Wandsworth Council has asked Transport for London for £200,000 to move the pedestrian crossing on Putney Bridge, in a bid to ease congestion at one of south-west London’s busiest junctions.
The council wants the crossing shifted further down the bridge so that drivers turning left out of Lower Richmond Road are no longer held up every time a pedestrian presses the button to cross.
At present, each press of the button cuts the green light for those left-turning vehicles from 42 seconds to 25 seconds. Moving the crossing would give drivers the full 42 seconds on every signal cycle — an extra 17 seconds to clear the junction.
The trade-off falls on people on foot. Pedestrians would once again have to cross the road in three separate stages, waiting on two traffic islands in the middle of the bridge — the layout that was in place before the junction was rebuilt in 2024.
That rebuild replaced the old three-stage crossing with the current single-stage one, but the button-activated signal phase it introduced has been cutting green-light time for traffic coming out of Lower Richmond Road ever since.
The funding picture, however, is far from settled. Wandsworth’s Cabinet approved the relocation on 12 October, at an estimated cost of £450,000 to be paid from the council’s own funds. That report made no mention of any contribution from TfL.
A new paper going before the council’s transport committee on Thursday tells a different story. It allocates £100,000 of TfL money for the current year and formally asks TfL to provide a further £100,000 next year — but it makes no mention of the £450,000 figure agreed in October.
Neither document makes clear what the final total cost of moving the crossing will now be. Wandsworth Council has been contacted for clarification.
If the funding is secured and the relocation goes ahead, motorists using Lower Richmond Road to reach Putney Bridge should see traffic flow improve and waiting times fall. Pedestrians, including daily commuters, shoppers and people with limited mobility or pushchairs, will face longer, interrupted crossings as they wait on the two central islands to complete their journey across the bridge.
The council has been pressing ahead with changes to how it manages its housing and streets in recent months, including a plan to stop selling off empty family-sized council homes rather than re-letting them. On the roads, drivers are also facing 19 planned closures on the M25 between Friday and Monday.
The transport committee will consider the Putney Bridge paper on Thursday.
