Rookery Road on Clapham Common: the re-surfacing job that time forgot...

Rookery Road cuts across the north-east corner of Clapham
Common. It gets very heavy traffic (as you can see) and yet it has
not been resurfaced in decades. Unlike all the other roads
around here. Why not?

Both Lambeth and Wandsworth Councils have shown exemplary enthusiasm when it comes to re-paving certain troubled areas of their boroughs.

Soon after the 2011 riots, the whole of the Clapham Junction area broke out into a pleasing arrangement of tastefully-variegated pastel-shaded paving blocks: the old dark grey filth-stained pitted tarmac and granite gave way to soothing garden centre chic.

Seven years on this lovely new work is already showing serious signs of decay; no material known to humankind can cope with the daily downpour of spat-out chewing gum, nor the vile stains of McDonald's toxic shakes as they dribble out from discarded polystyrene buckets.

Let alone the pollution from tens of thousands of combustion-engined vehicles passing through the junction every day.

Meanwhile, Lambeth labours away to make little bits of nice street furnishings: Clapham Old Town; Windrush Square; Stockwell Cross. Weeks and months of disruption to locals and passing traffic as gangs of workers rip up the old and carefully lay the new.

All jolly good - we suppose; if we are charitably-minded. What a splendid way to use our council tax quids.

Pity they totally fucked up the traffic flow in Clapham Old Town in the process - giving even more rat-runs to the mumsnet SUVs and off-white-van drivers, confusing cyclists with a ridiculous cycle-lane layout and sending pedestrians all round the houses to find safe crossings. Trouble with those rat-runs is drivers tend to speed up when sneaking into them, hoping they won't be spotted.

And - AND - above ALL! - what about Rookery Road? Yes that little but very important bit of road between Clapham Southside - the main A3 trunk route - and the left turn turn down to the Northside one-way system.

The deeply pot-holed surface of Rookery Road: enough to throw you off
your bike and under the wheels of a speeding SUV.or whatever.
Who will take responsibility for this death-trap?

This couple of hundred metres of road sees very heavy traffic. It is called Rookery Road because it passes under the great plane trees that still accommodate  some truly fine murders of big black bastard carrion crows.

But the surface of this road is also MURDEROUS! It's bad enough in a small car - but approach on a pushbike at any speed and you are dead. Especially if you are trying to position yourself centre road to take the north-flowing lane towards Old Town and Larkhall Rise.

Does this bit of road not fall into one or other borough's care? Who is responsible for this? Most of the other roads around there have been re-surfaced two or three times since even one bit of gravel has been replaced here.

Why?

Maybe Lambeth and Wandsworth think the crows should do it.

Battersea Power Station and affordable homes - the plot thickens

They're talking about a "poor door" for the redeveloped Battersea Power Station's many apartments, as affordable housing is moved away from the main site and across Nine Elms Lane.  More like a "slightly less well-off door" I'd suggest.

Interesting development picked up by the Standard and further reported on City Metric website, suggesting that the original plans to mix "affordable" with premium housing in the Power Station redevelopment have been none too subtly altered.

It seems the affordable stuff will now be over the road, away from the river and the glam new buildings around the shell of the Giles Gilbert Scott building itself.

Well, there's a surprise then.

The developers, Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC), and council point out that this is all well within planning laws - but why, in that case, did they not simply plan it this way in the first place?

With a little help from Saint Boris, Battersea Park recovers slowly from its encounter with FormulaE

We have a new name for one of these huge concrete blocks, used as crash barriers at Battersea Park for the formula E races, but also good as anti-suicide bomber-truck barriers and so on. Maybe we should call all such blocks "Boris" from now on.

They promised the park would be back to normal on July 2, but cycling back through from Chelsea Bridge earlier today I can tell you it's far from the pleasant ride it used to be.

Hitting the park off Chelsea Bridge  road, the first thing you encounter is a loads of guys in hi-vis jackets looking protective towards fleets of massive low-loader trucks, lined up all the way down the north side of the park.

These trucks are gradually taking away the big concrete crash barriers that lined both sides of the whole track during the electric car racing last weekend.

It seems they can only get about six blocks on each twelve-wheel low loader, so that's a hell of a lot of truck miles.

Passing the Millennium sports stadium area, I come across another low-loader which is bearing a special load: five of the blocks, plus a sixth block named "Mayor of London".

Ah, now I understand.  He that cycleth thru the valleys of the shadows of Yslyngton hath passed this way, and lo, we are blessed, we should kiss the ready-mix and prostrate ourselves upon the Virgin soils so liberally sprinkled across these fair fields.

Is crazy paving Wandsworth's answer to community cohesion and urban regeneration?

All around Clapham Junction the streets are being paved - not in gold, but in some rather expensive-marble-looking multicoloured patchwork quilt effect.

Yes, urban regeneration is afoot, street furniture is being torn up and rep[laced with more street furnitutre. The old, bloodstained riot-age pavings and railings are being torn up in hugely disruptive stages.

That whole area - St John's Road, Battersea Rise, Lavender Hill, Falcon Road - is undergoing a very thorough post-riot tarting up. Except that I think it all started well before the riots. But that would spoil my entry.

So what they - Wandsworth Council - are doing is covering the pavements and roads in that sort of marble paving, three colours, different sizes, the un-crazy paving of a million architect's impressions.

It looks quite nice at first, and then you see more and more it it, and you start to wonder why - what is this saying to us all, post riot?

That this is now a nice place, like those desirable residential developments in provincial towns or new-build gated retirement resorts on the Algarve, or the patios of gangster-villas in Marbella or Bishop's Stortford, all the better for burying dissenters beneath?

The new paving stretches several hundred yards from the epicentre of the August 2011 events, up to the LIbrary on Lavender, all the way up St John's Road, and large tracts of the worst-hit street are now getting this harlequin-check treatment.

Two or three uncharitable thoughts: first,  it must cost.

Second, is it worth it? Already, where this new paving has been in use for a few weeks, the staining is  just the same as  the old pavements, the unmistakeable chewing gum blots and McDonald's grease spots. The vomit-splashes and urine trials.

Third - most urgent - where are the new bike racks? They've taken down all the old railings around Arding & Hobbs, etc - and so far only a dozen or so new individual bike stands have appeared. These are mostly of the dismal 'n' design, hopeless for attaching more than one bike. And this at a time when the numbers of cyclist-commuters in London  is growing at record rates.