A simple web app that uses real-time train data to estimate when the White Hart Lane level crossing is closed.

The forecast barrier opening and closing for the next half hour is represented by a timeline.

That’s it.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Notes and thoughts

Simple, elegant and useful.

And courtesy of a local group,

Provided for the community by Saint Michael and All Angels.

Barnes2050 has featured the level crossing before. Research in autumn 2025 revealed the profile of drivers who leave their engines running while waiting for the barriers to reopen. (TLDR; Seldom cars or local) This app might encourage a few more people to switch off while they wait.

There is a bigger lesson here too.

One of the forces likely to shape Barnes between now and 2050 is the growing role to be played by data in managing shared space. Barnes2050 has argued that this will affect far more than roads and bus lanes. Better decisions increasingly depend on accurate, timely information being available to everyone.

The White Hart Lane level crossing app is a small but powerful example of what that future could look like: local people using public data to solve everyday problems.

More please.

If you find the app useful, consider making a small donation as a way of saying thank you.

.

In an ideal world, the service would connect Barnes with Hammersmith’s Tube and bus interchanges and with Charing Cross Hospital, the everyday destinations that matter most when you are older, less mobile or unwell

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

This post is one of a pair.

The first made the case for keeping Hammersmith Bridge open to pedestrians and cyclists, but private cars, permanently. You can find all the discussions about Hammersmith Bridge on Barnes2050 here.

This second post is about the awkward part: how to manage the worst consequences of that change — whether it lasts a few years or becomes a generation-long settlement — for those who cannot use the bridge as it is currently configured.

When discussing Hammersmith Bridge, it is worth remembering there are broadly three ways forward for this historic landmark:

This proposal addresses the second option, enabling the provision of some public service vehicles.

The proposal

The Barnes Village Bugle explained the challenge of using the Bridge currently,

Currently, Hammersmith Bridge has a maximum weight limit of 1.5 tonnes. That’s because there is concern that heavy vehicles put a concentrated load on weak points of the bridge.

A car or van puts most of its weight through four small tyre contact patches into a narrow strip of deck, creating high local stresses.

Pedestrians and cyclists weighting cumulatively more than 1.5 tonnes are allowed to cross the bridge and that’s because a crowd of people spreads the same or greater total weight across many metres of deck, which the structure is designed to carry.

So, pedestrians can walk across safely but even a single car with one driver crossing the bridge solo is deemed to be too dangerous a stress for the bridge to withstand ..

Indeed Boat Race crowds remain banned from the Grade II*-listed sructure on race day.

The opening, then, is obvious: if heavy, concentrated loads are the problem, the opportunity is a smaller, lighter form of public transport that can operate safely — and predictably — within whatever limits the structure can bear.

These ideal vehicles are often described as pods, though they are closer to a very small shuttle bus. They carry many fewer than a typical normal London single-decker bus, sometimes only four people. They have an electrical power unit. Often they are automated.

Their size means they are much lighter in weight, although as will become clear, this remains an issue. Unsurprisingly, pods are cheaper to buy and run than a bridge.

The campaigning group, Possible was the first to suggest pods. The artwork below - taken from their website - shows how the service might look when operational.

(Full disclosure, this was the project that set this blog in motion. By 2020 I felt the Bridge should remain open to pedestrians and cyclists, but a better mobility option was needed for those most disadvantaged by the loss of bus services. Possible offered the first credible path forward. I still donate to them.)

Possible envisaged pods running every two to three minutes, carrying up to 10 passengers. That’s roughly 250 passengers an hour. In their ideal model, the service would be part of the Transport for London network, usable with Oyster, with the Bridge providing generous walking space, protected cycling, and a dedicated pod lane.

Possible’s pods were also autonomous, based on those from Ohmio, a New Zealand company whose vehicles have been demonstrated and deployed in multiple settings internationally.

Ohmio look set to provide the technology proposed by a new campaign group, Barnes Hammersmith Electric Transit Company (BHELT) which was launched in June 2026. BHELT aim is to promote the idea of bringing lightweight, autonomous electric pods across Bridge.

Ohmio formed part of the 2026 Solihull and Coventry Automated Links Evolution (SCALE) project that operated self-driving, all-electric shuttles on a 7 km route linking Birmingham International station, the NEC, and Birmingham Business Park.

There have been a number of pod trials in the UK,

• Inverness - Airport auto-pod pilot, 2024

• Greenwich - the GATEway Project, 2018

• Milton Keynes and Coventry - UK Autodrive pods, 2018

These examples typically involve smaller pods than those in Possible’s illustration. Many carry four passengers. Aurrigo has been another player in Milton Keynes, with repeated trials and deployments.

Meanwhile, Waymo and Wayve have signalled intentions to trial autonomous taxi services in London in 2026.

One pod system has been operating for years: Heathrow Pod Parking. It transfers passengers around the Terminal 5 area via a dedicated 3.8 km guideway. The vehicles are battery-powered and driverless, carrying up to four passengers plus luggage. It is a premium service — and priced accordingly.

This proposal is not about novelty. It is about everyday life: helping neighbours get to the places they need, without turning a car-free bridgeinto a bridge that only the fit can properly use.

The Barnes Bugle made the point in practical terms:

If [these smaller pods] took passengers from the last bus stop in Castelnau to Hammersmith Tube, they could carry between 40-50 people per hour in each direction in round trips varying from 14 to 8 minutes depending on how conservative or optimistic you might be about boarding speed, charging time etc.

This proposal also sits within a wider Manifesto for a better Barnes: a collection of ideas grounded in local insight, climate responsibility and a people-first approach. You’ll find the full list of proposals, along with the thinking behind them, throughout this section.

Case for change

The case for pods is sixfold

• The truly disadvantaged need help

• They need help now

• There is a low-cost solution

• It is a reversible

• London could learn from the experience

• We need to properly test the idea of a new Barnes by 2050
  
  

(Truly) Disadvantaged need help

Hammersmith Bridge closed to motor traffic in 2019. Since then, residents, political leaders and local media have repeatedly highlighted the impact on those who cannot walk or cycle across the river.

Possible reported,

Over half of residents in lower income areas of Roehampton do not have access to a car, and a third of residents in some parts of Barnes.

North Barnes has one of the oldest populations in London; almost a fifth of residents are pensioners who may be less able to use active travel to get around.

Our focus groups with Age UK in Barnes found that reaching appointments at Charing Cross hospital has become more arduous than before for some of Barnes’ most vulnerable residents.

Nick Miani makes similar points in wide-ranging essay on teh Bridge,

Elderly and disabled residents have been significantly disadvantaged, having lost direct bus routes across the river to Hammersmith with its step-free Tube access, retail outlets and major hospital. Low-income residents have been disproportionately affected. They’re less likely to own cars or bikes, cannot afford taxi detours, and have lost affordable public transport options.

The Barnes Community Association (BCA) recognised the need early, trialling a tuk-tuk service in the immediate aftermath of the Bridge closure.

Since then, nothing.

Barnes2050 has not found a definitive study quantifying the number of people now struggling to cross the bridge on foot or by bike. A rough estimate1 suggests the number could be in the hundreds each day.

Providing essential transport for those without alternatives is meant to be the starting point of public policy, not an optional extra. Mayor of London commitments on inclusion make the principle clear.

A lightweight shuttle service would be both a tactical fix and a strategic signal: this is a city that intends to work for everyone, not only the mobile and confident.

One note on language. ‘Truly’ matters.

Many people will say they are disadvantaged by the bridge closure. Many are not. They have been inconvenienced — often temporarily — and they have adjusted.

Official data obtained through FOI requests and reflected in council discussions suggest that up to 9,000 daily car trips have disappeared from south-west London. Traffic evaporation in the jargon.

That is progress, and it aligns with the direction of the Mayor’s transport strategy.

Pods may benefit some of the formerly car-dependent too — perhaps even nudging a few away from driving — but the moral case begins with those who have no good alternative.

Help is needed now

The mobility problem has existed since 2019.

Seven years and counting.

Even if funding is secured to restore the Bridge, Fleur Anderson MP (Labour, Putney) has suggested that won’t happen until 2035 at the earliest. That would be another ten years.

Sixteen years, all in.

And that assumes the restored Bridge receives funding in 2026.

It is entirely possible this stalemate continues if the UK government - the only credible funder at the necessary scale - defers a final decision, again.

In that case, the struggle for some could go on for many more years yet.

The denial of a basic public transport option has been a choice — or, more precisely, a series of choices — by politicians across parties at local, regional and national levels. They have repeatedly chosen not to make it available.

Oddly, given the criticism TfL has received in Barnes, TfL has at least adjusted other services since 2019 to reflect demand and disruption.

After the 2026 local elections, the newly constituted borough councils should meet with the Mayor of London and TfL and agree a practical funding route for a time-limited pod pilot.

Low cost solution

It is easy to establish the need for this service. Easy to say such a solution solves immediate issues and aligns with current strategy, but at what cost?

It turns out, not a lot.

For context the Lower Thames Crossing, downstream, is forecast to cost upto £10billion.

The most recent estimate for restoring Hammersmith Bridge is £250m (2024 prices)

Stabilising the Bridged has cost about £48m to date, February 2026. Creating new bike and pedestrian routes

By comparison Possible estimated the cost of setting up and running a larger pods could be around £10m (2023 prices).

Even better, Nick Maini’s second essay about the Bridge suggest how this service might be funded by The City Bridge Foundation.

A workable public transport link for those without alternatives is available in principle. It is not free but nor is it remotely in the same order of magnitude as rebuilding, retrofitting, or waiting.

Reversible solution

Lightweight vehicles offer another advantage: reversibility.

If this or a future government funds a full restoration, the pod pilot can be wound down and any dedicated infrastructure removed. The pods are an operational layer, not a permanent reconstruction.

This does not need to be a temporary service in spirit but it can be temporary in practice, if the politics finally move.

London could learn from this

Barnes should be a living laboratory for twenty first century life in London. Its distinctive circumstances means it a near-perfect environment for pilots and trials.

The Thames frames the peninsula and creates natural boundaries for experiments. Its community is diverse — broadly well-off, with lesser-known pockets of hardship — which means trials can produce results that actually travel.

Barnes also has form. Whether it was the Wetland Centre or more recently Kitson Road, the area has been open to innovation.

The Mayor of London and Richmond council should look at what might be learnt from this area.

More smaller buses generally making connections within and beyond the peninsula?

Very small electric buses zipping across the Bridge?

The pod service is not a stopgap. It should be a live test of one aspect of future mobility beyond zone 1.

Political leaders should treat this pod shuttle service as a time-limited trial with measurable outcomes. If it works, expand it. If it doesn’t, close it.

But not trying at all is the least defensible option.

Build for when - 2019 or 2026 or 2050?

Local politicians, judged by their actions and words, appear fixated on two futures.

Return to 2019.

Lock in 2026.

The 2019 restoration would see at least 20,000 car returned to the Bridge, providing it was toll-free.

The 2026 lock-in proects the acres of asphalt south of the Bridge. A tribute in tarmac to political stalemate

But there is a third option.

Barnes deserves leaders willing to explain, in plain language, what it might look like to build for the future. How this would look, feel, work and belong 2050 and what trade-offs that implies.

All major infrastructure should be designed with one eye on the medium term: 25 years plus. £250 million counts as major, by any measure.

The challenges and opportunities of the mid-twenty-first century will be as distinct from today as today is from the nineteenth century rail era or the motorway dreams of the 1960s.

As Solihull Council put it while framing its own autonomous vehicle work:

From bikes to autonomous buses — how we move in the future is likely to be different to how we move today.

This blog exists to imagine that future in a grounded way: not steam-punk fantasy, not sci-fi escapism, but practical, lived possibilities on a peninsula organised around people rather than cars.

Local political leaders need to fess up to the real choice - 2019, 2026 or 2050?

A pod pilot would be one step towards a climate-ready Barnes for 2050. It may not work. But we will not know until we try.

Practical considerations

There are two major problems with this proposal - weight and will.

Two governing groups can unlock these.

Since Hammersmith Bridge was opened to pedestrians and cyclists only in 2019, Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) council says it has spent £54 million keeping the bridge safe and preparing it for restoration. That includes £37 million on stabilisation and continued safe operation, and £17 million on pre-restoration works, according to the council’s 2026–30 capital programme. The council says the Department for Transport has contributed £13 million and TfL £2.9 million towards that total, although DfT has separately said it has provided £17 million, and TfL says it has also spent £16.7 million on assessments, feasibility work, inspections, surveys and design. H&F council has maintained a 1.5tonnes weight restriction on safety grounds.

As matter stands, none of the services described above would be able to use the Bridge. Maini believes,

The most likely bridge-specific challenges such as weight certification, vibration testing, structural approval are procedural requirements, not engineering barriers.

He quotes H&F council reply to a Freedom of Information request as saying,

Following the Stabilisation Works, consideration will be given to the interim reopening of the road carriageway to special vehicle(s) which, at the time of writing, would be restricted to 3T GVW.

(LBHF Freedom of Information request, 16 May 2022)

In other words: there is a pathway, at least in principle, for limited special vehicles, though H&F council has not indicated if or when that consideration will be concluded.

The UK government remains the only actor capable of providing the public funds required for full restoration. The Department for Transport has contributed almost £13 million since 2020. The Roads Minister has also said Hammersmith Bridge would be a good candidate for the new Structures Fund. More detail is expected soon.

Two other government bodies matter, but differently.

Richmond council has no formal control in this discussion despite the fact, as Possible highlighted in April 2024, that

Data shows that (Hammersmith borough) residents rarely drove over Hammersmith Bridge prior to its closure.

Like H&F council they want the Bridge fully restored, although some choose to present this as restoring ‘blue lights and buses’.

The Mayor of London has made clear, once again in February 2026, in his 2026/27 budget that restoring Hammersmith Bridge is not a priority. Through Transport for London, the Mayor has provided £2.9 million as of December 2024 towards the Bridge’s upkeep.

Local elections in May, 2026 may be complicating the process to resolve this. Once over, the leader of H&F council and the Secretary of State for Transport, need to end this stalemate. The 2026 tarmac lock-in can and should end.

As Private Eye said,

The money and the technology are available to bring Hammersmith Bridge into the 21st century, retaining its 19th-century style, with lightweight public transport alongside people on foot and with bicycle

Updates to this page

This proposal is a work in progress. It be reviewed and improved on a regular basis.

The original version of this article was published on 12 August 2025. You can read it here. This story was last updated on 03 March 2026 to include the following:

• more detail on other pod services across the UK

• estimate of how residents struggle crossing the Bridge in 2026

• a recast case for change incorporating new data, especially from Nick Maini whose work on Hammersmith Bridge still represent the best single summaries of the broader situation in 2026

There was a further update on 16 June 2026 to include details about BHELT.

You can find all the current proposals listed here.

There’s more analysis from Barnes2050 about a potential pod service on Hammersmith Bridge, here.

Why this matters:

• It is worth remembering, if the Met. Office long-term forecast for Richmond borough proves accurate, more challenging weather will become more common. Not exceptional. Not distant. Part of the pattern.

Climate - Scotland’s emissions fall but progress is slowing

Disappointing news from north of the border, reported by BBC News.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Transport - UK Government wants more short journeys to be walked, wheeled or cycled

The ambition is the Third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, published by Active Travel England.

Two targets stand out:

• 55% of short journeys or stages in towns and cities to be walked, wheeled or cycled by 2035

• at least 60% of children in England to be walking or cycling to school within a decade.

The government has committed £4.5 billion of investment over the next five years to deliver 5,000 new routes and 10,000 safer crossings by 2030

The BBC has this useful summary.

Why this matters:

• If those shorter journeys by car could be replaced with walking and cycling … well, everyone would be better off. Including other road users: there would be a huge reduction in congestion. In 50% of car journeys are under 3km

• Barnes2050 has tried to calculate what percentage of current trips in Barnes under five miles are made by walking or cycling. This is an assessment, because there is no simple like-for-like dataset. The best estimate is 51%. That compares favourably with the current England average of 43%, but remains short of the UK Government’s 55% target for 2035. Barnes2050 will publish the calculation separately.

Transport - Council offering cargo bike vouchers

Residents and businesses in Richmond borough have been offered vouchers to make it easier to experience cargo bikes.

The Try Before You Bike vouchers - see what they’ve done there? - are generous.

Residents can receive £150 per month for 12 months, a total value of £1,800, towards the cost of purchasing a cargo bike.

Local businesses are being £300 per month for six months for cargo bikes, also worth £1,800, to support greener deliveries and operations.

Councillor Alexander Ehmann, Joint Deputy Leader of Richmond council and Chair of the Transport and Air Quality Committee described these new offers as ‘ .. the most generous in London’.

You can apply for a voucher can here.

Why this matters:

• Richmond council wants the borough to be the country’s ‘ bike capital’

  And progress is visible, at least from your correspondent’s saddle. Both private and communal bikes are a common sight now.

• They are good for their owners and other cyclists. As the council says,

Cargo bikes offer a practical, low-cost and sustainable alternative to car travel, helping to reduce congestion and improve air quality across the borough.

• But they are also expensive. New electric cargo bikes start from £2,500 and can rise to over £7,000. CycleSprog explains what the extra investment secures. The chance to reduce this cost by £1,800 is meaningful.

Transport - Richmond’s pothole problems

The Times (£ paywall) reported UK government data showed,

London councils make up many of the ten worst overall performers with Richmond upon Thames in second place, followed by Wandsworth and then Merton.

Transport - Induced demand still a thing? Yup

The core problem established… over 30 years ago still exists: building extra road capacity to solve congestion from increasing traffic is likely to induce extra road traffic, which receives benefits itself but causes additional delays and environmental costs to others.

Phil Goodwin discussing induced demand.

Why this matters:

• Were vehicles to be restored to Hammersmith Bridge, it would be the same as building a new road. More road, more cars. Induced demand. More cars probably means more congestion.

• Will this be reflected in the UK Government’s assessment of bids for the Stuctures Fund?

Transport - Robotaxis in London and lessons from California

London does not yet have a commercial robotaxi service operating without a safety driver.

The UK Government has been preparing the legal framework for autonomous vehicles. Limited commercial services are expected to begin during the second half of 2026.

Uber is already asking its customers in London through its App if they want to use driverless cabs. Aurelia Foster reports for BBC London News.

London is at least a year behind some American markets where driverless AV taxies are more established. Waymo for example operate in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles. That is why research from the USA matters.

The latest insight is not reassuring. BikeIsBest reports that a little over half of all miles travelled by driverless Waymo taxis in California - 54% - carried a passenger. That’s according to data from the first thousand days of the service’s operation, since August 2023.

Why this matters:

• BikeIsBest explains,

With robotaxis coming to cities around the world, we should be asking: what are these vehicles adding to the transport mix, and do the benefits outweigh the disbenefits?

• And,

This analysis, published in Transport Findings, used data submitted to Californian officials, underlining the importance of such data in cities’ ability to assess these services’ impact on congestion - rather than simply being beguiled by the tech.

Infrastructure - Another bridge, another council, another bid

This is not a story about Hammersmith & Fulham’s bid for UK Government funding to restore Hammersmith Bridge.

This, from myLondon, is about Richmond council’s bid for funding for Richmond Bridge in order

.. to prolong the life of London’s oldest surviving bridge over the River Thames.

This Grade 1 bridge was completed in 1777. London Museum is quoted as saying this is

the oldest surviving bridge in London.

The council stressed the bridge is in ‘a reasonable state’. £2m is required to maintain its condition and extend its longevity.

Economy - This is how to do a makeover

Finally, this is captivating.

Olympic Studios are transforming their Club Room. Look at the attention to detail in this short film.

You can read back-issues of this take on the recent news relevant to future Barnes here.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Notes and thoughts

This is Barnes. In late Spring. Young swans.

As the posters explain, the cygnets divide their time between the Pond, Green and Brook. At this stage, their world is barely four hundred metres across. Soon enough they will head for the Thames. They will migrate down the High Street — Transport for London, take note: they cross where you are currently planning a turning circle — and onwards to the Thames.

Their appeal, beyond the obvious, is how they mark time.

A small fluffy bundle of time.

Not so long ago, time was a critical part of my professional life. Margins were measured - literally - in thousandths of seconds. World class engineers sweating over differences so small most people would never notice them.

Now, time is marked differently.

The arrival of the cygnets each spring is one of those markers.

Time feels less pressing than it once did. But more valuable.

Part of that value comes from seeing the difference between the urgent and the important. Not choosing one over the other. Understanding the trade-offs. Adjusting the overall balance of the two, a little at a time.

My own sense of what matters comes back to the generational challenges explored through Barnes2050.

I keep coming back to that Carl Sagan quote.

So the arrival of these cygnets each spring serves as an annual reminder of why this project exists.

A small fluffy bundle of time.

Since the £1 billion fund was announced in June 2025, supporters of restoring vehicles to Hammersmith Bridge have viewed it as the most plausible source of future funding.

Their expectations rose further earlier this year when the Roads Minister described the bridge as a ‘good candidate’ for investment.

The full statement from H&F council to The Bugle reads,

We have completed a pre‑submission form for the government’s Structures Fund.

This is a requirement before compiling a full bid submission.

The detailed costs and scope of a bid to the fund will now be worked up with the support of expert technical advisers appointed by DfT and subject to agreement from the Cabinet.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

How the bids will be assessed

The Structures Fund provides grant funding to support the capital costs of repairing or replacing local highway structures.

The UK government’s guidance on the fund includes a blank Word document for all pre-submissions - go on, you know you know want to - as well as a ‘user guide to the economic toolkit’.

This explains why and how the Fund asks councils, or Transport for London, to compare two futures: fund the project, or do nothing. Over several decades — typically up to 60 years — the model estimates the difference between those futures.

If no intervention takes place, what diversions follow? Which vehicles are affected, for how long, and at what cost in lost time, fuel, congestion, maintenance, air quality, noise and carbon?

The Treasury converts those impacts into pounds. Time, carbon, noise, reliability and maintenance costs are all assigned a monetary value.

Having translated future costs and benefits into today’s money, officials calculate a benefit-cost ratio. Whitehall estimates the value created over the life of a project and then asks how many pounds of benefit taxpayers receive for every pound invested.

The result is a common currency. Officials can compare repairing, say, a bridge in south west London with a viaduct in Cumbria, a tunnel in Wales or a sea wall in Cornwall, and judge which project delivers the greatest value for public money.

Notes and thoughts

Earlier this year Barnes2050 identified five questions about the Structures Fund, several of which The Bugle addresses. At this stage, the key question is, what project is being proposed by H&F council?

There are three broad options going forward for Hammersmith Bridge:

H&F council statement, quoted by The Bugle, talks about the ‘detailed costs and scope of a bid’ without explicitly saying the objective is full restoration.

That matters.

The Structures Fund is a repair fund, not a policy statement. A bid could theoretically be made in support of any of the three broad futures outlined above.

The most important question, then, is not whether H&F council intends to apply for funding. It is what outcome that funding is intended to deliver.

Even the third option above, keeping the Bridge as it is today, is not cost-free. Further work will be required to maintain the newly restored Bridge. Until now H&F council has been unwilling to confirm the cost of this.

Based on our experience to date - think Hammersmith Bridge Task Force - we may not know the answers to these questions until later this year, given the process deadlines:

• Draft bid submission: Friday, 19 June

• Final application deadline: Monday, 3 August

• Funding decisions: autumn, this year

• Project completion deadline: March 2030

Hammersmith Bridge looms large in how Barnes2050 sees potential futures for the area. It has been the subject of much analysis. You can find a full listings of all the articles here.

Credit to the Barnes Community Association for organising the scheme, and to Laurent Residential for continuing to support it. The Good Garden Award was first launched in 2017 and remains one of those simple ideas that quietly improves a neighbourhood.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Notes & thoughts

Let’s ignore the random ampersand…

The Good Garden Award was always going to feature here, award or no award. Honestly.

Front gardens are an understated part of the Barnes landscape. There are thousands of them - maybe as many as 4,800 across the area - and many occupy only a few square metres. Yet taken together they tell us something important about the place.

They are a revealing canvas: a quiet index of our changing relationship with nature, neighbours and the street beyond the front gate.

Collective protection

One reason the awards matter is that they celebrate gardens rather than hardstanding. Too many front gardens have disappeared beneath paving stones.

An unscientific scan of award-winning front gardens across Barnes suggests one common feature: planting and permeable surfaces that allow rainwater to soak into the ground rather than run into drains. (If this is wrong, then please contact Barnes2050)

This matters in Barnes. In a low-lying riverside community with a significant flood risk, every front garden forms part of a much larger drainage system. Individually they are small. Collectively they help absorb rainfall, reduce runoff and make the neighbourhood a little more resilient.

Destination not a route

Front gardens also remind us the private edge of a home can still make a public contribution.

They reveal the residents who see a street as a shared place rather than merely a transport corridor. A destination not a route to somewhere else. One that is - literally - alive and reflecting the changing seasons.

We not me

They are also an ever present indicator whether a neighbourhood still has a culture of stewardship, pride and neighbourly attention.

They show how small acts of care - especially when repeated hundreds of times - can shape the character of a place as surely as the decisions of planners, councils and architects.

That is why it is so satisfying to see people displaying their awards in the window. Understated pride, Barnes-style.

The newsletter this week quotes Hammersmith Bridge SOS saying,

In view of the current funding climate, the bridge being open to cyclists and pedestrians, LBHF’s (Hammersmith & Fulham Council) lack of interest in engaging on ways to increase the weight limit (to allow for 10-15 person electric vehicles for the less able and blue light services), and differences over retaining the original objective of full reopening, the current committee have stood down.

We will review opportunities around the next elections (Mayoral election in May 2027 and the general election in .. 2029).

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Notes and thoughts

Hammersmith Bridge SOS were, arguably, the pre-eminent campaign group demanding the full restoration of the Bridge. They largely stood above politics. They were active. They maintained a strong online presence. Their campaign timeline is impressive.

Barnes2050 recently featured the last chair of Hammersmith Bridge SOS, Nigel Edwards. He had been a guest of Helen Edward on the Barnes Bond Podcast.

That Barnes2050 article ended like this,

Mr Edwards sounded downbeat. He has a gentle, thoughtful manner. But there was something else in the interview too: a kind of civic exhaustion.

In one sense, he represented one perspective very well. Like so many others he clearly cares deeply about Hammersmith Bridge.

But, so far, no-one cares enough to invest £250million to make one future version of it, real. The statement from Hammersmith Bridge SOS echoes those themes.

Whether that reading of Mr Edwards was correct, the statement from Hammersmith Bridge SOS suggests he was not alone in feeling it.

Campaigns run on more than conviction.

They require volunteers, energy and the belief that progress remains possible. For now, at least, that energy appears to have ebbed away.

The group is not declaring victory. Nor is it conceding defeat. Instead, it seems to be acknowledging a reality familiar to many long-running civic campaigns: determination can sustain a movement for years, but not indefinitely.

Changing sentiment

It is tempting to see this decision as another indicator of what Barnes2050 has been suggesting for some time.

There is probably still a majority in the Barnes and Mortlake & Barnes Common wards for restoring cars to Hammersmith Bridge.

With no credible recent polling, however, nobody really knows.

Judging by local conversations, however, the gap between those who want cars restored and those who favour a permanently car-free bridge feels much narrower than it once did. And it seems to be narrowing further. People are changing their minds.

Which raises an intriguing question. Did the same thing happen within Hammersmith Bridge SOS? Is that what lies behind the statement’s reference to:

.. differences over retaining the original objective of full reopening ..

All of this is unsurprising. It follows a well-established pattern of human behaviour in the face of change. The phenomenon has several names, some quite striking.

What we have in common

Looking to the future, there remain broadly three options going forward for Hammersmith Bridge:

Barnes2050 believes the Bridge should remain car-free, permanently. More than that, it believes there’s an urgent need for a new form of public transport to support those less able to cross the river.

Read the Hammersmith Bridge SOS statement again. They supported the potential electric bus service too.

That is worth remembering going forward.

Apparently opposing views have more in common than seemed possible at first glance.

If you have any interest in Barnes you should subscribe to The Barnes Village Bugle newsletter. Whatever your opinion about the potential futures of Barnes, it is an essential part of life on the peninsula.

Hammersmith Bridge has featured prominently on this journal since launch. You can find a full listings of all the articles here.

We start with more on those updated long-term climate change forecasts. We can now expect a ‘lower ceiling but higher floor’ for global warming.

Instead of the 4–5ºC warming by 2100 once feared, Climate Action Tracker estimates the world is now heading towards a lower, but still dangerous, 2.6ºC of warming, thanks to a decade of climate policy and clean-energy expansion.

As Katharine Hayhoe explains:

Additional warming intensifies heat waves, flooding, drought, freshwater scarcity, sea level rise, and many other impacts.

Climate change - London to miss net-zero target

BBC News reports that the Mayor of London has admitted the capital is set to miss its 2030 net-zero target.

Sir Sadiq Khan said measures such as ULEZ had delivered significant cuts in carbon emissions. But he argued London needed greater devolved powers over energy policy and the electricity grid.

Why this matters:

• Targets serve several purposes. One of them is to help us understand whether enough progress is being made. Four years from the deadline, this target is helping the Mayor make the case for greater devolution. So far, there has been no substantive response from the UK government

• It is worth recalling that the Mayor’s Accelerated Green Pathway envisaged some huge shifts by 2030, including more than 2 million homes insulated, 2.2 million heat pumps installed and a 27% reduction in car kilometres travelled.

  Remember: the Mayor has more influence over London’s streets than its power sockets. He has significant influence over transport, some leverage over retrofit, less over heat pumps and very little direct control over the electricity grid.

  Regardless, progress appears to be falling well short of what those targets require.

  

Perhaps another reason to keep Hammersmith Bridge car-free?

Climate change - An Inconvenient Truth .. tweaked

Twenty years after the film, the New York Times reported, Al Gore has updated his famous slide show to reflect how the climate conversation has changed.

Nature - Barnes2050 now loves trees: you should, too

A useful reminder, during the recent heatwave, of the value of trees as providers of natural shade.

Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, shared this image taken during the recent heatwave: temperatures at two locations, which are close to each other in the City of London, taken at the same time on the same day.

Why this matters:

• Barnes2050 is more concerned with the threat of heat than water

• At least one place in Barnes is crying out for canopy protection.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Transport - Forest, the other sort

Richmond council officially launched its new Forest e‑bike scheme on 1 June, replacing the previous operator Lime service.

The council says the switch will deliver a fully borough‑wide network, with around 1,500 bikes available across all communities rather than concentrated in a few hotspots.

The council hopes to see a continued growth in hired e-bike journeys, which topped 1.5 million in the brough last year.

The council hopes to see continued growth in hired e-bike journeys, which topped 1.5 million in the borough last year.

Forest bikes have begin to appear throughout Barnes. At the same time, Lime will begin reducing the number of bikes as it winds down operations. Some Lime bikes may remain for a short period during the transition period.

Richmond Council says users can locate, unlock and pay for bikes through the Forest app. The operator is also offering rides of up to 30 minutes for £1 throughout the first month.

To mark the launch, Forest is also offering Richmond residents an exclusive deal of 400 minutes for £13.99 a month throughout June.

Transport - London public transport settled at about 80% of pre-pandemic peak

Elsewhere Britain has fallen back in love with travel, just not public transport.

The key numbers:

• London buses: 83% of pre-Covid levels

• London Tube: 78%.

For comparison, figures for the whole of the UK:

• Motor traffic: 105% of pre-Covid levels

• National Rail: 105%, though excluding Elizabeth line services

• Buses outside London: 84%.

All figures from Department for Transport.

Housing - Rooftop solar is having a moment

.. thanks, probably to the last heatwave and President’s Trump and Putin.

Dave Jones, citing Google Trends said, in April almost twice as many people googled ‘solar panel’ than in any month, ever.

Infrastructure - Water cooler

Another belated heatwave story.

The Mayor of London was very proud of these new water fountains:

There were so many negative comments online. Create Streets described it as,

a classic example of how we continue to diminish the public realm.

Why this matters:

• My reaction in real life matched the online response

• Maybe it would look good in Paris, which has a thing for the contemporary — think Louvre, Renault Twingo — living cheek by jowl with the medieval. But not London

• As we respond to climate change, we will need to refashion our shared public spaces. We need to do so in ways that complement, perhaps even enhance, our Georgian and Victorian landscape.

Governance - new Richmond council chairs

Finally, Richmond council confirmed the new committee chairs following the clean sweep by Liberal Democrats. A popular vote for continuity is reflected in these appointments.

You can buy the results of this ‘Barnes x MCM’ collaboration at this online store.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Notes & thoughts

This is not really a story about mugs, tea towels and tote bags.

It is a story about what kind of place Barnes is becoming.

Whatever the nature of Barnes in 2050, if it is climate-ready, it will be the result of creativity, collaboration, civic participation and local identity.

That will take not just imagination but also confidence. Civic confidence.

And that is what I see in this collaboration.

Barnes is exporting culture, not just consuming it

Most school fundraising merchandise is generic. Worthy but not exceptional.

This is different. A local primary school working with a leading British artist talks to Barnes increasingly being a producer of culture, not merely a consumer of it.

That fits a wider Barnes2050 theme: successful places create things, they do not simply inherit them.

Boundary between school and community is dissolving

The flyer repeatedly positions this as something for the wider Barnes community, not merely parents.

Order the goods and you can collect them at the Barnes Fair. The merchandise is presented less as school fundraising and more as a community artefact.

One of the recurring questions for Barnes2050 is whether Barnes remains a collection of institutions or evolves into an even stronger civic ecosystem.

This feels like evidence of the latter.

Barnes continues to trade on place

The striking thing is that the headline brand is not the artist, nor the school.

It is “Barnes × MCM”.

Barnes comes first.

That suggests place itself has become part of the value proposition. Something that excites a place-based futures project.

Barnes2050 believes there is a need and opportunity to imagine the next version of Barnes. That becomes easier when a palce has a rich mix of institutions willing to collaborate with one another, with creative talent as well commerce and political bodies. Easier still when there is a confidence confidence about the value of a place.

That is why Barnes2050 treats local history and identity as assets, because places with memory often make better decisions about change

One final thing.

I am hugely impressed by this collaboration. Ambitious. Confident. Well executed.

But, oddly, I don’t like the design.

I like so much of Craig-Martin’s work. For example this from the Tate Collection.

This version of Barnes?

Not for me.

The Barnes Hammersmith Electric Light Transit, or BEHLT, aims to promote the idea of bringing lightweight, autonomous electric pods across Bridge.

The new group, which will be established as a community interest company, was first revealed at the Barnes Community Association Town Meeting in May by Charles Campion.

Mr Campion was a partner at JTP architects and placemakers, as well as a Trustee of Thames Estuary Partnership and Plunkett UK. He will Chair the BELHT campaign.

Mr Campion has been active in Barnes for many years. Most recently, he helped launch the Barnes Community Association’s Barnes Local initiative, held every Tuesday at The Bulls Head.

Mr Campion provided more details about the proposal during an interview with Helen Edwards on the Pond Life Podcast.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Community Interest Company

A Community Interest Company or CIC is a special type of UK limited company designed to benefit to the community it serves rather than earn a private profit.

Unlike a charity, a CIC operates as a trading business. It can borrow money, raise funds, enter into contracts and pay directors. However, it must demonstrate that its activities provide a wider public benefit.

Each CIC needs to pass a community interest test, as the UK government guidelines explain,

A company will not satisfy the test if it carries on certain political activities, or if a reasonable person might consider that its activities are carried on only for the benefit of the members of a particular body, or the employees of a particular employer.

The BEHLT CIC has not yet been formally incorporated. Mr Campion said its purpose will be to promote the idea of lightweight autonomous electric pods crossing Hammersmith Bridge.

In the longer term, the group hopes to secure government innovation funding for a feasibility study. That work would examine the Bridge’s physical constraints, explore whether the vehicles could be manufactured locally and made even lighter, and assess how such a service could integrate with existing transport networks.

One of the group’s first public activities will be a partnership with Ohmio UK, which plans to bring two autonomous pods to Barnes Fair on Saturday 11 July.

In the week before the fair, the organisers hope to demonstrate the vehicles on local roads, giving residents an opportunity to see the technology in action and imagine how a future service might operate.

Notes and thoughts

There is much to like about this initiative.

The proposed CIC brings together people from both sides of the river and from a range of professional backgrounds. That diversity of experience should strengthen the campaign.

Having spent part of my own career working at the intersection of industry, academia and publicly funded innovation, I recognise the approach. Start with a feasibility study. Demonstrate the technology. Show, don’t tell.

The timing is notable.

Hammersmith & Fulham council has begun the process of seeking support from the Government’s Structures Fund. If that route ultimately proves unsuccessful, or if other stakeholders remain unable to agree a way forward, proposals such as BEHLT may become increasingly relevant. Indeed, as Mr Campion suggested, even if the funding is resolved, given how long it will take to restore the Bridge, there may well be value in launching the pod pilot anyway.

Much to do

Political support is only one challenge.

The June edition of The Barnes Village Bugle highlighted three practical issess that still need addressing:

• weight

• feasibility

• responsibility

Those are not minor issues.

That is why The Bugle reported that the BHELT team believe it could take between two or three years for their idea to move from proposal to reality.

The prize

Barnes has the opportunity to rethink how this peninsula lives, works and moves in a way that is fit for the future.

Hammersmith Bridge is central to that change.

Barnes2050 believes the Bridge should remain (private) car-free, permanently.

Like others locally, Barnes2050 would like to see a pilot pod service tested across the Bridge.

This would directly addresses immediate two issues.

The most pressing need is to help those residents who continue to find crossing the Bridge difficult. A lightweight, accessible shuttle could help address a genuine transport need while longer-term decisions are made.

But the potential benefits extend beyond that.

A pilot pod service could help create a more informed and constructive conversation about what sort of future Barnes wants. Barnes2050 has previously framed that discussion as a choice between building for 2019, 2026 or 2050.

Mr Campion is also right to ask a broader question.

If lightweight autonomous transport can work across the Bridge, could it eventually help connect other parts of Barnes?

Barnes2050 has previously argued that the peninsula may need a different kind of local transport service: an e-hopper acting as a civic connector within Barnes itself, complementing the larger trunk bus routes routes that Transport for London plans to introduce later this year.

What if the future of local transport is not bigger vehicles and more road space, but smaller vehicles, better connections and services designed around people?

There’s more analysis from Barnes2050 about Hammersmith Bridge here.

It scans for change, imagines alternatives and turns insight into action.

The plural matters. Futures, not future. Possibilities, not prophecy.

A futures project, then, is a way of looking ahead in an organised, imaginative and evidence-based way.

This article explains the approach, why it matters, and how it might help improve our future.

The future is always local

A place-based futures project like Barnes2050 is a way of thinking seriously about the long-term future of one particular place. It treats an area not as a backdrop, but as the main stage on which social, economic and environmental change plays out.

Larger forces such as climate change, technology, demography and economics do not arrive in the abstract. They land in streets, homes, high streets, railway stations and public spaces.

The future also arrives unevenly, but always somewhere specific.

It is often discussed at the level of nations, economic sectors or systems, but that is not how most of us experience it. Most people experience change locally, in their day-to-day lives.

That is why place matters. It is where policy becomes real, where trade-offs become visible, and where people decide whether change feels threatening, useful or hopeful.

Now or next? No. Later

A place-based futures project lifts its eyes above the short term.

It asks not what is happening now or next but what kind of place an area could become in the longer term, say 20 or 25 years time? And critically, what choices today will shape that outcome.

Barnes2050 takes 2050 as its time horizon.

The date matters because the UK first set a legally binding 2050 emissions-reduction target in the Climate Change Act 2008, then strengthened it in 2019 to net zero. Theresa May’s legislation committed the UK to a legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It made the UK the first major economy to legislate for net zero.

2050 is also - usefully - some way off. We need that time.

The nature and scale of the changes required will take time. Climate adaptation, cleaner transport, ageing populations, new working patterns, digital tools and housing pressures all have local consequences. Those consequences need interpreting at street level.

It is tempting to think this is about plans, buildings and statistics. Those are necessary but not suffiicent.

The future of a place is shaped as much by culture and behaviour as by infrastructure and policy.

Our response to climate change is about behaviour. Its about how people live: how we move, where we linger, whether we feel safe, shop, meet, rest, work and belong.

Changing our behaviour at that level will take a generation.

When something takes so long, it often falls foul to the tyranny of now. Faced with important or urgent, most people, most of the time choose urgent.

A place-based futures project like Barnes2050 provides a space to discuss these tricky, long-term challenges.

Barnes2050 treats local history and identity as assets. Places with memory may make better decisions about change.

So much more than facts and numbers

The point of a futures project is not to fantasise. Nor is it to ask what is likely to happen

It is to stay grounded in the realities of geography, money, politics and public consent while still making room for better possibilities than the default path.

Every place has its own history, habits, landscape and emotional character.

A good futures project does not ignore those things; it uses them to ask what should be preserved, what should change, and what a place can become without losing itself.

The strongest place-based futures projects do more than describe.

They try to make long-term thinking practical by translating big ideas into prototypes, experiments, small interventions or more developed proposals

Barnes2050’s thinking is captured in its Manifesto, including its proposals.

Active citizenship

We - the residents - must not be merely an audience for expert conclusions.

We are part of the intelligence of the place, and often the best source of knowledge about what works, what is missing and what future feels plausible.

At its best, a place-based futures project is an act of stewardship. Not one looking only backwards. Obviously we want to protect the best of Barnes. But we also need to look forwards, towards the majorgreat sociall, economic and environmental trends already shaping the place.

Conjuring potential futures for any place becomes richer - not necesarily easier - when a community asks, with more honesty and imagination, how its place could become more liveable, more resilient and more worth belonging to over time.

What you can expect from Barnes2050

A project like this usually sits somewhere between journalism, research, civic imagination and practical problem-solving.

My career could be described in the same way, which is why the approach feels comfortable. I have over 40 years experience in research, strategy, product development, design, storytelling and public conversation.

That experience and those skills have been used to create a Manifesto for a better Barnes, comprising several chapters:

Inputs

• Trends - signals from the present which might point toward the future

• Visions - plausible futures based on values and experiences

Outputs

• Principles – small number of guiding ideas that shape how decisions are made

• Proposals – specific interventions, big and small to change Barnes

Part of project’s work is noticing weak signals: small shifts that may reveal larger change ahead. A trend in the making.

A minor transport trial, a change in shopping habits, a new pattern of school travel or a different use of public space can all hint at a bigger future. Barnes2050 is sensitive to these signals and publishes a summary every week. You can find those reports here.

The Manifesto will share insight, visions and ideas from many others. It wil draw on public work and local ideas whether Richmond council and Barnes Community Association or local businesses like the Olympic Cinema.

The role of Barnes2050 is not to be a monopoly provider. It is to curate the best of these ideas through its guiding principles.

Barnes2050 is particularly interested in how these various ideas knit together. What is the aggregate effect of this portfolio of proposals? What kind of Barnes do they create together?

This is all work in progress. As facts change, so will my opinion. Over time, the proposals will be more deeply researched and reported.

Barnes2050 offers you a disciplined way of thinking about the long-term future of this beautiful corner of London.

It is not just commentary on the present; it is an attempt to understand and shape what comes next.

How do we make this place - Barnes, SW13 - even more liveable, resilient and meaningful over time?

This approach matters because people experience the future locally, even when the forces shaping it are global.

At its best, it combines observation, interpretation and imagination to turn long-term change into local insight and practical ideas.

This is not without jeopardy, as the Centre for British Progress explained,

Setting out why you believe things can get better leaves you open to cynicism, setbacks, even ridicule. These are, it turns out, all a necessary part of building something new.

A place-based futures project is not about predicting tomorrow. It is about helping a community prepare for it, shape it and hopefully improve it.

It means answering the question, what kind of place are we trying to become? Or put another way,

How do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

CCC is not a campaigning group. It is an independent statutory body established under the UK’s Climate Change Act 2008 to advise the UK government on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for climate impacts.

Barnes2050 only reports on the most important climate forecasts. That puts a premium on sources. This report is a warning from inside the machinery of UK government.

It is exhaustive and exhausting. It covers so many topics and has so many implications - from homes and hospitals to farming, flooding, food, water, infrastructure and public health. For example, climate change is already costing the UK £60billion every year, or 2% of GDP. Without adaptation, this could rise to £260billion or 5% of GDP by 2050.

You can watch a twenty minute video here or read the summary below of the top ten things to take from this report.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Brace for 40ºC+ Summers

Heatwaves are projected to exceed 40ºC across the UK by 2050, potentially reaching as high as 45ºC in southern England.

Julia King, chair of the CCC’s adaptation subcommittee said,

Extreme heat is certainly the most deadly of the climate impacts on the UK, so we need to see cooling rolled out at scale.

Increasing heat-related mortality

If the UK fails to implement adaptation measures to stop people from overheating, heat-related illnesses could cause up to 10,000 deaths annually by 2050.

Underscoring the immediate lethality of extreme temperatures, the report notes that ‘[i]n 2022 more than 3,200 people are thought to have died from such illnesses’.

Barnes2050 has argued since the project launched that Barnes needs to treat the heat threat as seriously as it has flooding. Water destroys property: heat kills people. Especially older people.

Adaptation is cheaper than climate damages

Securing the UK against climate impacts requires an estimated £11billion in annual investment from public and private sectors, which would prevent between £60billion and £260billion in yearly economic damages by 2050.

The CCC emphatically stresses that investing in climate adaptation is ‘cheaper than facing the damages’.

Most UK homes unfit for the future climate

Roughly nine in ten British homes are currently not designed to withstand future heat, and an estimated 92% of all homes will be at risk of overheating by 2050.

The UK is built for a climate that no longer exists today and will be increasingly distant in years to come.

Mandated cooling in healthcare and education

The CCC report demands that air conditioning be installed in all UK care homes and hospitals within the next decade, and in all schools within 25 years.

Highlighting the need to protect the most susceptible populations, Julia King stated,

[W]e’ve got to get serious about protecting our most vulnerable people in hospitals, in care homes, and in schools.

Looming deficits in the water supply

Due to increasingly dry summers, England could face a daily water shortfall of 5 billion litres by 2050, requiring an immediate scale-up in reservoir construction and water efficiency measures.

Baroness Brown warned,

We’re facing a potential world where in 2050 you could turn the tap on and nothing would come out.

Expanding threats to properties from flooding

Without sufficient adaptation and defences, the 7 million properties already at risk of flooding in the UK could increase by 40% by 2050.

To counter this, the CCC has proposed a target that

the total number of residential properties impacted by flooding in the UK from all sources should remain no greater than today’s level.

Prompted by Richmond council, Barnes2050 reviewed the flooding risk in the local area.

Regulating maximum working temperatures

The government is being urged to set a legal maximum temperature for working both indoors and outdoors to protect workers from severe heat stress.

A GMB union organizer argued that it makes ‘no sense whatsoever’ for the government to mandate a minimum temperature for working conditions without providing a maximum limit.

Increasing threats to domestic food security

Changing climates directly threaten agriculture, as evidenced by a recent hot and dry summer that caused over £800m in revenue loss for farmers in England.

To protect the workforce supplying our food, the CCC advises

shifting working hours for agricultural labourers, providing shading and taking other measures to protect workers from heat stress.

Heat disruption in education and exams

High temperatures already cause an estimated 4.3% loss of cumulative learning time in England, leading advisors to call for exams to be rescheduled to cooler times of the year.

Underscoring the 24-hour nature of the heat threat, the report notes that schools must consider the impact of heat,

.. not only related to classroom temperature but also to pupils’ ability to sleep at night when temperatures remain above 20C.

Notes and thoughts

This is a powerful report. Grim but powerful.

It sets out, in coherent detail, the changes the UK needs to make to how we live, build, travel, heat, cool, insure, farm, plan and protect ourselves.

A long list can be numbing. But knowing this detailed list should make it easier for us to choose do things differently. It makes the work visible.

Barnes2050 believes change has to come from three places. They are listed in order of importance:

• government - local, regional and national

• businesses and other organisations

• individuals and their families

The proposals in the Barnes2050 Manifesto speak directly to the challenges raised by the CCC report. All of them require government action.

As the journal develops, other proposals will be aimed at businesses and civic organisations. Some will be aimed at the last group: you and me.

To be clear, a climate-ready future will not be delivered by private virtue alone. It will take collective public decisions, public money and public courage.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

The council linked to the UK Government’s long-term flood risk service. You enter your postcode, select your address, and the site gives you an assessment for the area around your home.

The result for my home - or more precisely, the area around my home - was reassuring.

Good,

Although not quite good enough.

Notes & thoughts

The main flood threat to my home is not from river or tidal flooding.

It is duller than that.

It is the patio.

The front garden is now porous. In ordinary heavy rain, it does what a garden should do: it absorbs water rather than sending it elsewhere.

The back garden is different. It is wall-to-wall patio. Not good when rain falls hard, fast and with nowhere useful to go.

This is one of the awkward truths of climate adaptation. The big risks are often described at the scale of rivers, boroughs and national infrastructure. But some of the most practical answers sit at the scale of a paving slab.

In London, flood risk is not only about water coming from somewhere dramatic. It is also about water being refused everywhere ordinary.

By the road.

By the drive.

By the patio.

By the garden that has slowly ceased to behave like a garden.

Note to self - that needs to change soon.

Barnes2050 has argued before that we need to be as concerned about heat as water. In part, that is because high temperatures pose a particular threat to older people, especially those over 65.

But water still matters. Especially the water we barely notice until it is in the wrong place.

So, yes: go and check the long-term flood risk to your home.

And then look, less romantically, at your paving.

The Daily Post published a report last summer by the Met Office that said,

.. breaking the 32.8ºC May record was about three times more likely in the present climate than it would have been had the world not been affected by greenhouse gas emissions.

Whilst waiting to see if Monday turns out to be a record-breaker (The Times, ££ paywall), time to revisit latest estimates for global warming. The blizzard of reports, analysis and updates about the climate is overwhelming. Carbon Brief provided welcome clarity,

Projections suggest that the world is still on course for between 2.5C and 3C by 2100 of warming, (a level) previously described as ‘catastrophic’ by the UN.

Why this matters:

• This journal was founded on the tension created by climate change between living well and living responsibly. I believed it is he biggest challenge facing my generation

• Many of the changes to our way of life since, say, 2015 Paris COP have reduced the worst case forecast for global warming. But we are not out of the woods, or, more precisely the water, wind or heat. This is how The Economist described a world defined by 3ºC global warming,

Housing - Air conditioning more common in the UK .. much more to come

The Guardian reported,

.. an estimated 4m homes in the UK have air conditioning, double the figure from three years ago as Britons complain of ‘unliveable’ conditions during high temperatures.

Experts suggest the increase in AC ownership is the result of more people working from home and rising summer temperatures.

Those temperatures are going to continue to rise.

The UK Climate Change Committee warned that by 2050, under a 2ºC global warming scenario, heatwave temperatures will regularly exceed 40ºC in the UK.

The hottest days could peak at 43ºC or higher, which could lead to up to 10,000 additional heat-related deaths each year if further adaptation measures are not implemented.

Without those measures, nine in 10 UK homes were likely to overheat.

Why this matters:

• We need mitigation and adaptation in the face of climate change

• Mitigation reduces the emissions driving this crisis. Domestic buildings are the single biggest source of Richmond emissions, which is why Richmond council produced this useful guide to upgrading your home,

• Air conditioning is a form of human adaptation. But because it is an energy-intensive measure accounting for over 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions it is a problematic solution, for some.

Climate - And next year looks set to be dramatic, too

Forecasters put the chance of a very strong El Niño forming this year at about 82%, increasing the likelihood that 2027 becomes the hottest year on record, report The Times (££ Paywall),

The weather pattern could bring the return of 40C heat to Britain, a temperature only before experienced in 2022, as well as an increase in the price of tropical crops, such as coffee and sugar.

This is how BBC News explained it,

Why this matters:

• Human-influenced climate change acts a multiplier - warm becomes hot, wet drenched. Or El Nino becomes Super El Nino

• High temperatures are a particular problem for the over 65s. Barnes is - compared to the rest of London - unusually old, and getting older.

• Greater instability of weather as a result of climate change and El Niño means you are likely to see:

  • February days at 18°C

  • blossom appearing absurdly early

  • intense downpours after drought

  • repeated hosepipe-ban summers

  • then surprisingly wet autumns

• We need to get used to this. According to the Met Office forecast for Richmond borough our summers are going to be more intense more often

• Even Karl Marx and George Michael need help. Its climate change 1-0 Karl Marx and George Michael with a £6.7m boostfor Highgate Cemetery climate-proofing.

Transport - Does Barnes need a different sort of bus?

Barnes2050 explores the case for testing whether a smaller civic connector - the Barnes e-hopper? - is needed to for the short journeys within the village.

One of the reasons for a Barnes civic connector is the continued shrinkage of the red bus network on the peninsual.

Fewer people are using London’s buses so Transport for London (TfL) are cutting their costs. This long term trend looks to be contuining according to Ross Lydall’s reporting of the latest data from Transport for London.

Why this matters:

• Have we entered a vicious cycle? According to The Londoner, the reasons behind near 25% decline in passengers over the last decade include

.. the death of in-person shopping and the rise of Lime biking, as well as speeds on London roads hitting record lows, for the exodus of bus passengers.

In response TfL cut back routes to reduce costs to make-up for missing fare income. That makes buses less attractive..

• In the medium term, the Mayor’s headline target is for 80% of all trips in London to be made by active, efficient, and sustainable modes (walking, cycling, and public transport) by 2041. Of that, buses are expected to are expected to continue to provide upto a quarter of all those trips. Falling passenger numbers put that at risk.

Infrastructure - More bridges in a poor condition

Londonist say eight of them in total have problems.

The Times (££ Paywall) and Putney News Westminster, Lambeth and Vauxhall have been assessed by TfL as in very poor condition. Putney Bridge is also under pressure, with separate concerns and works reported

Barnes Bugle suggests this ‘opens up the possibility that funds which could have been allocated to repair Hammersmith Bridge might be needed elsewhere.’ This was one of the outstanding issues identified in a useful summary in the May Bugle. (If you have not already done so, then do subscribe to the Bugle. It is an essential part of living in Barnes)

Why this matters:

• It easy to get lost in issues surrounding funding Hammersmith Bridge restoration of vehicles

• In headline terms, this analysis remains accurate

• UK Government (UKG)has identified the new £1billion Structures Fund as a potential source of funding

• H&F council need to submit a funding request. this seems likely although Nigel Edwards, the Chairman of Hammersmith SOS, says he believes the council are ‘washing their hands’ of the project. He is unsure if the council even plans to apply to the Structures Fund.

• The UKG could be expecting other local councils to contribute. H&F council have said any contribution by them would require a toll to charged. Richmond council are facing significant cuts in their UK Government funding. Wandswith council has identified a £137m spending gap their reserves cannot cover

• If H&F council do make it a bid, it needs to meet objective criteria. What would be the effect of re-opening the bridge to cars? How do you weigh the upside versus the downside?

• And then if the H&F council bid passes muster, only then will be assessed alongside others. This is a national fund. This is not Barnes versus Putney. It is Barnes against the rest of the UK.

Nature - Beavers! In London!

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London led the tributes this week to one of the more surprising incomers to the city,

Name a better engineer than a London beaver. We’ll wait.

Read or watch the NPR report.

Fabulous.

Hammersmith Bridge SOS has campaigned since 2020 for motor-vehicle access to be restored to the bridge.

In the interview, Mr Edwards also questioned the traffic data used by car-free bridge campaigners and set out what he sees as major technical obstacles to running an electric shuttle or pod service across the bridge.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

If you have any interest in the future of Hammersmith Bridge, you’ll find the interview worthwhile.

Three points are especially worth pulling out:

• engagement with Hammersmith & Fulham council

• the challenge of electric shuttles or pods

• the limitations of the traffic data used by car-free bridge campaigners

Hammersmith & Fulham council. Hello? Anyone there?

Nigel Edwards set out a bleak view of Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F)council’s handling of Hammersmith Bridge.

Shift away from the Foster+Partners/COWI proposal

For some time, H&F council had focused heavily on the Foster + Partners/COWI proposal, which involved a temporary double-deck crossing within the existing bridge structure.

Mr Edwards said the council now appeared to have stepped back from that approach. The council had argued that the funding plan would require a toll, opposed by the Mayor of London, and that introducing one would need legal approval from central government and could take time to implement’.

Lack of engagement and prioritisation

Mr Edwards said it had become extremely difficult to engage with H&F council or get clear information about progress. Campaigners, he said, have been forced to rely on Freedom of Information requests.

He also said the bridge was omitted from the council’s recent town plan. Instead, he argued, the council seemed more focused on other major local investments, including an £800 million ‘flyunder’ to replace the flyover, a new civic campus and pedestrianisation around King Street.

‘Washing their hands’ of the Bridge

Mr Edwards said he felt the council had ‘washed their hands’ of the Bridge and was no longer interested in funding further work.

He pointed out that Hammersmith & Fulham council’s sole ownership of the Grade II* listed bridge is, in effect, a historical accident. His suspicion is that the council does not want to carry the extraordinary cost of repair.

He was also unsure whether the council even planned to apply to the Government’s new billion-pound structures fund to help finance the restoration.

Strict enforcement of weight limits

Mr Edwards said Hammersmith & Fulham council had made clear it would not increase the bridge’s current 1.5-tonne weight limit.

That matters because the restriction appears to rule out many proposed interim solutions, including heavier electric mobility vehicles or hopper buses designed to help less mobile people cross the river.

Electric shuttles a no-go?

Mr Edwards identified several problems with the proposal to run a small electric bus or pod across Hammersmith Bridge.

Strict weight limits

The first obstacle is technical.

The typical proposed electric vehicle, he said, weighs nearly four tonnes. That is far above the current 1.5-tonne limit. If the limit is fixed, the vehicle is not a practical option.

Poor public transport integration

The second obstacle is public transport.

Mr Edwards argued that an independent, privately funded hopper would not integrate properly with the existing network.

A less mobile passenger might still have to get off a bus at the top of Castelnau, navigate junctions to reach the bridge, pay separately for the hopper, cross the river, and then find another bus or the Tube on the Hammersmith side.

That is not seamless travel. It is a series of small frictions, exactly where friction matters most.

Inadequate capacity

The third obstacle is scale.

Before closure, the bridge carried about 23,000 daily motor-vehicle movements and five bus routes. Mr Edwards argued that a small electric hopper could not begin to replace that level of capacity or connectedness connectedness’ required to adequately serve the area’s transport needs..

Ignores emergency services

The fourth obstacle is emergency access.

Mr Edwards said the proposal does nothing for ‘blue light’ services, including ambulances, which he argues need direct access across the river.

Mr Edwards also said the key structural issue preventing a higher weight limit was not the piers but one of the bridge’s anchor chains. Hammersmith Bridge SOS, he said, has repeatedly asked Hammersmith & Fulham council what work and investment would be needed to stabilise the bridge and safely raise the limit.

He said the council had not answered those questions.

Traffic data not as compelling as it seems

Mr Edwards also challenged the traffic data used to argue that traffic across south-west London’s other bridges has fallen since Hammersmith Bridge closed to motor vehicles.

His case rests on two objections:

• Limited sampling: he said the data is collected only once every two years and relies on single-day counts.

• Timing: he said that, on every bridge, at least one of the data points was collected during school holidays, which could exaggerate the apparent reduction in traffic.

Image - Charts on bike at double demo day

He then made a bridge-by-bridge argument.

• Wandsworth Bridge: he suggested any reduction in traffic volume may be caused by lane closures and reduced bridge capacity, rather than a genuine fall in driver demand.

• Putney Bridge: he strongly disputed the idea that traffic had meaningfully fallen, describing the route as “absolutely gridlocked”. He blamed what he called a “disastrous remodelling” of the traffic lights at the southern end.

• Chiswick Bridge: he accepted there had been some reduction in real volume, but said this was the only bridge still flowing relatively normally, with traffic moving at around 24mph.

His wider point was simple. On bridges such as Putney, Wandsworth and Kew, he said, vehicles are often crawling at between 7mph and 9mph, meaning practically ‘nothing is moving’.

In other words: the data may say traffic is down. The lived experience, he argues, says something else.

Notes & thoughts

Mr Edwards makes his case well. But, for Barnes2050, it still falls short of being compelling.

An electric shuttle over Hammersmith Bridge does not need to replace every historic trip to be worth doing. It only needs to solve a real problem for a specific group of people: those who can walk or cycle less easily, but who do not need a car-dominated bridge restored around them.

Nor is the pro-car case quite as clean as it sounds.

If the argument is that nothing is moving on nearby bridges, how exactly does restoring motor traffic to Hammersmith Bridge solve that? Would it relieve congestion, or simply create more trips through Barnes, Castelnau, Hammersmith and the wider south-west London road network? More roads means more cars, induced demand and all that.

And how does that square with the stated ambition of local, regional and national policy to reduce car dependency, cut emissions and shift more short trips to walking, cycling and public transport?

There was also little nuance in the interview about different user groups, beyond emergency services. Commuters, schoolchildren, older residents, disabled people, cyclists, pedestrians, bus passengers and local businesses do not all have the same needs. The future of the Bridge cannot be reduced to a single binary: cars or no cars.

On some issues, though, Barnes2050 shares Mr Edwards’ frustration.

Why can’t the Department for Transport and/or Transport for London produce one comprehensive, trusted dataset, as it committed to doing? At least then everyone would be arguing from the same facts, even if the interpretation differed. As things stand, FOI releases and council papers reveal fragments of the picture, but not enough to settle the argument.

Likewise, it would help all parties if Hammersmith & Fulham council set out what work, and what cost, would be required to allow vehicles in the four-tonne range to use the bridge safely.

Once again, a void wilfully created by central, regional and local government is filled by speculation.

Those — like Barnes2050 — who support keeping the Bridge open to pedestrians and cyclists, but not private cars, need to do two things.

First, we need to engage with people such as Mr Edwards, even where we disagree. He and his fellow campaigners will be right about some things. That is usually how difficult public arguments work.

Second, we need to crack on with redesigning life on the peninsula for 2050.

Those who want full restoration are waiting for a UK government cheque. The rest of us can start building a better future for much less than that.

One final thought.

Mr Edwards sounded downbeat. He has a gentle, thoughtful manner. But there was something else in the interview too: a kind of civic exhaustion.

In one sense, he represented one perspective very well. Like so many others he clearly cares deeply about Hammersmith Bridge.

But, so far, no-one cares enough to invest £250million to make one future version of it, real.

Hammersmith Bridge is about far more than a river crossing. It is a question about the future of Barnes. At its heart sit questions of transport, climate, health and community. Explore Barnes2050’s wider analysis here.

The figure comes from a decade of patient butterfly recording by Barnes Common volunteers who have been counting butterflies over a 30-week period every year. the work was led by Karen Goldie-Morrison, former Chair and Trustee of Butterfly Conservation.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Three new species for Barnes have been recorded since 2018.

In 2025 the fabulously named Brown Hairstreak was spotted lurking in the brambles - a small but important find in conservation terms.

Full disclosure - I am a Friend of Barnes Common, so support the charity financially.

Notes & thoughts

Thirty butterfly species is towards the upper end of what most towns and cities can expect, according to Butterfly Conservation. That makes Barnes unusually rich for a London neighbourhood.

This hints at something important.

Barnes is not merely affluent and leafy-rich. Ecologically, it is still functioning better than many urban places. The combination of gardens, commons, river corridors, wetlands and relatively low-density streets still creates connected habitats where complex life can survive.

Butterflies are relevant to Barnes2050 because - to mix wildlife metaphors - they are an urban equivalent of a canary in a coal mine.

They are sensitive to small environmental shifts. They are, in effect, biological early-warning systems.

Looking to our likely future climate, the Barnes butterflies face some challenges:

• Hotter, drier summers can scorch or kill the plants caterpillars depend on.

• Sudden heavy rainfall can destroy eggs and larvae.

• Warmer winters disrupt hibernation cycles and seasonal timing.

• Climate stress weakens already fragmented urban habitats.

In Britain, researchers tracking how butterflies are responding to climate change

.. have found significant shifts in abundance and distribution as temperatures rise and habitats become more fragmented.

And that is why butterflies matter symbolically.

They are not just decorative on a sunny afternoon on Barnes

They are visible evidence that the wider ecological system — plants, insects, soil, moisture and seasons — is still broadly functioning. The challenge for a climate-ready Barnes is making sure that remains true in 2050.

Two parts of the plan look wrong.

Barnes Pond will become a terminus with buses turning around the ‘swan triangle’ several times an hour. One of the busiest walking junctions in the area is about to become even busier.

TfL has also prioritised Lonsdale Road over the High Street. So one of the most valuable forms of sustainable transport - a bus - will no longer run both ways down one of the village’s most important streets, the High Street. HGVs, thousands of cars, delivery vans: fine. Buses: apparently not.

The Travel Barnes group of the Barnes Community Association (BCA) has been actively involved in petitions to, and discussions with, TfL about the red bus network. Full disclosure, I am a member of the group. It is also hoping to meet TfL and the new Richmond council members in the hope that the worst effects of the plan can still be reduced.

But this is not, at heart, an anti-TfL story.

TfL has been dealt a poor hand. Hammersmith Bridge remains open to pedestrians and cyclists but not to motor vehicles. Bus user numbers are falling. Public money is tight. Barnes has been living with a semi-temporary, semi-permanent bus network since 2019. The TfL plan may make network sense. It may even be the least-bad answer to the question TfL was asked.

The problem is that Barnes may now need to ask a different question.

Not whether every old route should return. Not whether Barnes needs more full-sized red buses. Not whether the village should pretend Hammersmith Bridge is about to resume its old life.

The better question is this:

Call it, for now, the Barnes e-hopper.

This is not an original idea from Barnes2050. For instance, several members of the BCA Travel Barnes group have raised versions of it. What follows is inspired, in part, by those conversations.

This is not yet a vehicle specification. Not quite a proposal. It’s an idea that needs testing.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

What the new bus network does — and does not — solve

The new TfL network is simpler. Route 209 is due to be extended, taking over much of what route 533 has been doing since Hammersmith Bridge closed to motor traffic. Routes 378 and 485 are also being changed, while other Barnes-area routes remain outside this specific package.

The larger issue is not simply route geometry.

TfL is trying to provide trunk connections: getting people in and out of Barnes, particularly towards Hammersmith, Putney, Mortlake and the wider network. That is what the red bus system is mostly designed to do. It is a corridor system. It serves lines of movement.

Barnes, however, is not just a corridor.

It is a peninsula with several centres: Barnes Pond, Barnes High Street, Castelnau, White Hart Lane, Barnes Bridge, the riverside, the Wetland Centre, stations, schools, churches, pubs, shops and cafés.

It has distributed brilliance rather than one obvious centre of gravity.

A standard bus network can serve parts of that pattern. It cannot easily stitch all of it together.

That is the gap.

Barnes already has more than red buses

It is worth saying this clearly, because otherwise the argument becomes too neat.

Barnes does not have only two transport choices: TfL buses or private cars.

There is already a small but important layer of community transport. FiSH Neighbourhood Care runs a popular door-to-door supermarket service using accessible transport, taking people to Sainsbury’s in Richmond and Marks & Spencer at Kew Retail Park. Last year it made over 1,500 trips. It is exactly the sort of local provision that matters more than official transport maps usually admit.

But FiSH does a different job.

Its shopping bus helps people get from their front door to larger shops beyond Barnes, Sainsbury's in Richmond and M&S in Kew. It is practical, social, trusted and targeted. It should be protected, celebrated and learned from.

Any additional service would not replace it. It would complement it.

The distinction matters. FiSH helps people leave Barnes for essential shopping. A Barnes e-hopper would help people move around Barnes itself: to the Pond, High Street, Castelnau, White Hart Lane, Barnes Bridge, the Wetland Centre, the riverside, stations, cafés, churches, clubs, surgeries and events.

One is door-to-supermarket. The other would be village-to-village-within-the-village.

Together, they suggest a better way to think about local transport: not one grand system, but a layered ecology.

Red buses for trunk routes.

FiSH for door-to-door shopping beyond Barnes.

Walking, cycling and e-bikes for those who can.

And perhaps a small civic connector for the awkward local trips in between.

Hammersmith Bridge revealed the problem

Hammersmith Bridge did not create every Barnes transport issue. It revealed them.

When the old volume of through-traffic disappeared, Barnes became quieter in some ways and more awkward in others. Some people adapted quickly. Some walked or cycled more. Some changed route. Some relied more heavily on cars for local errands. Others simply had fewer good options.

All the while, London is seeing a long-term reduction in bus passengers numbers, with TfL trying to balance need with budget. The result can feel like transport austerity in 2026 arriving in Routemaster red.

But the point is not to re-litigate the Bridge in every transport discussion. The point is to admit what the Bridge has taught us.

Barnes cannot simply wait for an old transport pattern to return. Even if future proposals emerge for limited vehicle access across Hammersmith Bridge, TfL has said it would keep the bus network under review.

That makes the current network contingent, not eternal.

So the task is not to design Barnes around a particular Bridge future. It is to build a local transport system that works under several futures: Bridge open to pedestrians and cyclists only; bridge partly reopened to some vehicles; Bridge served by a shuttle or pod; Bridge still politically stuck.

Under all those futures, Barnes will still need better local circulation.

Case for change - a new sort of Barnes bus service?

I am confident about some aspects of this idea but less sure about others. That is probably a good sign. A fully certain transport idea is usually either too small to matter or already in trouble.

The local participation gap

The real issue is not transport in the abstract. It is participation.

Can people get from home to the High Street, Castelnau, White Hart Lane, the Pond, the riverside, the station, the doctor, the shops, the café, the church hall, the club, the Bridge approach — without always needing a car?

For many people, the answer is yes. They can walk, cycle, use an e-bike, catch a bus, drive, or mix the lot.

For others, the answer is more fragile.

Some are older. Some are less mobile. Some do not own a car. Some own one but would happily use it less if the alternative were easy enough. Some can manage the outward journey but not the return. Some can walk in fine weather but not on a wet Tuesday afternoon in February, , carrying shopping and nursing a bad knee.

This is where the language matters.

The audience for a Barnes connector is not only ‘vulnerable residents’, though they matter. Nor is it only drivers, though they matter too.

The more interesting audience is broader: pragmatic residents who use the car because, for certain short local trips, it remains the most convenient answer.

The ambition should not be to shame that choice. It should be to beat it.

This fits the wider direction of policy

One reason this question matters is that all three levels of government are pushing, in different ways, towards fewer short car trips.

Nationally, the Department for Transport’s (DfT) cycling and walking strategy says the ambition is for 50 per cent of journeys in towns and cities to be walked or cycled by 2030. (DfT guidance also describes treats demand-responsive transport as most useful where it complements the main network rather than replaces it.)

Regionally, the Mayor’s Transport Strategy sets the larger London target: 80 per cent of all trips to be made on foot, by cycle or using public transport by 2041.

Locally, Richmond council’s Local Implementation Plan mirrors that broad direction, with a target for 75 per cent of trips in the borough to be made by walking, cycling or public transport by 2041.

The Barnes question is therefore not eccentric. It sits inside the mainstream policy argument.

The harder question is practical: how do you reduce short car trips in a place where the awkward journeys are not always long enough for a conventional bus, not always easy enough for walking, and not always suitable for cycling?

That is the space a civic connector might occupy.

What might a civic connector be?

A Barnes e-hopper should not be understood as a tiny TfL bus.

It would be a different thing: a light civic connector, designed for short local journeys within and around Barnes. It might be scheduled. It might be on-demand. It might be a hybrid. It might use a small electric minibus, a shuttle, or another accessible vehicle. The point is the service layer, not the gadget.

Its job would be to connect the village to itself.

That might mean a route linking Castelnau, Barnes Pond, Barnes High Street, White Hart Lane, Barnes Bridge, the Wetland Centre and the Hammersmith Bridge approach. It might include Mortlake. It might connect to existing bus stops and stations. It might run only during certain parts of the day. It might be more useful on market days, wet days, weekends, school-holiday days or late afternoons.

Whereas FiSH connects people to larger supermarkets beyond Barnes, an e-hopper could connect people to Barnes’ own centres of everyday life.

The new service could make local life easier to join, reduce short car trips, and create a modest shared social space in motion.

The service must not be designed for one imagined user

There is an obvious trap here.

Make the e-hopper too much like a social-care shuttle and many practical drivers will never try it. Make it too much like an app-led convenience product and the people who most need it may be excluded.

The service would have to sit somewhere more interesting.

Civic enough to be trusted.

Convenient enough to be used.

Accessible enough to be legitimate.

Visible enough to become part of everyday life.

Older residents - of which we have many - may be among the keenest users. But they should not be treated as the only users. The real opportunity is a mixed service: older residents, people without cars, people with temporary mobility issues, parents, visitors, shoppers, people going to local events, and drivers who would leave the car behind if the alternative were not faintly heroic.

The test is simple.

Would someone use it who could have driven?

If the answer is no, the service may still have social value. But it will not seriously reduce short car trips.

Learn from others

Barnes would not be starting from scratch.

Britain already has flexible connector services worth studying.

Wiltshire Connect offers bookable journeys by app or phone and operates across defined rural and semi-rural zones.

Callconnect in Lincolnshire, has operated since 2001, mixing demand-responsive booking with some timetabled services.

Travel Telford On Demand and West Berkshire Community Connect are also useful comparators for booking, hours, fares, operating geography and public trust.

But Barnes is not Wiltshire, Lincolnshire, Telford or West Berkshire.

It is denser, wealthier, older in parts, more walkable in parts, more congested in parts, and politically allergic to anything that looks like either gimmickry or creeping institutional fog.

The lesson is not ‘copy a demand-responsive transport model’. The lesson is more precise: study how these services handle booking, trust, accessibility, fare simplicity, operating hours, subsidy, and the relationship with the main bus network. Then design something Barnes-shaped.

Indeed the most relevant local lesson may already be closer to home. FiSH shows that trusted, human, door-to-door community transport can work here. But it also shows the importance of clarity. People understand what the FiSH shopping bus is for. Any e-hopper would need the same discipline.

Experiment then scale

Part of the appeal for this e-hopper service is that a small electric buggy or shuttle ought to be light enough to organise quickly. This is not a mega-project, but the sort of thing a place should be able to test, observe and refine without (seven and counting?) years of delay.

If the Barnes e-hopper has merit, that is part of its merit: it should be possible to scramble something small and learn from it fast.

The next move should be a pilot, not a fully worked service proposal. The point of a pilot is not to prove that the final model has already been found; it is to discover whether there is really a thing here at all, and if so what shape it wants to take.

This approach is also consistent with Richmond council’s own public-sector habit of using pilots and trials where the evidence is uncertain and the learning matters to later plans.

A pilot would need to answer the practical questions: on-demand or scheduled, tiny vehicle or slightly larger one, key day-parts etc..

Questions that need answering before a pilot

There are good reasons to be sceptical about this idea.

If demand is too dispersed for a normal bus, it may also be too dispersed for a small connector. If the service is too irregular, people will not trust it. If it is too expensive per passenger, it will become hard to defend. If it is free, it still has to be paid for. If it is app-only, it will exclude people. If it is not app-based at all, it may be clunky. If it overlaps too much with TfL buses, it could weaken the very public transport network Barnes needs.

There is also a political risk.

A Barnes e-hopper must not become a subsidised convenience for the already comfortable. Its public value would need to be clear: fewer short car trips, better access for those without easy mobility, stronger local participation, and better links to the existing bus and rail network.

That is why the pilot would need hard measures, not just warm feelings.

What a pilot would need to find out

The point of a pilot would not be to prove that the Barnes e-hopper is a good idea. The point would be to discover whether there is really a thing here.

A useful pilot would need to answer questions like these:

• Purpose — is the aim fewer short car trips, better access for older residents, stronger north-south movement, local sociability, or a blend?

• Users — who actually rides: older residents, non-car households, practical drivers, visitors, parents, shoppers?

• Geography — should it serve only Barnes, or include Mortlake and key bridge or station connections?

• Destinations — which places matter most: Pond, High Street, Castelnau, White Hart Lane, Wetland Centre, stations, riverside, Bridge approach?

• Model — scheduled loop, on-demand, semi-flexible, or different by time of day?

• Vehicle — small electric minibus, accessible shuttle, buggy-style vehicle, or something more weather-proof?

• Accessibility — wheelchair access, step-free boarding, space for shopping, non-app booking, telephone support?

• Payment — free, low fare, donation, sponsorship, grant, Oyster/contactless, or mixed?

• Operator — council, community body, social enterprise, private operator, or partnership?

• Trust — would a civic brand help, perhaps involving Barnes Community Association, or would that make it feel too informal?

• TfL relationship — feeder, complement, overlap, or nuisance?

• Success — ridership, satisfaction, reduced car trips, access for non-drivers, cost per passenger, repeat use?

• Failure test — what result would prove the idea is not worth continuing?

One more moving part: the Bridge pod idea

There is also talk of a possible pod or shuttle service across Hammersmith Bridge. Charles Campion raised the idea at the May 2026 Barnes Town Meeting. (Barnes2050 has explored related versions of the concept before.)

That matters because a Bridge shuttle and a Barnes e-hopper could either compete, duplicate or reinforce each other.

If a future Bridge pod created a strong southern stop near the Bridge approach, a local connector could feed it from across the peninsula. That would make it easier for residents from White Hart Lane, Castelnau, Barnes Bridge or Mortlake to reach the bridge without driving to the bridgehead.

In that version, the e-hopper is not a rival idea. It is the local mesh around a stronger crossing.

Again, this is not yet a plan. It is a design question.

So, does Barnes need an e-hopper?

Maybe.

That is the honest answer.

Barnes probably does not need a new transport scheme. It may not even need a permanent new service. But it does need to understand whether there is a missing layer between walking, cycling, driving, existing buses, the FiSH shopping bus and whatever eventually happens at Hammersmith Bridge.

A small civic connector is one plausible answer.

Not a toy bus.

Not a nostalgia bus.

Not a way of avoiding hard choices about streets, cars and public transport.

A test.

Put something modest on the road. Give it a clear purpose. Make it accessible. Measure who uses it. Ask whether it replaces car trips or merely creates new subsidised ones. Find out whether people use it once, or fold it into daily life.

Then Barnes would know something it does not know now.

Whether the village has discovered a missing layer of itself - a lighter way to stay connected - or merely another charming idea that looked better in a meeting than on a wet Tuesday in February.

The first plan emerged from informal consultation in 2021, when the charity said proposals for the Vine Road Project received ‘massive support’.

The recreation ground — then known as The Orchard — was acquired by the council in 1929. The paddling pool was added in 1936 and further play equipment in 1952. The pavilion tea room stopped serving refreshments in 1969. The bowling green was last used in 1996.

By 2021, Barnes Common says, just three fruit trees remained from the earlier market garden and orchard: an apple and two pears. The buildings, with their faint civic melancholy add to the sense this version of the recreation ground has done its shift.

Vine Road Project

The plan represents a significant upgrade: better play facilities for different ages, a new skate park and a redesigned public space.

But the most striking element remains the proposed climate-resilient hub.

This would replace the current office and toilet block with a larger centre. It would act as a refuge for at-risk residents during climate-related emergencies: flooding after extreme rain, heatwaves, or extreme cold snaps.

The team behind the plan wants a place large enough to accommodate residents struggling with the hotter days and nights now coming into view.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

There was also a clear commitment to sustainable travel. The plan does not increase car parking capacity. The nudge is obvious enough: bus, train, walk, wheel or bike to the new centre.

Mike Hildesley said Barnes Common hopes to submit a full planning application to the council later this year.

Barnes Common provides all Vine Road Projects updates here.

You can also download the latest public consultation documents below.

260514 Vine Road Mike H

29.6MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

The presentations from the Town Team meeting is here.

Notes & thoughts

Plans for redevelopment of Vine Road have been five years in the making. What was striking about this update was the emphasis on the threat posed by both water and heat.

CommunityBlueScapes, which also featured in the Town Meeting, is investing over £6million to make the area more flood-resilient. It is an impressive programme, and a necessary one.

But flood resilience has tended to dominate local discussion of climate change. Understandably. Water is visible. It arrives in the street, in the garden, through the door, across the floor.

Heat is quieter. And just as important.

Barnes2050 has previously called out lack of climate-foresight for street furniture in the village.

Met Office projections for Richmond borough suggests that, at global warming levels of between 2°C and 4°C, Richmond borough can expect the number of hot summer days above 30°C to rise from around two a year now to between 10 and 28. Tropical nights — when temperatures do not fall below 20°C — would rise from none to between three and 15.

This coupled with the age profile of Barnes - an older village in an older London borough - means there’s a pressing need for structural changes like the hub.

Unsurprisingly the Vine Road Hub may be Barnes’ first public building explicitly designed around climate resilience.

Not just climate change

Meanwhile, Barnes Commons believes the plans to be

one of the first in the UK designed with this facility, bringing together climate resilient building design alongside other benefits to wellbeing offered by a park environment.

This is one useful characteristic of many climate adaptations and mitigations. They seldom solve for just one thing.

It’s wise not try to fix everything with one project. But Vine Road Project is an example of something better: do the right thing in the right place, and the benefits accumulate.

A greener village

Ambitious longer-term planning featured in several Town Team updates. Green Barnes included a ten-year ambition for the area:

Emma Robinson, the new Executive Director at Barnes Community Association explained how the BCA aimed to return to this commitment soon.

Across London, the political map has shifted, as BBC News explains.

Why it matters

• Routine party-political news is rarely the business of Barnes2050. This is different.

• We live in one of Europe’s more politically centralised societies. What remains of local government has endured more than a decade of reduced budgets and increased responsibilities. Still, local and regional councils shape the practical stuff: streets, planning, housing, trees, schools, transport, air.

• The Liberal Democrats have a renewed mandate to continue the administration they began in 2018.

• If you have not already done so, time to read the Liberal Democrat manifesto to see what is in store. If you want help assessing this, then why not use the emerging Barnes2050 Manifesto.

A weekly digest of stories and signals about future Barnes.

Climate - Good news on renewable energy

Simon Clarke reports on the numbers for solar and wind in 2025.

Three points stand out.

Clean energy growth, led by solar and wind, is now close to meeting the world’s rising demand for electricity.

Falling battery prices are making solar power easier to store, helping shift daytime supply into the evening peak.

Geopolitical shocks are speeding the move towards secure, domestic renewable energy.

Why it matters

• By 2050, much of everyday life is likely to be electrically powered: homes, transport, work, heat, tools, perhaps almost everything.

• Increasingly, that electricity looks likely to come from renewables.

• The faster we get there, the better. Energy security improves. Costs become more predictable. The climate benefits.

• This is another report suggesting the electricity transition is move faster than many expected and on the right track.

Climate - Lessons from .. USA, on shuttering a city?

Oliver Milman reports the process of relocating people from New Orleans should start immediately, because climate change could push the city beyond a ‘point of no return.’

Southern Louisiana is facing 3-7 metres of sea-level rise and the loss of three-quarters of its remaining coastal wetlands, which will cause the shoreline “to migrate as much as 100km (62 miles) inland”, thereby stranding New Orleans and Baton Rouge, according to the study, which compared today’s rising global temperatures with a period of similar heat 125,000 years ago that caused a rise in sea level.

This scenario makes the region the “most physically vulnerable coastal zone in the world”, the researchers state, and requires immediate action to prepare a smooth transition for people away from New Orleans, which has a population of about 360,000 people, to safer ground.

(Via Bill McKibben)

Why it matters

• Whatever President Trump and his supporters claim, they will not be able to ignore - were it to happen - losing one of the world’s iconic cities to climate change.

• Climate denial has always worked best in the abstract. Cities are not abstract.

• One can only hope the US Federal Government manages this better than it managed the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Transport - Lessons from .. USA, on NYC pausing Waymo trial

New York City has not renewed Waymo’s license to trial its vehicles, which expired at the beginning of April.

The city’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said his city government was ‘committed to delivering for the workers that keep the city running’ including its taxi drivers.

(Via BikeIsBest)

Why it matters

• Automated vehicles (AVs) have an air of inevitability. Quite why is not always clear.

• New York is a useful reminder that technology does not simply arrive. It is regulated, shaped and occasionally resisted.

• Cities still have choices.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Transport - Cars should wait longer at traffic lights

The Daily Mail reported,

Your commute is about to get even worse: Woke scientists say cars should be made to wait at red lights for longer - to force people to switch to walking.

Why it matters

• This is welcome research. As one of the researchers is quoted as saying,

Our simulations show that modest reductions in car-prioritised green time shift commuters toward walking, cycling, and public transport without costly infrastructure changes

• Woke scientists, eh?

Transport - Lessons from .. America, on car culture

Jason Slaughter catalogues the many harms of America’s preferred transportation monoculture.

And The Guardian provides a useful summary of the headline choices facing those who want to stop cars choking our cities.

Why it matters

• The UK and USA went their separate ways many years ago, when it comes to cars and their role in society.

• But it is important to keep an eye on developments there for two reasons:

  • Their influence occasionally seeps across - think SUVs or AVs, see above

  • We need regular reminders about what not to do.

Infrastructure - New walking, wheeling and cycling bridge to open shortly

It’s in Nottingham and it should be celebrated.

This is the Waterside Bridge.

Why it matters

• There are relatively few high-profile bridges of this kind in the UK.

• The list includes the Millennium Bridge (no cycling) and Hammersmith Bridge in London, Gateshead Millennium Bridge connecting Gateshead and Newcastle, Peace Bridge in Derry/Londonderry NI, Diglis Bridge and Kepax Bridge in Worcester and Stockingfield Bridge and Govan–Partick Bridge in Glasgow.

• Another new bridge in one of our great cities helps normalise walking, wheeling and cycling as real infrastructure, not lifestyle garnish

• By comparison, Copenhagen in Denmark boasts a rich network of bike and pedestrian bridges such as Folehaven Bridge, Lille Langebro, Inderhavnsbroen, Cykelslangen and Bryggebroen

Infrastructure - Streets are better with trees

(Four) Pictures are better than a thousand words.

(Via CreateStreets)

Why it matters

• Barnes needs to treat heat and water as equal threats

• This affects almost everything in the public realm, including street furniture

• Shade is no longer a pleasant extra. In a hotter city, it is civic infrastructure

• A tree is not a decoration. It is part of the operating system

Economy - Lessons from .. Amsterdam, on outdoor advertising

Amsterdam has become, according to the BBC, the world’s first capital city to ban public advertisements for both meat and fossil fuel products.

Since 1 May, adverts for burgers, petrol cars and airlines have been stripped from billboards, tram shelters, and metro stations.

Why it matters

• Sometimes it takes someone or somewhere to ban something to remind you of what you already possess

• Barnes has relatively little outdoor advertising. No large billboards. Walk down Mortlake towards Mortlake Green to see what we are missing. The most visible ads are on bus shelters, and there are only a few of those.

• Barnes2050 would like it to stay that way. It is one of the ways the village remains distinctive.

Civics - This is me, according to ChatGPT

I use Ai to help create this journal. Mine is an ‘Ai in the loop’ approach.

After twelve months of regular engagement, I asked ChatGPT how it would describe me in fewer than 100 words.

What follows is the unedited answer.

Andy is a thoughtful local futurist disguised as a blogger. He lives in Barnes, south-west London, and has become slightly obsessed — in a productive way — with what climate change, transport, housing and technology will mean for one particular urban village by 2050.

Professionally, he carries the instincts of a seasoned public-service journalist and R&D strategist: curious, evidence-driven, sceptical of easy answers, but still optimistic that places can improve through experimentation and civic imagination.

He thinks in systems, notices small signals before most people do, and has a habit of turning seemingly niche local issues — a bridge closure, a zebra crossing, shade at a bus stop — into wider arguments about how we live well together.

Stylistically, he wants clarity over jargon, persuasion over outrage, and ideas grounded in real streets, real trade-offs and real people.

I’ll take that.

If you prefer, this is the (my) human-crafted description of my career and the origin story of Barnes2050.

This is Barnes High Street, opposite Marks & Spencer.

Focus on the seat.

It is popular. You often see people sitting there, and on other benches along the High Street, because the location is useful. Near the shops. Near the bus stop. Near the everyday business of the village.

But look again.

This photograph was taken at about midday on a hot spring day: blue sky, hard sunshine, not much forgiveness from the weather.

The seat itself - metal, timber, modern, handsome enough - is utterly exposed.

If you need to take the weight off, this ought to help.

On a day like this, it does something else.

It offers you a place to sit and bake.

Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?

Notes & thoughts

Barnes2050 believes the need to treat heat and water as equal threats is one of the defining trends of life over next two decades.

Water destroys property and heat kills people is an over-simplification. But not by much.

Much local climate attention has, understandably, focused on flooding. Community BlueScapes has done important work to make the village more resilient to heavy rain, flood risk and extreme weather.

Now heat needs the same level of seriousness.

Heat and the over-60s

Heat does not become dangerous only when Britain reaches 40°C.

In London, the risk to life starts rising well below that. The ONS found that mortality risk begins to rise once temperatures move above roughly 22°C. Above 29°C, the capital’s death risk is around three times higher than at optimum temperatures.

England recorded an estimated 1,504 heat-associated deaths during just five hot spells in summer 2025. The brutal summer of 2022 was linked to 2,985 excess deaths.

The official evidence is strongest for over-65s, especially over-75s. But the warning does not politely wait for 65 candles on a birthday cake.

Heat risk rises as age overlaps with frailty, heart disease, breathing problems, dementia, diabetes and homes that are hard to keep cool.

Global warming and Richmond borough

Richmond is projected to get more of this.

The Council’s latest climate evidence, drawing on Met Office projections, warns of hotter, drier summers, more frequent heatwaves and a growing number of hot nights when homes fail to cool down.

The Met Office report suggests that, at global warming levels of between 2°C and 4°C, Richmond borough can expect the number of hot summer days above 30°C to rise from around two a year now to between 10 and 28.

Tropical nights — when temperatures do not fall below 20°C — would rise from none to between three and 15.

This is not the Mediterranean arriving in SW13.

It is something more awkward: English streets, English houses and English habits being asked to cope with a climate they were not designed for.

Protecting private and public spaces

So the Barnes question is no longer whether summer feels warmer.

It is whether an ageing village in an ageing borough is ready for ordinary-looking days that are no longer ordinary: 25°C, 28°C, 30°C, repeated over several days, especially in homes that do not cool overnight.

A climate-ready Barnes will need cooler homes. For some, that will mean installing air-conditioning. More on that in the months ahead.

In public, it means more shade, water, trees and places where all of us - but especially Barnes residents over the age of 60 - can safely get through hotter days.

Learning from others

Others are already trying.

Derby City council planned to replace 90 bus shelters, with around half given planted ‘Living Roofs’, branded as ‘Bee Bus Stops’, under a ten-year Clear Channel contract at no cost to the council or taxpayers.

Shelter, shade, biodiversity, maintenance and advertising were bundled into one street-furniture contract, rather than treated as a nice-to-have add-on.

Leicester treats bus shelters as small pieces of green infrastructure. It has a network of 30 living-roof, solar-powered shelters which were presented as part of the city’s response to the climate emergency.

Ordinary bus stops become micro-climate assets, not just places to display timetables.

So now what do you see?

Which brings us back to that bench.

Barnes2050 thinks it is a job half done.

In a people-first Barnes designed to improve the health of all its residents, Richmond council should not install another seat without also considering shade, ideally natural shade.

A bench in the wrong place, under the wrong sky, is not quite civic kindness.

It is furniture waiting for a tree.