The road bridge at Clapham Junction station has always been a fairly horrible place to walk through, not quite of Finsbury Park proportions but grim nonetheless. Now that's all changed thanks to an art project in conjunction with the London Festival of Architecture and a winning design submitted by a community group. Over the last few months the 100m tunnel has been transformed into a brightly-lit panelled passage, supposedly pigeon proof, and my goodness it looks a lot better.
The design comprises six repeating panels depicting local icons including Battersea Park's Peace Pavilion, the cupola at Arding & Hobbs and the chimney at Battersea Power Station. Lavender, daffodils and bumble bees represent nature and the buried river the Falcon Brook is in there too. As for the lighting it's blue at present but can be changed if anything colour-specific needs commemorating. It's a fine nod to the end of Wandsworth's year as London Borough of Culture (should anyone outside the borough have noticed).
2) See in 2026 from a unique vantage point
I am contractually obliged to mention every time the Dangleway promotes anything ridiculous, so here we go again. New Year's Eve anyone?
Book now and you can enjoy a view of the fireworks at midnight from a cabin above the Thames. What's more more your evening begins with a three course meal accompanied by live music, followed by dancing before boarding your flight. Alcohol provision includes a glass of prosecco on arrival, half a bottle of wine with your meal and a flute of champagne to toast the New Year in the sky.
The downsides are that the meal takes place in the room that houses the Cable Car Experience, a truly soulless shed, also you might spend the entire evening in there if bad weather makes your midnight flight impossible, also "fireworks viewing is subject to weather conditions" so you might see nothing of note, also you may be crammed into a cabin with up to 9 other people, also the Dangleway is five miles from the proper fireworks at the London Eye so what you'll mainly see is East Londoners firing random rockets. And all for £299 a head, so I don't think I'll be the only one giving the New Year's Eve Fireworks, Dinner and Cable Car Experience a miss.
3) Discover connectivity in your local area
Connectivity Tool is an online map (provided by the DfT) which displays how well connected any location in England and Wales is to everyday services by walking, driving, cycling and public transport. Originally it was a professional service requiring registration but now there's Connectivity Tool Lite for anyone, just launched, and it's a lot of fun to investigate. The country's been divided into 100m squares and each assigned a connectivity score out of 100, then the entire grid coloured in. Trafalgar Square scores 96, Inner London is almost all over 80 and even the middle of Richmond Park scores 41. The highest score I can find is 100 around Aldgate East station. Meanwhile Birmingham peaks at 90, Stonehenge and Lands End are both 15s and the middle of Dartmoor is a big fat zero.
You can also 'Explore the score' to discover how the overall score was calculated, the weighting being public transport 52%, walking 40% and cycling 8%. At Bus Stop M, for example, the overall score of 93 comes from 'Public transport 95', 'Walking 89' and 'Cycling 93'. My Dad may be surprised he scores 30, despite his Norfolk village seeing less than ten buses a day, but a high cycling score has provided a boost. For further interrogative fun you can ask the map to show scores for just one form of transport, and for a fascinating flourish you can turn on the location of every station, tram stop, ferry terminal and bus stop in the country. Full documentation is provided. Happy playing (and hello to fellow smug members of the 90+ club).
