A timber lattice would replace the roundabout's advertising tower. The register holds 149 objections, the council consulted no neighbours, and comments are still open.
The steel hoop at the centre of Wandsworth Roundabout would come down and be replaced by a timber lattice under an application submitted at the start of June. The council’s own deadline to decide it passed on 28 July. Objections on the register have now passed 149.
Application 2026/2045 seeks express advertisement consent to replace the existing structure and its four digital LED screens. The council’s register describes the proposal as a “timber lattice structure supporting 4 no. 14.2m x 4.6m digital LED advertisement displays”, against the 14m by 4m screens there now. (Wandsworth Council planning register, case 2026/2045)
The applicant is Wildstone Estates Ltd. Its agent is Adfolio, and the architects are Tate + Co. The site sits in St Mary’s ward and the case officer is Ben Hayter.
What is proposed
The applicant’s covering letter, dated 29 May, sets out the scheme. It says the structure is on publicly owned land, has stood for more than 30 years, and had its panels digitised in 2016. Wildstone acquired the asset last year on a long lease from Transport for London.
From the application documents:
- four timber legs would rise from the existing concrete footings, branch out and interweave overhead to carry the screens
- the four displays would go from 14m by 4m to 14.2m by 4.6m
- the east and west facing displays would be raised by two metres, because mature trees now block them
- the drawings put the overall height at 27 metres, the same as the structure it replaces
- the application boundary covers 724 square metres
- consent is sought for 15 years, not the standard five
The applicant argues the timber “will assimilate and complement the trees that frame the structure in wider views”, and that reusing the footings avoids new groundworks and the carbon that comes with them. It also says the scheme “will increase the potential for revenue generation at the site”, which under the terms of the lease would benefit the public purse.
One detail is worth knowing before anyone assumes the current screens are unregulated. The last express consent for them expired on 2 April 2020. They have run since on deemed consent under Class 14 of the advertisement regulations. The structure itself has a separate planning permission, referenced in the application as C/98/0105, which the applicant says is not time limited.
The lighting the council would be signing off
Digital screens at a busy junction are controlled by condition rather than by design, and the applicant has put its own proposed conditions on the file:
- no brighter than 300 candela per square metre in the hours of darkness
- no brighter than 600 candela per square metre at dawn and dusk
- a minimum display time of 10 seconds per advertisement, so at most six in a minute
- changes between advertisements to happen instantly, with no fading, swiping or merging
- an all-black screen as the failsafe if the hardware fails
The applicant says brightness would be set remotely by a content management system using live light sensors, and that the replacement displays would run at the same output as the ones there now.
The consultation, and the objections that kept coming
The council’s own dates for this application have all passed.
It was received on 1 June and made valid the next day. It was registered and validated on 12 June, and the first site notice went up on 18 June. The consultation expiry was 9 July. The council’s expiry date, the point by which it aimed to decide, was 28 July. It has not decided.
The register now holds 149 objection comments and 4 general comments, alongside 11 drawings, 8 revised drawings, 8 reports, 3 consultee responses and the application form. The most recent objection on the file was logged on 20 August, six weeks after the consultation formally closed. The comments page still reads that the council “is accepting comments”.
The council’s own weekly list of applications for the week ending 13 June records the number of neighbours consulted on this application as 0. (Wandsworth Council, weekly advertised planning applications)
Objectors on the file make a small number of arguments repeatedly. Several say the existing hoop is a local landmark that should be left alone. Several argue that timber will weather and rot in traffic pollution far sooner than the steel it replaces, so a structure that has lasted decades would be swapped for one that does not. Others say the money and disruption would be better spent on the subways that run beneath the roundabout, which they describe as neglected and unusable.
What it means for you
The application has not been decided, and the council is still taking comments on it. Anyone who wants to write in can do so through the planning comments page for case 2026/2045, or by contacting the case officer on 020 8871 8319.
Two points are easy to get wrong here.
First, this is an advertisement consent application, not a planning application for a building. The applicant’s position is that the supporting structure does not need separate planning permission because it exists to serve the advertisement, citing sections 222 and 336 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. That narrows the grounds a council can decide on: advertisement consent turns on amenity and public safety, not on the wider merits of the design.
Second, the 15-year term may matter more than the design. A standard advertisement consent runs five years. This one asks for three times that, which the applicant says is needed to capitalise the investment over a longer period. It also matches the term granted when the structure first went up.
The roundabout is the interchange between the A214, A3205 and A217, and carries traffic to and from Wandsworth Bridge. If the scheme is approved, the works would happen there. We will report the decision when the council makes it.
Our Wandsworth planning news page tracks applications across the borough, and roadworks and travel covers closures on the one-way system.
Have your say