🌻What I have learnt, so far
Do the stories I have published provide me with the answers I need?
This is the first in what may become a regular series—emphasis on may. I write with purpose and pragmatism, comfortable adjusting or abandoning the format if it doesn’t serve. Still, I suspect these reflections will be useful—not least for me.
Let’s step back.
I’ve shared fifty stories and now I want to examine them through the lens of a larger question:
How do I live my best life in the world’s greatest city during a climate emergency?
After all, that is why I started this blog.
I need to make my usual caveat. The professionalism suggested by Substack’s presentation software masks a well-intentioned novice. I understand some of what I have written is naive. I am coming from ‘a long way back’. I have no training in urbanism, city planning. No professional understanding.
I am a story teller. I am deeply curious. I’ve supported the public realm for over forty years. I am willing to put in the hours - 10,000? - in order to learn. In six months time, I expect to read some of these early posts and laugh, maybe cringe. That’s ok. I have done this before in my career, several times. It is how I learn.
I begin with the climate. We understand the basics of climate change. It is a long-term shift in Earth’s average temperature and weather. The rapid changes we now face is human-made—mostly thanks to our love affair with fossil fuels. Burning coal, oil, and gas releases greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, which traps heat like a thickening duvet around the planet.
The consequences are no longer abstract. These new weather patterns are being felt around the world including in the UK. In 2019, the same year then-Prime Minister Theresa May enshrined a legal commitment to net zero emissions in the UK by 2050, climate change closed Hammersmith Bridge.
Globally, there’s been meaningful progress addressing the climate threat. At the start of the century, scientists predicted we’d see four degrees of warming by 2100. Thanks to recent policy shifts, that figure has dropped to a projected 2.7 degrees. If all current 2030 targets and legal commitments are met, we might land at 2.1 degrees. Better. But still far from the 1.5 degrees goal that could help us avoid widespread global instability.
That was why I felt we should not restore Hammersmith Bridge, allowing use by all vehicles.
We - I - could do more. I need a list of things I could change here in Barnes and Mortlake so as to play my part in combatting climate change.
As it turns transport is a good place to start. It is the source of over a quarter of the dangerous emissions.
Transport in London is the responsibility of the Mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan. He articulated a clear vision in his 2018 transport strategy (updated in 2022) for how the city should move in twenty five years time. He wanted many more people are walking, cycling, and using public transport. Cars are particularly affected by this strategy: the Mayor wants a 27% reduction in vehicle kilometres by 2031.
Despite that, the discussion around the future of the Bridge is divisive although money - or rather the lack of it - has taken the edge off any disagreements.
Not even the Mayor through TfL, and working with the local councils in Hammersmith and Richmond can afford the £250m it would cost to fully restore the Bridge. Only the UK Government (UKG) can do that.
The Labour government has revived a steering group, the Hammersmith Bridge Task Force (HBTF). It has met once and although meant to be secret, thanks to Andy Slaughter (Labour) MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick we understand more about its process. One thing seems more likely. Their work will not be sufficiently complete in time to secure funding from in Chancellor Rachel Reeve’s upcoming Spending Review.
Curiously if you read the published infrastructure priorities of the UKG, the Mayor or the London boroughs, they have one thing in common. Hammersmith Bridge is not mentioned.
Still, transport is only one facet that will need to change in response to the worsening climate. This area is defined by a river and a brook - Thames and Beverley. The Community Bluescapes initiative, supported by a £6m investment from UKG department DEFRA, is looking to improve our resilience to, management of and recovery from Beverley Brook flooding. More on this soon.
A better transport and river management system are the means not the end. My hope is to enable an even better Barnes - it is already a wonderful place to live and work. That is why I am already contributing time and/or financial support to placemaking efforts like the Barnes Big Ponder and the Mortlake Mash-Up. Much more on these initiatives shortly, too.
The largest single building development in the area could be at Mortlake Brewery. Transport looms large in the objections by many, including me, to the proposed changes to this 500 year old site on the Thames. The result of the planning process should be known shortly.
It turns out Londoner’s have been battling traffic for as long as the brewery has been open. Holbein 0-1 Traffic.
Until recently, the traffic had prevailed. But first congestion charging then ULEZ have signalled a change of policy direction in London. This approach is in stark contrast to what you find in America, where I recently spent several weeks. Driving the epic freeways of Dallas, Texas provided a useful counterpoint to my hopes for a better Barnes. Turns out 100 years ago, the USA chose a different way to build and manage roads. We made the right choice.
I know my preference for keeping Hammersmith Bridge for cyclists and pedestrians, puts me in a minority. The size of that minority is not clear. We need better tools to fully understand into public sentiment about the issues raised in this blog.
What we do know is people have tended to react to traffic reduction schemes in a predictable manner. This allows our leaders to play an important role. There is the potential to propose radical changes and help their residents through the process of implementing them.
Meanwhile, it is reassuring to hear the HBTF are looking to create a standardised data set about the use and impact of the Bridge’s closure in South West London.
What next
This initial round-up reveals a necessarily ‘wide but shallow’ body of work which offers no answers to my questions. It will take at least another three months to start sketching out potential answers to my organising question.
I am going to publish the next edition of this report in four weeks. By then I will have decided whether or not continue with this blog. It is so easy to get caught up in the near daily routine to researching and writing. After three months, time to pause and think about the last fifty stories.
I always have a number of stories in process. The current drafts include:
is the Mayor’s transport strategy delivering after seven years?
what role protecting our natural environment in the Barnes Triangle? I attended the Richmond Council Sustainability Forum recently. Much to chew over from that meeting
what does the data available about traffic in the Barnes tell us? Hammersmith Bridge Task Force have made a (welcome) big play for agreeing a common data set
How might road-pricing which figure in the future of traffic across London?
How this blog fit with the work of the Big Barnes Ponder and Mortlake Mash-Up?
Early thinking about what would be an even better Barnes. Keeping vehicles off the Bridge is not the end, but the means to an end.
If the blog continues, I also want to increase the use of video. I am thinking about launching a YouTube channel with curated playlists.
Story indexes
The links to all the stories are in the following categories: