Some of you have asked what these signs mean. They appeared on the Common in July and herald a tunnel to be bored under the Common for electricity cables by National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET). The MAC chair was told at the time that there would be no visible or invisible disruption and we’ve been following up the situation since.

The project is still two years away and is described in more detail here. The whole tunnel is 32km in length, running from Wimbledon to Crayford. It is constructed using a tunnel boring machine installed at a depth of approximately 30m. There will be no above ground excavations except at the shaft sites, with access only being required to install monitoring equipment while the tunnelling is undertaken. Wandsworth Common is located between two shaft sites, one at the NGET substation at Wimbledon and the other at Kings Avenue, Clapham. Between these two sites there are no above ground works. The tunnelling will start at Kings Avenue, Clapham in November 2020 and will finish in December 2021.

We’ll update you when we hear more