Wandsworth Pavement Ad Screens: 75 Refused, 15 on Appeal

A planning inspector dismissed an appeal on Tuesday against Wandsworth Council’s refusal of a digital advertising screen on the Putney pavement. The decision is logged on the council’s own planning register against application 2026/0061, a replacement Street Hub carrying two 75-inch screens on the footpath beside 85 Upper Richmond Road, at the Carlton Drive junction.

It is one round in a contest that has now run for more than four years and produced 128 planning applications.

Wandsworth News searched the council’s planning register for every application describing a “Street Hub” or a “Communication Hub”. These are the freestanding pavement units that combine a phone, wifi, sometimes a defibrillator, and large digital advertising screens on each side. The first went in on 6 January 2022. The most recent were registered on 8 July 2026.

The running score, as the register stood on 26 August 2026:

• 75 applications refused
• 45 approved, 43 of them with conditions
• 4 withdrawn before a decision
• 4 still undecided and open to comment
• 15 refusals now sitting at the Planning Inspectorate on appeal

Why the council keeps saying no

The register publishes the refusal reasons in full, and they repeat almost word for word across sites. The wording used against the Tooting High Street hub refused on 10 August is typical:

The proposed communication hub, by reason of its scale, design and location would fail to minimise street clutter, result in loss of public open space and harm to the character and appearance of the local area, including the setting of adjacent heritage assets. Furthermore, the hub would create an unnecessary obstruction of the public space, hindering the convenient and safe passage of pedestrians.

Some refusals go further. A BT Street Hub proposed on the pavement south of Dorset House on Ram Street, in the Wandsworth Town Conservation Area, was turned down on four separate grounds. Officers found it would harm the setting of an adjacent Grade II* listed building. They also found it “would represent a safety hazard for cyclists in terms of it being an undue distraction and blocking the forward view of the cycle lane”.

That application also failed partly on “lack of information provided and the presence of similar ‘Street Hubs’ in the immediate area”.

It is not a blanket ban

The register shows the council saying yes as often as the argument allows.

In 2025 it approved 32 applications in a row. Every one was part of a swap: removing an existing InLink phone and web unit, which already carried screens, and putting a new Street Hub in the same place. Those went through at Balham Hill, Falcon Road, St Johns Hill, Lavender Hill, Garratt Lane, Battersea Bridge Road, Battersea Park Road, Putney Bridge Road, Upper Richmond Road and Balham High Road.

Two more pavements were approved this year, at 88 to 90 Putney High Street and outside 386 Garratt Lane.

But the line is drawn site by site rather than by a rule. The Upper Richmond Road unit dismissed on appeal this week was itself described as a replacement, and a replacement proposed outside 51 Wandsworth High Street was refused too. Meanwhile the new BT hub approved at 386 Garratt Lane and the new BT hub refused on Ram Street were decided the same week.

The Inspectorate does not always agree

Twenty-five of the 128 applications have been through appeal, covering 13 separate pavements. The results split.

Wandsworth has lost three of those 13 contests, all of them in 2023 and 2024. It has won every appeal decided since, including all four this year. The inspector’s decision letter for Tuesday’s case had not been published on the council’s register when this was written.

Fifteen refusals are still waiting. They cover 266 Balham High Road, 136-138 Mitcham Road, 21-23 Tooting High Street, 169 Upper Tooting Road, 44 Falcon Road, 53 Battersea Bridge Road, 51 Wandsworth High Street and 85 Wandsworth High Street.

Where they want to put them

The applications cluster on the borough’s busiest shopping streets, which is where advertising screens are worth most. Counted by number of applications since 2022:

• Tooting High Street, Balham High Road and Putney High Street: 10 each
• Upper Richmond Road and Wandsworth High Street: 9 each
• Mitcham Road, St Johns Hill, Lavender Hill and Falcon Road: 8 each
• Garratt Lane: 7

Many are drafted as the removal of an existing telephone box. On Tooting High Street the register records the site of the refused hub as the “telephone box on pavement west of TK Maxx”. That framing matters in planning terms, because a phone box carries no digital advertising and the unit replacing it would carry two screens.

Four are still open

Four applications had not been decided when the register was checked. Anyone can comment on them through the council’s planning pages:

• 2026/2162, pavement outside 114 Balham High Road, SW12 9AA, registered 1 July
• 2026/2163 and 2026/2181, pavement outside 149 Upper Richmond Road, SW15 2TX, registered 30 June
• 2026/2186, pavement outside 10-18 Putney Hill, SW15 6AA, registered 23 June

The applications on this list have been made through agents including JCDecaux, Libre Solutions and Harlequin Group.

What it means for you

If one of these units is proposed on your street, the decision is made by a council officer under delegated powers rather than by a committee, so there is no public meeting to attend. The comment window is the only formal chance to say anything, and the register shows how few people use it.

The practical points:

• Check the council’s planning pages for the reference numbers above, and comment through the case page.
• A refusal is not the end. Fifteen of the ones already refused are back in front of a national inspector, who can overturn the council, as happened at 134 Wandsworth High Street in December 2024.
• If a hub replaces an existing InLink rather than a phone box, the register suggests it is far more likely to be approved, though this week’s Putney decision shows that is not guaranteed.

This is the second advertising fight in the borough this month. A separate application to replace the advertising tower on the Wandsworth roundabout has drawn 149 objections and is still undecided.

Sources

• Wandsworth Council planning register, Northgate Planning Explorer, searched on 26 August 2026 for development descriptions containing “street hub” and “communication hub”. All application numbers, dates, decisions, refusal reasons and appeal outcomes are taken from that register.
• Weekly list of decisions, week ending 15 August 2026 (Wandsworth Council) for the five refusals issued on 10 August.

Figures are a snapshot of the register on 26 August 2026 and will change as applications and appeals are decided.