by the council in an internal email of October 2008 as £75 000.

Control of Merton Council passed from Labour to Conservative at the local elections of 4^th May 2006. The inevitable disruption and possibly different approach to Wimpey may have contributed to the mess.

East end of bridge from easement document, showing misleading ground level

Pressure seemed to be on to do something, and in November 2006 an "easement" document was signed and sealed by the council, giving Wimpey permission to site bridge supports on council land. This document contains drawings corresponding to the current bridge, with the minimum soffit height (lowest point) as 12.2m, but apparently showing the bridge ending only just above ground level, even though this is at about 10m. Also in the covering letter (written by a Mr J I Holmar, Engineer at George Wimpey West London and addressed to Brian Fraser, Merton's Estates Surveyor, Property Management and Review) is the statement "We will cranelift the new footbridge onto the abutments and fix it in place, with the access being blocked off as as we will not be constructing an access ramp. This will be done by the Local Authority at a time of their choosing."

The "bridge", or "Wandle Meadow Nature Park Viewing Platform" as it should be more properly known, was eventually installed on 20^th June 2007.

Post article of 21^st February 2008
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Local newspaper The Post published an article on the subject on 21^st February 2008, in which John Hill (Interim Head of Public Protection and Development) said, "it would appear that a bridge has now been constructed without the details being approved by the council's planning department ... [We] will be seeking an early resolution to the case." Obviously he wasn't aware of that deal with Wimpey. The quote at the beginning of this web page comes from a flurry of internal emails resulting from The Post contacting the council again after one of its readers pointed out that that "early resolution" had not materialised.

After the conversion of the "unfinished, seemingly useless bridge into a site of entertainment and expectation," as part of an art installation in November 2008, I decided to get involved. The council's planning enforcement department told me that they thought that Wimpey were going to do something but hadn't heard from them since July, so I contacted Wimpey via its "corporate responsibility" web page. The immediate response was from a PR agency (no, I don't see much on their site either), merely to ask "what publication [do] you write for?" and after refusing to give a convincing reason why they needed to know, completely ignored me when I told them I was a private individual. Surprising behaviour from contractors of a company which "takes ethical behaviour very seriously", don't you think?

Distance from east side to nearest path
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I eventually got through to someone via the UK Head Office, but it took three months of pushing to get a site meeting arranged with council employees, a local councillor and potential bridge users on 5^th March 2009. He had rummaged in his filing cabinet that morning and found the stitch-up easement document, so that was that. This seemed to be a surprise to the council members present.

The council consulted its legal department so nothing happened for six weeks, until I chased them up and then was told that it looks like the council doesn't have a leg to stand on. Just a bridge which can't be crossed. Meanwhile I put in an FoI request which initially resulted in only the original planning application and approval until I pointed out areas where documentation should exist, whereupon I got about 25 megabytes of scanned material as PDFs. Even this isn't all that the council must have, but it was a good effort.

Post article of 9^th April 2009
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The renewed interest resulted in the bridge making the front page of The Post: "We are looking at how to progress this and are working with the developers for as quick a completion as possible," another council mouthpiece in the form of Cllr William Brierly informed them. Beginning to sound familiar? Dream on, Cllr Brierly - do you really think George Wimpey is going to come to your rescue now? Why not spend some of the £10 million the council has stashed away for a rainy day (i.e. next year's council tax, set just before the local elections)?

News reaches us of an amusing incident at the council's Overview and Scrutiny meeting on Thursday 12^th June. Council Leader David "responding to your needs" Williams and Chief Executive Ged "£167 500 salary" Curran gave a presentation on policy plans which included improving the relationship between the east and west of the borough, getting Wimbledon and Mitcham more interconnected, etc. It was only natural, then, for quick-witted Cllr Sheila Knight of Colliers Wood to ask if they were going to do something about the bridge to nowhere, especially considering that it joins a Conservative ward to a Labour ward. Once everyone had stopped laughing, David "**** Merton" Williams was unable to answer. I bet he looked a lot less smug than he does in his picture on the council's website!

Keith Allen being interviewed by the BBC

The BBC came to film the bridge and interview local residents and John Hill of the council on 19^th June (a weekday as they have longer broadcast slots). The story was transmitted as part of the 1830 BBC London News programme, and also appeared on the web. It reached at least No. 2 in the "most read" list on the news.bbc front page.

Party poster, also showing a sign put up to discourage people from approaching Bewley Street

I put up several posters in the locality to advertise the second birthday party on Saturday 20^th June. The only one which someone removed was the one at the west end of the bridge, visible from Bewley Street (although no-one contacted me through the website address shown on it). This does chime with the view that the residents of Bewley Street are schizophrenic about the bridge being open. On the one hand, those at the north end are only too keen to remonstrate with members of the public trying to cross the fence erected slightly bizarrely to block access to North Road (and which they have tried to get the council to raise). This is the route someone would naturally want to take if they got to the bridge and found they couldn't cross it, and is the route that was always there before the development was built. On the other hand, you get the strong impression that they would rather have no-one walk along the Bewley Street path at all, bringing to mind the quote in the first Post article: “It is not a private waterfront for the people who live there.” Indeed, while I was on the side of the bridge trying to set up the equipment for the party I was handed a DECT phone by the wife of the director of the management company, on which was her husband. He was abroad and not aware of our campaign or the television coverage. While he told me that the company had been trying to get the council to finish the bridge (something I'd seen in the FoI material, with names redacted), he also made clear that the road, waterfront and bridge were owned outright by the company, and that the public had a right to cross it but not necessarily attach balloons to it and didn't exactly offer any words of encouragement. You'd think we'd be on the same side, wouldn't you? His wife didn't stick around for the entertainment either.

Sarah Kipps' Unfinished Cake for the Unfinished Bridge

Didn't it look jolly?

A small but appreciative audience enjoyed “The Water Is Wide”, “I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside” (from the end of the “pier”), and a somewhat topical version of “Down By The Riverside” with pedal-powered piano and ukelele accompaniment. Thank you to all who took part with such great gusto.