Wandsworth Council has announced further investment in improving the borough’s infrastructure over the next two years.
This brings the total capital spending on improving the borough’s infrastructure to over £185m over the current three year cycle.
An extra £17m will be spent on improving school buildings, providing new school places, and expanding facilities for children and young people.
This includes £4m to be spent expanding St Cecilia’s Church of England School in Southfields, £4m expanding Chestnut Grove Academy in Balham, £3m on providing new classroom places at Putney’s Brandlehow primary school and £2.5m expanding Ark Putney Academy. In addition the council is investing in the creation of special needs bases in two mainstream primary schools for children with autism and extending its programme of window and roof renewals plus central heating upgrades across a number of schools.
Over the next two years £7.7m will be spent improving Wandsworth’s transport infrastructure, resurfacing roads and pavements and implementing road layout improvements and traffic calming measures.
In addition the Council will contribute to the funding of a complete overhaul of the one way system to make Wandsworth Town Centre more attractive and pedestrian friendly. This is in addition to plans already in the pipeline to invest £4m in parks and open spaces and another £4m on a borough wide programme to upgrade street lighting to be more eco-friendly.
A further £3.5m will be spent providing a new bigger and better state-of-the-art library in Wandsworth town centre.
And a total of £30m will be spent in Nine Elms in the next two years to provide social and transport infrastructure for its new residents and businesses as the site is transformed into a world class residential and business quarter providing 20,000 new homes and some 25,000 permanent jobs.
The funding for these projects will come from the Council reinvesting funds received from the sale of assets, grants provided by the government and also Transport for London, as well as local infrastructure payments from developers.
In addition to this the Council has an ambitious plan to build 1,000 new affordable homes across the borough for both social rent and low cost home ownership, alongside two large regeneration housing programmes in Roehampton and Clapham Junction, plus planned investment of £150m in improving its existing homes portfolio.
The council’s finance spokesman Cllr Guy Senior said: “It is important the council continues to invest in improving the borough’s infrastructure so that it continues to meet the needs of local residents and businesses.
“Through careful and prudent management of budgets, the council has been able to add significant extra sums to an already extensive capital programme. This means that a total of £185m has now been earmarked and set aside for specific projects over the current three year cycle.
“These schemes, which range from schools and homes to roads, libraries and parks will add real value to the borough and improve the daily lives of local people.”