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A head of steam is certainly building up for Bridge repairs, especially as winter approaches, but it remains to be seen whether this will translate into action.
After much media/social media coverage, including stories on London TV news, a task force was set up on 9 September, chaired by Baroness Vere (roads minister), which includes representatives of the local councils, TfL and Network Rail (for their experience of cast iron bridges), the Port of London Authority and GLA. The task force’s project director is Dana Skelley, a chartered civil engineer, formerly director of roads for London and responsible for the London-wide roads modernisation ahead of the London Olympics and the repairs to Hammersmith Flyover.
Completing the full repair of the Bridge is currently predicted to cost £141-£163m, with stabilisation just to allow safe pedestrian and river traffic at £46m, considerably more than first envisaged. We covered the announcement of a temporary pedestrian/cycle bridge in April, which is believed to have been costed at less than £10m. Before lockdown, planning was to be sought for this during the summer with construction starting this autumn, but this has not happened. We followed up in June with our ideas about widening the pathways while work progresses elsewhere, making the bridge suitable for safe bidirectional cycling and walking; these are also clearly ideas yet to be considered given the new circumstances of complete closure.
Neither the Council nor TfL can finance costs at this level, so government support is essential. The possibility of tolls to finance the work has not been ruled out, indeed some are campaigning for this to make more funds available to speed up the work.
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Crossrail passes through the top of our borough at OPDC, where it joins HS2, the UK’s other high profile and eyewateringly expensive rail project. This, contrasted with failing local infrastructure such as the unfunded Hammersmith Bridge and now A40/A3220 viaduct, puts us in a rather unique position to examine the unfortunate nexus of government megaproject largesse, delays, structural failures, and an apparent absence of funds to maintain London’s essential local infrastructure.
Here we look at why UK railway construction costs spiral out of control, and how projects might be better planned and managed as has been achieved elsewhere, and ask if these projects are even the right transport solutions for the 21st century ?
Construction projects still typically employ analogue leaders in a digital age
Mega transport projects are almost always fraught with delays and cost overruns because of the often inappropriate governance and leadership. Inappropriate leadership – really ? Surely they’re run by Captains of Industry with huge experience and many letters after their names ? But the leadership is most often bound up with the management of high budget, and perceived high risk items, such as tunnelling with Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) – the so called “bricks and sticks” – often 80%+ of the initial budget.
Appointments like these often address last century’s problems, a bit like taking over a British Leyland production line, only to discover that it’s now staffed by strike-free German-made robots, seemingly little delayed by the pandemic, at least here in Hammersmith. These elements are significantly lower risk than they once were, because of such mechanisation and associated technologies, engineered processes, resulting in tighter controls and more repeatability “at the coalface”, even though still beloved of TV documentaries with some false jeopardy added to spice them up. Still, documentaries do serve a valuable purpose in illustrating the point – the operator at the controls of the TBM deep underground is using a computer keyboard, mouse, several screens, a desk phone, with not a shovel in sight.
To re-purpose a phrase from the last decade, these projects still typically employ analogue leaders in a digital age. It’s commonly assumed that the “backroom boys” will sort of the hidden techie stuff – keep out of the detail. WRONG! This is where the risks are nowadays, in signalling and other heavily software-based systems, sometimes poorly designed code, frequent legacy issues, often clunky low-performance or de-facto interfaces (sometimes as simple as on/off dry contacts, AKA electromechanical relays, or their software equivalent “control points”), logical “gotchas” and subsequent system integration problems.
The issue is peculiarly amplified in railways, where proven operational safety is expected, yet a lot of what could provide that – 100% reuse of existing proven designs, robot style, ironically more akin to a modern tunnelling process – allowing the project to focus solely on what must be changed, is in this environment, swamped by commercial, time, perceived risk, or political pressures to use this supplier or that solution. This results in yet another bespoke railway with the inelegant compromises that Heath Robinson would recognise. Amplifying the misconception that the project is some sort of smooth production-line shown in the plans, the term “production design” is regularly misused, whereas the earlier compromises mean the endeavour has unwittingly become a “prototype design” – the approach to building a unique prototype like Crossrail or HS2 vs. a production design for 1000, or 100,000 units a year are rather different – your scribe has done all three.
Future leaders should present their software engineering credentials at the door
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The Society’s committee is of the view that as part of the renovation work, there is a great opportunity to improve the Bridge to make it better suited to future needs, requiring more space for pedestrians and cyclists, as mentioned in our last article. Our proposal is to widen the pathways to allow safe and satisfactory bidirectional walking on one side, and bidirectional cycling on the other, so that cyclists no longer need to compete with road traffic, significantly improving safety. Currently, because of the somewhat narrow walkways, it’s not possible to safely cycle or even pass easily when walking, certainly not in a wheelchair or buggy. We think this can be done both at modest cost (certainly compared with the Garden Bridge!) and largely independently of the planned repair works, so as not to lengthen the closure. We have a brief update on repair works at the foot of this article.
The bridge’s narrow pathways for most of the span measure approximately 1.6m, widening at the pillars to approximately 1.8m, but still too narrow for bikes to pass safely (one of the reasons cyclists have to dismount currently), let alone to support social distancing needed now, and possibly in the future. We’ve now looked at the structure in a little detail, and, as shown on the photos here, the pathways are supported by simple cantilevers, apparently bolted on.
Steelwork underneath the bridge was repaired section by section in the 1970’s, and a new grid of substantial longitudinal girders replaced the originals (pierced where bridge hangers meet the deck). Historic photos (right) show the original, very much less substantial steelwork. Given the scope of the repair works, and amount of money and time to be spent on repairs, there seems little reason not to now consider the attached pathways in more detail, especially if the planned temporary bridge removes the need to keep it open during the works.
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The Hammersmith Society decided to make a £300 donation to the costs of a legal opinion from Landmark Chambers on a new planning manoeuvre, because it looks to set a precedent and become frequent in Old Oak and elsewhere.
Henry Peterson of the Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum and Grand Union Alliance – whose planning knowledge has been invaluable to local groups such as our affiliate St. Helens R.A. in the past – spotted that developers were seeking increases in height to approved planning permissions by means, not of a new planning application, but through a technical route using Sections 96A and 73 of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 to seek minor material amendment approval, to “optimise” a planning consent. The amendments in question are often by no means minor and should warrant a new planning application.
This route has been used in a permission for North Kensington Gate (South) on Scrubs Lane where the developers have sought to increase the approved height of the development from 19 to 22 storeys, and the housing units by 20%. The Society and others have opposed the application as the planning context has dramatically changed from the original permission, where intensive development was envisaged on that side of the area – now no longer part of the development plan following the exclusion of the Car Giant site – and with significant public transport additions planned via a new Overground station at Hythe Road – also no longer on the agenda, partly because of the many pressures on TfL finances.
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TfL is planning a temporary footbridge parallel to Hammersmith Bridge at the request of H&F Council, to assure pedestrian and cycle transit throughout the repair programme. The aim is to give over the entire Bridge space to the continuing works, with the result that the total closure time could be reduced by 9-12 months.
In an online webinar on 3 April (replacing planned exhibitions which had to be cancelled), representatives of TfL and LBHF set out their scheme for a prefabricated steel structure supported by 2 piers in the riverbed, on the downriver side of Hammersmith bridge. It would be the same height as the Bridge and would have no impact on river traffic. The usable deck would be 5.5m wide and there will be separation of cyclists and pedestrians (no motorbikes allowed).
Access would be via Queen Caroline Street on the Hammersmith side via gradual ramps. It would take 6-7 months to complete, and planning permission would stipulate it being in place for up to 5 years, with the aim of re-using the structure elsewhere afterwards.
Keeping foot and cycle traffic flowing has to be a welcome initiative. The one downside is that the structure would close the Thames Path on either side, meaning a detour – possibly via the rear of Riverside Studios or past the Apollo and round by Fulham Palace Road on the North side, and via Riverview Gardens on the Barnes side.
Meanwhile the pedestals, hangers, chain bearings and hanger connections are being worked on and acoustic monitoring of the Bridge structure continues. A detailed Scope of Works together with costs is expected later in the spring. The new deck will be steel, with resin on top, which will perform far better than the asphalt over boards which were alarmingly visible previously. The repairs will give 60 years of design life.
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Heathrow Expansion was temporarily derailed by the Judicial Review (JR) in February, ruling the Airports National Policy (ANPS) illegal through its non-compliance with the existing UK Climate Change Act, and by extension, the Heathrow expansion plans that relied on it. By law, the Climate Change Act commits the UK government to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 100% of 1990 levels (net zero) by 2050.
There have been many setbacks to the Airport’s expansion plans over the years from Terminal 5 onwards: claims that several top politicians would stop expansion, elongated planning enquiries, and many anti-expansion campaigns, but like the addict it appears to be, suffering Compulsive Shopping Disorder, Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) keeps coming back for just one more hit, claiming that it will then be satisfied. Like it’s maniacal namesake in Stanley Kubrick’s epic 2001 – a Space Odyssey, to accept this would be to seriously misjudge the machine.
HAL’s public response to the JR is “10,000 quality apprenticeships by 2030, New Routes and 180,000 new Jobs”, plus the inevitable appeal against the judgement. While new routes could be created easily with a new runway, they could also be created by displacing cargo and short-haul flights onto greener options, such as rail or electric vehicles (remembering that Heathrow is actually the UK’s largest cargo destination, with 1.8 million tons in 2018: up 20%, matching passenger volume increases since T5 opened). The other two claims stretch credibility beyond reason, given that Heathrow currently employs 76,000, the expansion would represent a more than doubling in size. Or perhaps that gives a clue as to the full plan ?
Heathrow doesn’t appear to be addressing the issues that most of us care about – the effect on the environment, surface transport, and the lives of residents in large parts of the South-East – all the more so having recently become used to not being woken at or before 6AM with fewer flights during the Coronavirus pandemic; Heathrow has temporarily reduced to single runway operation. In the new Greta-inspired world, HAL makes additional claims regarding sustainability, but it again stretches reason that the discredited greenwash baked into last year’s consultation could have been warmed over sufficiently to pass muster this time round.
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We attended the Policy and Accountability Committee (PAC) meeting on 9th September which quickly deteriorated into a pro/anti cycling stooshie. The two extremes expressed were roughly “build it now and just get on with it”, reflecting a populist mantra du-jour, and on the other side “they don’t ride safely or follow the Highway Code…” Significant climate change, anti-car and pro-air quality assertions were also made. Despite all of us being pedestrians at some point, and there being around 1000 cyclists per day compared with up to 1000 bus users per hour along King St, there were few speaking for the overwhelming majority.
These arguments serve to polarise the debate, create heat, yet shed little light. Our view is one of the practicality and evidence regarding safety and air quality that doesn’t support the existing plan. The evidence shows that the Broadway and Fulham Palace Road (the nearest analogy/datapoint to King St.), have higher NO2 levels than Talgarth Road, and far more than any side road. Adding a cycle lane wouldn’t reduce pollution according to TfL’s own AQ report but would slow buses to walking pace through removal of bus lanes, particularly on Hammersmith Road.
TfL’s 2018 data from their exemplar CS6 built outside their HQ, Palestra, shows that most serious accidents still happen at junctions, for which despite all the cost, environmentally damaging concrete, and negative effects on other road users shown, this type of segregated path is ineffective in protecting the cyclist. ROSPA analysis shows that 75% accidents occur at or near junctions, and a peculiarity of London are the 20% of fatal accidents with HGV’s, often turning left into cyclists, for which the mayor is making new provisions.
As shown, minor accidents are also recorded at bus bypasses, which is unsurprising. Those complaining that cars are ‘the problem’ may note that at the time this photo was taken (lunchtime, June 12th 2019) after a meeting at TfL’s HQ, only buses and commercial vehicles were causing pollution and being delayed. We all still need bin collection lorries, the post, deliveries of items that won’t fit on cargo bikes and so on. The overwhelming majority, especially elderly, very young, disadvantaged and vulnerable people need buses and bus lanes (removed for CS6 above, and planned for removal as part of TfL’s CS9). We don’t relish King Street or Hammersmith Road looking anything like this.
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