please empty your brain below
As you've seen from the "PRIVATE GO AWAY SCUM" signs, the residents clearly don't want it there which is why I (being the awkward git that I am) do make sure I exercise the legal right to use what footpath does exist, every now and then. What amuses me most is one of the complainants saying it will increase maintenance costs on their private road. What? A few cyclists and pedestrians? Rather amusing thought.
I'm sure when it comes to the planning meeting itself, the local councillors and non-Bewley Street residents will make their voices heard!
I read the article this morning and as I had to go to South Wimbledon and the weather was sunny, I decided I might as well kill two birds with one stone. Having been recently looking at the route of the Surrey Iron Railway (now shown on the Carto Metro map), I wanted to look at where it ran north from Colliers Wood and along the side of the Nature Park.
I also decided to have a wander along the Wandle trail from Colliers Wood to Plough Lane. The Wandle trail is another on my "to do" list. Some parts I've regularly covered, but this was a new section for me. I agree with your comments about the Park, it's a nice place to wander round in. Not for me the flat, featureless "mown grass" look that many places have.
I came across the bridge more by accident. I’d exited Wandle Park over the bridge at the north end and walked alongside it along the road until I got to the corner of Wandle Bank and Bygrove Road. Seeing there was a path along the Wandle, I followed it, and then found the bridge and a dead end! In the end, I had to retreat and go up the footpath along Denison Road.
Obviously the residents of Bewley St want this bit of the Wandle all to themsleves and would no doubt pefer it all to be blocked off. If they’re that concerned, they should just erect a 6 foot tall fence along the Bewley Road side of the path “to kep the riff-raff” out of their precious area. Berhaps build it in concrete Berlin wall style with razor wire on top :-)
Furthermore, the approach would not be allowed to interfere with "flood plain storage" so would have to be a fabricated, open structure rather than solid banking. (The cost of this was suggested by the council in an internal email of October 2008 as £75 000 and is believed to be much greater.)
As the bridge had aleady been built then, I assume that £75,000 in 2008 was just for connecting the end of the bridge to ground level.
£75,000? If you already had the land, you could probably build a whole house for less than that!
http://www.mertonpriory.org/history/6.html
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