Another stretch of the high street will be worked on by Thames Water now from the 7th until the 10th of February – potentially creating more tail backs during busy times.

In addition to this, unfortunately yet more work is required on the railway bridge roundabout because the previous additional repair & rebuild did not meet the council’s required standards after it was replaced during bridge strengthening work.

Locals might feel history repeating itself – several years ago the same roundabout was moved several times due to long vehicles such as buses finding it difficult to manoeuvre around the raised roundabout.

Council contractor Conway Ltd will carry out these works between 9:30am and 4pm from Monday 13th February 2012 at the junction of Broad Street, High Street and Park Road. Weather permitting, the work should take one week.

During this time, traffic management will be put in place to prohibit right-turns into Park Road (from Broad Street) – instead road users should cut down The Causeway or find alternative routes. Parking restrictions will be in place nearby and cars parking in “no waiting” areas may be towed away.

The company is currently recruiting to fill a variety of positions for the new restaurant. As with all Carluccio’s, management positions include incentives such as trips to Italy as part of the package!

The reasons for the closure of Belmont Bakery have recently become clear – the owner has been fined £10,000 for hygiene breaches and ordered to pay £6,000 in costs for the case. The bakeries in this small chain have now been closed after a bankruptcy notice was served in November. Food hygiene regulations were found to be seriously breached after surprise inspection following a tip-off by a resident.

Ellis’s has left the high street and are now concentrating on private catering and cakes for special occasions. This newly launched business will launch in February. This unit won’t be empty for long though because in it’s place “Teddington Cafe” will be opening in 6 weeks.

The lawn-mower shop on Stanley Road has now disappeared as mysteriously as it opened and Midnight Movies on Kingston Road is now also closed. Oakleys furniture store looks like it now has new owners and has been rebranded “Furniture Outlet” – with mostly the same stock on sale.

“Higher Space” has opened in one of Teddington’s oldest buildings, above BoHo boutique, offering various treatments and classes including yoga, meditation, reiki healing, chakra balancing, acupuncture and various types of massages. Contact higherspace@rocketmail.com for more info or to book any treatments.

If you haven’t yet done so, you can visit the Teddington Constitutional Club as a guest. The club is a hidden gem on Stanley Road, just off Broad Street. The private club has many amenities include a large bar, lounge area, function room (for hire), pool table, dart board and three full-size snooker tables. Various events are held regular including DJ Ann Taylor’s Northern Soul Nites on Thursdays.

New architects practice Fletcher Crane have revealed plans and artists impressions for the new £450,000 community hall which will be funded through a combination of insurance money and donations.

The timber-framed design was developed with input from consultations with the Church’s congregation and local community and will meet the various requirements that include optimising natural light, security and maintenance.

The plans are now online and are attracting some comments that highlight that the striking modern design might not be in keeping with character of the surrounding area and “more like a modern office than a church hall“. If given the go-ahead, work will start on the project in June 2012.

Another artists impression has been created, this time for the replacement clubhouse for Teddington Rugby Club & Teddington Town Cricket Club – designed with the rugby club’s recent success in mind as a replacement for a much-loved but ageing building.

The fund-raising for this project is ongoing but at the last published update was well over £100,000 from various events and private donations. The club hope to achieve the remaining £150,000 through funding, grants and corporate donations.

“Craig House” on Park Road is a development by Richmond Housing Partnership of affordable houses and is still on track to be completed on time despite the theft of lead from the building site. Neighbours are encouraged to report any suspicious activities on the site after 5pm week days or any time at the weekend to the police.

Craig House on Park Road

Bulldozers last week moved in to start the demolition of the Somerset House site – this is a large development that campaigners fought against on the grounds of overcrowding in an already highly populated town vs parking spaces and other amenities.

Somerset House demolition. Photo: Avery Architect

The plans for Kingston Road Shell Station housing development are now online – a slightly amended number of dwellings, now seven three-bedroom houses and one two-bedroom flat. Residents are still finding it difficult to head to petrol stations further afield to fuel-up.

View Larger Map
Red: permission still pending or denied
Grey: permission granted & work underway or complete

Some developments never see the light of day – they are rejected or withdrawn such as this plan to add an additional floor to Causeway House for residences. It’s great to see that developments are no longer languishing whilst they awaiting funding but it cannot be denied that the population of Teddington is definitely growing!

Despite there being two bank holidays this week though, collection will only be later by one day (both this week and next).

Also as per usual Richmond Council will be collecting old Christmas Trees from Monday 9th until 21st January (on the same day as your normal waste/recycling day), ideally easily seen but not blocking the pavement and next to your recycling containers.

Note that only real Christmas trees will be collected under 3 metres tall and where all decorations, pots and stands have been removed. Last year 20,000 trees in the borough were recycled and used to make compost so it’s a good way to prevent more waste needing to be sent to landfill.

If you don’t want to wait that long you can also drop them off yourself for recycling at Squires and Wickes towards Twickenham (residents only, not commercial).

The Teddington Society has pressured SWT to update, re-paint & glaze or just replace the ageing bridge for some time now. Vince Cable has added to this pressure and has reported that work will start early next year starting with scaffolding being put up in mid February.

The footbridge has been a sore point for many years with peeling paint, missing windows and any that remain not being cleaned.

Cable: “I am told that … the work will involve full decoration and refurbishment of the footbridge both internally and externally together with replacement of the windows with ones which are easier to maintain.”

Photo: jakepjohnson

The footbridge is a particular embarrassment because it is often the first impression that visitors experience when they visit the town. Although this clearly hasn’t scared too many people away judging by the flattering “Metro Moves” article in last weeks Metro.

Teddington is described in this as “an area offering a perfect balance between town and country” along with valuable assets such as Bushy Park, good commuting, excellent schools and then a breakdown of property prices to expect. Alongside the article is an advert for Hamptons International which is to move in to the office currently occupied by Fielding Gould.

Plans for the demolition of the previous Queen Dowager pub (North Lane) and building of 5 x 4 bedroom houses have now been submitted to Richmond Council.

In addition to the loss of the Waldegrave Arms (also to be turned into residential use) this will be one less pub in the area, but one that consistently struggled to keep up with other high street competition with several different landlords and temporary management companies all trying in vain.

Recent marketing of the pub has not successfully found either a lease or freehold manager so Youngs have decided to instead apply to turn the site into residential housing. Work has already begun on the site including removing a several large trees in the beer garden.

[Update 24/12/2011] Thanks to those who have emailed this info. Q Developments have published some images from proposed plans for the residential development of the Kingston Road ex-Shell garage site. Plans include 3 x 4 bedroom family townhouses, 4 x 4 bedroom contemporary family houses and one 2 bedroom flat. Plans will be submitted to Richmond Council soon and be available online for comment.

“Three and Everything Everywhere” group (owners of T-Mobile and Orange networks) have started installing a new mast this weekend that should be operational in just over two weeks. This will cover the area affected by the removal of Somerset House mast and protests that halted a new mast installation elsewhere.

Although the company haven’t specifying the exact location, Richmond Council has been informed of plans to install a new mast on Crest House (a serviced office building) on Church Road.

This Commission is the independent public body that reviews all Parliamentary constituency boundaries in England every five years. The latest plans are for potentially substantial changes – reducing the total number of constituencies from 533 to 502 (and from 73 to 68 in London). This will ensure that each constituency has similar numbers of registered electors and to do this, existing boundaries are to be redrawn.

Proposed “Teddington and Hanworth” constituency

Locals have been feeding-back that the new name for constituency that will include Teddington (which will actually straddle Richmond and Hounslow boroughs) isn’t titled very clearly “Teddington & Hanworth”.

Written feedback is open until the 5th December so if you have any thoughts on local proposals then you can still have your say.

Some constituencies don’t quite correspond to exact London boroughs so these are grouped into sub-regions – where possible using practical groupings of geography and other associations.

Electorates by ward for proposed constituency

Phone users in the area however have been reporting issues with their phone signal over the last week, particularly with O2 and Three networks leading to loss of data service and in some cases completely no phone signal at all. One such user got in touch with Three and was told that the issue is being caused by the demolition of phone masts on Somerset House and that this will continue for at least another week yet.

The recent change of use to Travelodge’s attached side-building plans (from offices to residential) were refused due to “loss of employment land” and “increased burden on transport, health and education infrastructure and services in the locality” – all concerns expressed also about the Somerset House development. The re-submitted Garden Centre redevelopment plans have also been recently refused permission.

Artist impression of the completed development

Other local mobile phone masts have been in the news recently – peaceful protests stopped a project to install new masts on the roof of Traherne Lodge, Sutherland Grove (just off Stanley Road). Concerned residents who live in and around these flats were worried that the T-Mobile masts could affect their health.

A lorry was used to block the installation and RHP and T-Mobile agreed to postpone the project until concerns had been heard. Residents have said that no consultation had taken place and instead, a letter a week before the work was their first notice.

A project to replace an existing church flagpole with a communications mast has led to similar objections in Barnes.

[Update 03/11/2011] It appears that the Taherne Lodge mast was to replace the Somerset House one(s) in advance of this demolition. As this has been halted by t he protest, O2 and Three are now looking for alternatives to cover the area now with bad phone signal. If you have had issues with coverage  in the last few weeks you can add your details to this editable map so we can get a clearer picture of the area effected.

Fund-raising in January 2012 will enable investors to buy shares in the company and be have a chance to be involved in this pioneering renewable energy scheme.

Once live, the project should be capable of powering 600 homes and electricity will be sold back to the National Grid. According to the British Hydropower Association, Britain has enough potential hydro energy to power 1.4 million homes.

A recent Teddington Society-hosted meeting was attended by over 100 local residents who were interested in the scheme and posed some interesting questions. Working models of the Archimedean screw and presentations from project directors and The Environment Agency all helped inform attendees of the technical issues involved, environmental impacts and funding.