The Planning Inquiry may primarily focus on such issues as affordable housing, the heritage assets of the area and urban design such as the height and density of the residential area. The Mortlake Brewery Community Group has assembled an experienced group of expert witnesses on these topics. It is reasonable to hope that the Inspector will not ignore them as the Council has for years.
The average local resident may be at least equally concerned with issues such as road and rail use and their ability to get around the area. It is inevitable that there will for some years be stress on the area during construction, whatever development is ultimately agreed. Months of problems around Manor Circus demonstrate this. Closure of Hammersmith Bridge and Richmond Park illustrate that.
But the real question for transport is will this continue for years to come, when construction of 1,075 residential units, a hotel, a cinema and other related facilities, and a secondary school for 1200 pupils plus 200 staff is completed.
The Council policy is clear in the evidence to the Inquiry of Ms Thatcher, Richmond’s Planning Officer: “The Proposed Development gives priority to pedestrians and cyclists, proposes Travel Plans and a Sustainable Travel Implementation Fund, with the over riding objective to encourage sustainable travel and influence travel behaviour. With the comprehensive package of highway mitigation measures, and public transport contributions, the potential impact on the highway network is not deemed severe or significant..”.
Is that realistic in an area bordered by Richmond Park, the South Circular Road, the A316, the River Thames, the mainline from Waterloo to Richmond and Reading and a loopline to Hounslow? Or is it a pious aspiration?
Trip generation
The Council argues that the secondary school trip generation assessment remains fit for purpose. But this school is said to be technology focused and will attract pupils from a wide area. There appear to be no calculations about where pupils will travel from.
The Council might like to think many of them will be local enough to walk or get on their bike, but that will take numbers away from other local schools and reduce their efficacy. The alternative is that pupils would come from a wide area, be more likely to travel by bus and train and put more pressure on those services. And if there is a mix of local and out of borough? Just imagine even 600 pupils, half the school capacity, disgorging from Mortlake Station into Sheen Lane between 815am and 9am. And meeting 400 pupils from Thomson House Primary School.
Mortlake Rail Station
The Station and train services are said to be sufficient to meet future demand. Is the train service adequate? Immediately to the west of the Level Crossing is Mortlake station where 8 trains per hour call and an additional 4 trains per hour pass through during a typical daytime hour. Risk assessments have shown that barrier down-times at peak hours are already between 40 and 46 minutes. How long does it take for say even 300 coming from each direction to get from the train to a safe area off the platform?
It is plain for all who use it to see that the level crossing and its surroundings are not currently safe. Add in an unknown number of trips to and from school and homes and consider the consequences. But by importing superficial measures proposed in July 2017, the potential impact on the level crossing and the Station is deemed to be ‘mitigated’.
The Council states that walking and cycling routes from the school across the railway line need to be carefully managed and a regime put in place. ‘There may need to be additions to ensure that [the regime] is both feasible and manageable.” And what if it is not and cannot be made so? The Report to the Planning Committee in July 2023, at which the initial permission was given, calculated that the development would increase the number of pedestrians using the level crossing or adjacent footbridge from 749 to 1,040. How does that take account of the dramatic increase of pupils flowing around the Station? Has any provision been made for disability users, or does the school not plan to have any of those?
The Report concluded that there were capacity concerns at the level crossing and potential conflicts between traffic and pedestrians and cycles. “The main risk is a vehicular risk to pedestrians from general road users and more so road users who deliberately misuse the crossing”. The Report admits that “an increase in the number of drivers and, particularly, pedestrians waiting at the level crossing is likely to mean more people becoming frustrated waiting for the barriers to open or who risk crossing as the barriers are closing, however, the developer cannot be held responsible for any increase in deliberate misuse at the crossing”. Oh well that is their fault, even if they are children or young people.
Subject to the following footway and safety improvements, the potential impact would be mitigated (it is said):
• Additional bridge signage. (Superficial impact)
• General improvements to the pedestrian bridge to make this option more attractive. (Superficial impact)
• Moving bollards back on North and South Worple Way to provide an increased area for pedestrians to wait whilst the barriers are down. (Irrelevant)
• Setting back the stop lines, to prioritise the waiting area for cycles over other traffic and help to improve the overall amenity for pedestrians and cycles. (Understandable in the current climate but likely to increase the frustration of non-cyclists.)
• Improved surfacing of the road. (Superficial)
In spite of all these risks the Committee concluded that they should be overridden. A regrettable consequence of simply not knowing the area and / or reliance on dubious statistics.
Road travel
The adequacy of the bus service to cater for the development has been called into question. It is predicted to generate a total of 645 two-way bus trips in the AM peak and 242 two-way bus trips in the PM peak. Why there should be so many more trips in the morning than the evening is unexplained. But the real question is not whether there will be enough bus trips, but whether they will be able to deliver passengers through a road system already clogged at those hours.
“An increase in both general traffic and bus journey times suggests improvements are necessary to mitigate the Chalkers Corner Light and a package of highway works along Lower Richmond Road, Mortlake High Street and Sheen Lane have been agreed”, and with such, it is concluded the impact on the highway network is not deemed to be severe.
These proposals are superficial and untested. No mention is made of the impact on the Upper Richmond Road, the main arterial road around South London, where there are already frequent traffic jams. Readers will recall the accident at the junction of that road with Sheen Lane in April 2024. We had lorries doing U-turns, traffic backed up all round the area, an air ambulance needing to be used. What if that happens when the Lower Richmond Road becomes impassable?
It may be buried in the hundreds of documents filed, but there appears to be no assessment of the cumulative affect of pressure on rail and road, simply acceptance of the individual assessments of National Rail and Transport for London. There have been no published Travel Plans of note. Readers will recall that an attempt in 2023 to persuade the Council to carry out a transport feasibility study was contemptuously dismissed. ‘We will do it after the planning permission is granted.’
It’s all guesswork.
