Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere October Newsletter (# 42)
August & September highlights
1. Well to be honest highlights were mainly holidays, the Olympics and the Labour Party Conference – OK, so one has to be a political nerd to call the latter a highlight but so be it! As for my holiday, well I won’t bore you with lots of holiday snaps but here are just two of Niagara Falls and a Canadian native!
2. As for the Olympics – in my August Newsletter, I reported on going down to Putney High Street to see the road race pass, but later in the same month, I also managed to get tickets for a few other events. Surprisingly, to me, my favourite event was the female weight-lifting – absolutely terrific, with plenty of crowd participation. I know one Egyptian lady would not have lifted the weight without the crowd willing her to succeed.
3. For those who know me you may be surprised that on August 18th I went to the Black Pride event at the Ministry of Sound! The Ministry is in Kennington and the event was a raucous, hot enjoyable event. OK, so I was hardly an average member of the audience but I was not as much out of the ordinary as I had expected, with plenty of other “mature” participants. Not, however, my cup of tea and I have too much respect for my ear-drums to have stayed long!
4. On 21st August a Council Committee decided to keep the in-house team in the bidding to run both Croydon’s and Wandsworth’s library services. The Council contract will include running the York Gardens Library. I know that many people, including in the Labour Party, do not think that it is that important to keep these services in-house, but I most certainly do so. I will be keeping fingers and toes crossed for the next stage of the bidding process, which will become public in November.
5. There have, of course, been two Planning Applications Committees since my last newsletter, one in August and the other in September, and perhaps unusually both had applications of interest, even if small to Latchmere. First of all was the Council’s own application to convert the health centre in Wheeler Court to six Council flats. Wheeler Court is the 4-storey block in Plough Road right next to the traffic lights at York Road. The second was another Council application to convert Dawes House, that is the small block right opposite the Grant Road exit from the station and next to the Nazarene Church, into accommodation for homeless families rather than leave them in the inhuman conditions of bed & breakfast accommodation. Two good and useful applications for affordable housing, both of which were passed.
6. On September 25th I had the Strategic Planning Committee and on 26th the Housing Committee – two busy evenings. The Planning Committee included the latest plans for the Thames Relief Tunnel, which will run alongside the Thames for 20 miles and is designed to prevent the occasional disastrous flooding, which causes serious river pollution and the deaths of millions of fish. One of the base stations for this work is likely to be the Falconbrook Pumping Station, pictured here behind the demolished remnants of York Gardens Adventure Playground. All three of your councillors recognise that this mammoth Tunnel is required but we will be fighting to ensure that there is as little disruption to the Gardens as possible, so, for example, construction traffic will be coming in on a new access direct from York Road and not through the estate and the Gardens. What with the threat to the Library and the closure of the playground, York Gardens has had more than its fair share of pressure in the last few months!
7. In September I also went to the Wandsworth Museum to see the exhibition of Painting Wandsworth. The museum has 300 water-colours of Wandsworth and the exhibition showed about 60 of the paintings. The paintings date back to the eighteenth century, though most are nineteenth century works, but for anyone with a passing interest in the history of Battersea, then do go. I know the Museum is slightly out of the way being in the old West Hill Library but it is only 5 minutes’ walk up the hill from the Southside shopping centre and well worth the walk. There are also lots of buses from Clapham Junction that stop almost outside it, e.g. 37, 337, 170. It also shares the building with the brilliant de Morgan exhibition, which as I have said before is a small but world class exhibit that highly recommend to everyone.
I include two of the paintings. The first, this early nineteenth century picture of the Prince’s Head in Latchmere, which used to stand on the corner of Falcon Road and Battersea Park Road (though neither called that at the time, of course). 
And the second is of the Arts Centre, then Battersea Town Hall, which judging by the car, the tram and the fashions must have been painted about 100 years ago – say 1910. Note the Shakespeare Theatre next door, which was unfortunately badly damaged in the war and demolished in 1954. It is now Foxtons, the estate agent!
My Programme for October
1. There is a Council Meeting on 17th October and the Planning Applications Committee on the 18th October.
2. There must be more but just back from the Labour Party Conference and I do not seem yet to have got back into the full swing of Council business!
Did you know?
That Latchmere has a large, stately home or so says both our local and national press, when covering the strange Chinese murder trial of Gu Kailai. You may recall that this was the August trial of the Chinese politician’s wife found guilty of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood. Mr. Heywood, it was reported, had in his youth lived in Latchmere’s large stately home known as South Lodge.
Well, here is South Lodge (the red brick house), on the Latchmere Road right opposite the Leisure Centre. It is divided into 5 flats and pleasant enough I guess but a large, stately home? Just teaches one not to believe everything one reads in the press!
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 