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When they close one Thames bridge, they do it for roadworks. When they close two it is a Walter Mitty bureaucrat seeing how much chaos he can cause in a day. But five crossings? That is war.
This spring no fewer than five crossings are to close, a sure sign of revolution in the air. South London must have had enough and is on the brink of independence. The Mayor, Boris Johnson, means to seal it off.
The closures are strategically significant. Hammersmith Bridge is to shut completely at weekends through the spring. Albert Bridge is to close altogether for at least a year. Battersea Bridge southern approach will shut off- peak until October. Waterloo Bridge is down to one lane for a year. And anyone who thinks they can sneak round east will find Blackwall Tunnel closed southbound indefinitely. All other access points will be jammed. South London is to become Britain's Gaza Strip.
All true Londoners have a south London past. There they experienced their first flat, their first date, their first taste of city life, with nothing too exotic. They dallied in Clapham, flirted with Dulwich, tested their mortgage muscle on Stockwell. (I lived awhile in Upper Norwood.) South London is the kind of place, as was said of George Bush, that “reminds every woman of her first husband”.
In a wider sense, south London is a provincial city hidden inside a metropolis. It does not really begin until a hundred yards south of the Thames, allowing north London outrageously to “claim” the Southbank Centre, the Old Vic and Tate Modern. Beyond the map shows only “here be dragons”. From the top of the London Eye the view north is of familiar landmarks. To the south is just city, endless city, stretching as far as the eye can see to Crystal Palace.
South London has always been a place of ill-concealed rage. Its politics have been belligerent. Southwark Labour Party smashed old Walworth to the ground in the Sixties and built slabs of overpowering ugliness. Lambeth was a legend of corruption and incompetence. Wandsworth was so eccentric that it has voted Conservative since time out of mind. Croydon even once applied for city status.
Mention south London in political company and eyes glaze before you can say Brockwell Park. Government has always treated it with contempt. Elephant and Castle was given the most inhuman urban renewal scheme in Britain. Through-roads compare to those in Mexico City. In an arc from Woolwich through Catford and Tulse Hill to Wandsworth there is hardly a dual carriageway let alone a motorway, while the South Circular is a national joke. Compare it with north London's multi-laned road network.
The stately heights of Greenwich and Blackheath never receive the attention lavished on Hampstead or Highgate. The delights of Dulwich and its gallery receive few visitors from north of the river. Crystal Palace would have made an ideal Olympics athletics track — given it is needed for just two weeks. Instead Stratford gets the billions and the lovely greens and trees of Greenwich are raped by the Olympic equestrians.
After the war there was still a working canal system from Surrey docks running down to Camberwell and Peckham. This network should have been restored as a recreational corridor, as was the Grand Union Canal through Islington and Camden. Instead health and safety demanded not just the closure of the Surrey Canal but its complete filling in. Such pleasures were too good for south London.
Back in the Sixties, Croydon demolished its town centre and rebuilt it with towers and slabs, hoping to be the prototype suburban business centre. Look at it today, compared with Canary Wharf. As for transport, south London subsoil was thought to be quicksand and therefore impossible for prestige tunnels. Its surface trains still chug north on viaducts over what were once swamps. Look at the Underground map.
When in the early Eighties London Transport proposed running a new Tube line from north-east London down through Chelsea to Battersea and Wandsworth, the idea was swept aside. Government said that new money should go on the Jubilee line, the Docklands Light Railway and Crossrail. South London could go by bus. When the new high-speed Channel Tunnel link was meant to come to Waterloo, central government diverted it to St Pancras.
This quiet, introverted city within a city has clearly lost its temper, and rightly so. It has no mayor of its own, no governor, no spokesman. It loses every battle. Johnson has clearly received intelligence that it is set on rebellion and is bent on pre-emptive suppression.
He is using his favourite “improvised explosive device”, the roadwork. Like the emperor Augustus, who found Rome a city of stone and left it a city of marble, Johnson found London a city of road holes and will leave it a city of road chasms. He has turned roadworks into a counter-insurgency strategy.
The simultaneous closure of five Thames bridges is divide and rule. The Mayor means to push Londoners into two camps. He is the sort of man who partitioned Yugoslavia, split Czechoslovakia and separated Cyprus. He wants passports at the Vauxhall gate of Pimlico.
Johnson may live in north London but he should not trifle with the south. If you prick us, Southwark cries with Shakespeare, “do we not bleed … if you wrong us, do we not revenge?” The Mayor should remember that his office is made of glass. And it sits, whatever he may think, in south London.
Reader views (22)
What a seriously uniformed set of comments from many on here. I totally agree that investment in preserving these crossings is essential, and new environmental options such as trams would be great - but by doing all of these closures at the same time will be a massive economic impact on local businesses and ordinary low paid people, nurses, teachers, cleaners etc who will not be able to get to work unless they set off an hour earlier. The moaners on here suggesting by inference that everyone in london and south east earns a fortune, drives a big car etc and suggests we should stop whining are just displaying their ignorance of what it is like to travel north of the river to south of the river in london - particularly in the west of london.
- James Crawley, West London, 12/02/2010 10:12
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Steve Jones, it's the opposite I'm afraid. The South-East is like a black-hole for the nation's money.
People from the South-East work no harder than anywhere else, but because the government is based there it gets an unlimited amount of attention and lavish amounts of taxpayer's money, whilst the rest of the country gets ignored.
- Robert, Yorkshire, 11/02/2010 21:32
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- Paul R, Blackpool, Lancashire - London and the South east produce most of the wealth of this country. That's why we get paid more attention (and pay more tax). If you lot outside the South East worked as hard as us maybe you'd get noticed as well. It's odd that you're reading a London paper though when you seem to hate London. Or is it just jealousy that you can't afford to live in this vibrant world city?
- Steve Jones, London, 10/02/2010 23:58
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Pity they all have to be done at once but bridges as old and preservation-worthy as these need maintenance. Why not close them to cars altogether ? South Londoners should celebrate the excellence of their overground train service, which is far superior to that north of the Thames eg trains every 10 minutes from East Croydon to London Bridge and Victoria, taking only 13 minutes.
If you're looking for a cross-river link that seriously needs attention, have a go at Thameslink - a vital north-south service whose performance is a national disgrace.
- Richard Shaw, Pinner, UK, 10/02/2010 22:34
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Oh stop moaning! What about East London? I live in Hackney Wick and feel fenced in. Many roads out are closed because of the Olympics. The buses were stopped for most of last year. They’re running again now but with severe delays becuase of multiple major roadworks in the City. The trains don’t run at weekends. The replacement bus takes hours because of roadworks in Hackney and Stratford. The whole of East London is a gridlock! And soon the trains will shut for months on end. While many bus routes have diversions/delays because of so many roadworks. And the East London line has been shut for years. The Jubilee and Central are closed our end most weekends. I could go on forever... See you’re not alone!
- Allan, hackney, 10/02/2010 17:43
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If any reasonable person gives a thought for South London,
They would be 'crying from every available roof-top' in support of the CROSS-RIVER TRAM PROJECT.
Millions of Pounds had already been spent on detailed Pre-Planning, when BORIS Cancelled it - JUST at the Point, when CROSS-RIVER TRAM was about to Go-Ahead!!!
Thus, Losing a Fantastic Scheme:
Linking KINGS CROSS, ST PANCRAS EURO-STAR, EUSTON, WATERLOO, the now-in-process Regeneration of ELEPHANT & CASTLE, onto PECKHAM; WESTWARDS to Lambeth and BRIXTON.
FAST, FREQUENT, MODERN, High-Passenger Carrying-Capacity,ON-STREET Accessibility, C R O S S - R I V E R
SALVATION for SOUTH LONDON'S currently neglected, in-adequate Transport LINKS.
BORIS - DON'T WASTE THE MONEY THAT'S BEEN SPENT:
OR A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY FOR SOUTH LONDON !
- Roger Bailey, GROVE PARK, 10/02/2010 17:34
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Sub-standard soil? The historical reason for more underground stations north of the river is that while the bishops of Lambeth and Southwark both felt a social duty to let overground trains run right to the river, the wealthy land owners in Mayfair/Bloomsbury et al refused to let these 'eyesores' run through their land - hence Paddington/Euston/Liverpool Street etc all live on top of what is now the Circle Line. Once the underground had been invented - that was a different matter. And Paul R from Blackpool - why are you reading a local paper from a cesspit?
- Simon Goddard, London, 10/02/2010 16:16
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This article is so true... we all pay taxes though people who live in South London do not get treated in the same way.
- Joanne, Clapham, 10/02/2010 15:39
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The Yugoslavia comment couldn't have been more off. If the author had the time to check his history he would know that the former country and otherwise nation-building misadventure known as Yugoslavia was primarily a Great Powers (read Great Britain, France, etc.) exercise in gerrymandering for external political gain. The splitup was inevitable and not anything vaguely like closing a bridge. Most countries wanted out and voted in referendums to quit Yugoslavia (then already at version 3.0).
- Jim Kosem, London, UK, 10/02/2010 13:54
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It's also thanks to Boris, that the extension of the Croydon Tramlink to Crystal Palace was stopped.
- Stephen Carleton, South London, 10/02/2010 12:51
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"Wandsworth was so eccentric that it has voted Conservative since time out of mind." - might have something to do with the fact that it has always held the lowest, or second-lowest, council tax rates in the country - currently half the national average - whilst still providing better services than most. but hey, don't let that dissuade you from you little red rant.
Also, don't you think it was *ever so slightly* over the top to compare bridge closing to Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Cyprus...?
- Aidan, London, 10/02/2010 11:56
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Paul R: this article was published in the London Evening Standard, which is local press. It is therefore perfectly acceptable for it to be focused on local (London) issues. And as you think London is a 'cess-pit', you seem to have some sympathy for the views expressed by the author...
- Ros, London, 10/02/2010 11:13
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What the heck is a 'true' Londoner? My family have lived in the East End for generations and most of us have barely put a foot on the other side of the river. What idiocy.
- Wodger, East Ham, 10/02/2010 10:38
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The stalled Cross River Tram is a very good example as it would have gone through some of the highest areas of deprivation in western europe.
Could have cut pollution and provided an alternative to the northern line in central london, instead boris wants further extensions of the tube, which only feeds more people into the congested network and increases problems when the northern line is closed for building work or strikes. talk about putting all your eggs in one basket!
- Lip, Peckham/Camberwell, London, 10/02/2010 10:15
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Do look at the Underground Map as suggested, but the chances are that because of its stylised design you will probably not immediately notice how skewed the distribution is, unless you count the stations, with 7 times as many stations north of the river (235) as south of the river (35).
However it is not just government not being even handed with funds for transport but Boris himself who has supported the legalised theft by Transport for London of the funding for the South London Line, which is the inner south Londoner's substitute for the tube, thus forcing its closure in 2 years time.
- Mike Colvin, South London, United Kingdom, 09/02/2010 22:56
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Do look at the Underground Map as suggested, but the chances are that because of its stylised design you will probably not immediately notice how very skewed the distribution is, unless you count the stations. There are 7 times as many stations north of the river (235) as south of the river (35).
However it is not just central government who is not being even handed with funds for transport, but Boris himself who has supported the legalised theft by Transport for London of the funding for the South London Line, which is the inner south Londoner's substitute for the tube, thus forcing its closure in 2 years time.
- Mike Colvin, South London, United Kingdom, 09/02/2010 21:20
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But why the surprise? does anyone really think johnson is in any way going to get things moving in London, be it north or south? What background did this Buffoon have before conning the London electorate into voting him in as mayor? None, to be precise, as he is proving every hour he is in office. Being an occassional presenter on a satire programme like {Have I Got News for You] hardly qualifies him to run a major city like London.
- Jimmy, London England, 09/02/2010 17:29
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Conspiracy theorists will be working overtime on this one!!! My favourite is that it is all a ploy to overcome resistance to a new Thames crossing.
- W R Stevenson, London SE26, 09/02/2010 17:18
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As one of the vast majority of the British population who live outside of London altogether all I can say is shut up and quit whining. Try living outside of that cess-pit of a capital for a while and find out exactly what it is like to be sidelined. As far as the government and the press seem to be concerned London (or the south-east at the very least) *is* Britain.
- Paul R, Blackpool, Lancashire, 09/02/2010 14:35
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Here here - not to mention Boris' planned closures of train lines, his scrapping of investment (the now cancelled cross-river tram is one of many examples) and the ridiculous planned early shutting of the northern line.
- Liam, London, 09/02/2010 13:44
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Bit over the top isn't this? What it simply confirms is the appalling and totally unacceptable state of London roadworks, which despite Boris's promises just seem to get worse and worse.
- Dave Markham, London, UK, 09/02/2010 13:19
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As the late Alan Clarke once said 'Something is very rotten at the top'. The area around both exits of the Blackwall tunnel have been a disgrace for over 40 years -always under construction and yet never finished.In France we would have had a revolution if tax payers money was squandered in such a way. With the freedom of information act, will someone please investigate just what is going on and who is benefitting from this shambles. Certainly not the UK tax payer. D Smith, Nice
- David Smith, Nice, Côte d'Azur, France, 09/02/2010 11:32
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