Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere August Newsletter (# 52)

July highlights

1. On the 5th July I attended my favourite Latchmere (or anywhere) street party, the Triangle Party (Poyntz, Shellwood and Knowsley Road Roads triangle). The triangle is a natural cul-de-sac and makes for the best of parties. Last year the weather was pretty miserable but this year it was fantastic and everyone seemed to be having a great time. I certainly did and what is more I won the prize lottery ticket. I know councillors are supposed to give those prizes back but having bought a few raffle tickets in my time I thought at last I was entitled to accept this one. As you can see there was dancing in the streets..

The next day Andy Murray won Wimbledon, England won the first two Tests, Chris Froome won the Tour de France and the month ended with Lewis Hamilton winning the Hungarian Grand Prix. 2013 looks like competing with 2012 as one of the UK’s greatest year of sporting triumph –we are a nation of winners after all!

2. Battersea Park School Governors met on 8th July to hear the bad news that the school had failed its June Ofsted inspection. As Governors we were shocked. Two years ago we passed with flying colours and in 2011 we also achieved good exam results, but we knew that the 2012 cohort of kids were going to do rather poorly. Not that it was the pupils fault, they included a very high number of kids whose first language is not English. Ironically we expect this year’s results to be as good or better than 2011’s.

Last year the school applied to be an independent Academy (like Graveney and others in Wandsworth) but we were turned down because the school was considered to be too good. After that shattering experience the Governors had resolved to continue to be a local authority school. But now we have been told that we have no alternative but to become a sponsored Academy, that is sponsored by people like Harris (the carpet company) or Oasis, whose website says “the work of Oasis Community Learning is motivated and inspired by the life, message and example of Christ”.

I would like to make three comments about this situation. First that it is odd to be forced into Academy status a mere couple of weeks before this year’s results are due – especially given that the school expects them to be good, and perhaps even very good. Second that the Ofsted Report was produced by an outsourced team of inspectors from an organisation called Tribal Inspections. It does not seem to be a very accountable organisation and those teachers and governors who were interviewed by them were not impressed by their methodology or their objectivity. Third, the refusal to accept our request to become an Academy last year and yet to force it upon us this year suggests a distinct uncertainty of purpose on the Government’s part! What will happen next? See this space but one thing I am fairly certain of, lots of money will be spent on the building – it needs it. The Government cannot afford to get its education policies wrong!

3. There were two Planning Applications Committees in July, one on the 3rd and the other on the 23rd. As far as Latchmere residents were concerned the most interesting application on the 3rd was the approval of the plan to demolish the current Crown pub in Battersea High Street and replace it with a pub and 9 flats. This was not a popular application with many local residents opposing it, and I voted against it. But in all honesty it was difficult to argue against an application to re-build a pub and add 9 flats above it – at least under present planning laws.

The 23rd Committee was dominated by the major application for the redevelopment Ram Brewery in Wandsworth Town Centre. It may not be in Latchmere but it will affect all Wandsworth. The previous application, which included two 42 storey tower blocks, was “called in” for decision by the then Labour Secretary of State as a result of a request from the then Battersea M.P., Martin Linton. This next application was, as all Committee members, Labour and Tory, agreed, very much better. It includes 661 residential units, a small brewery, plenty of shopping and entertainment uses, improved settings for the many historical elements of the old Brewery and a gym. But it also included a 36 storey tower block and this was very contentious. It is opposed by the Wandsworth and Battersea Societies and many local residents.

I voted against. I am not happy with a tower block almost twice as high as any other building in Wandsworth, except those giants going up in Vauxhall. But I have to accept that most of the application looked quite good. My hope was that we could negotiate something even better but the application went through. As a result, I suspect that the long-overdue redevelopment of Wandsworth Town Centre will start soon and much of it I think will be rather good.

4. On the 10th July we had the final Council meeting before the summer break. The main debate was about education and the Council’s now desperate search for more school places. You may remember that the Council sold and/or demolished 10 schools in the 1990’s and the early years of this century. Joseph Tritton school in Latchmere was one, but were many others elsewhere. But now the Council is having to build class-rooms in playgrounds and build new schools. It’s been a very expensive mistake and many parents are worried about exactly where their children will find a school place.

5. On 11th July I attended a briefing about the £100 million regeneration plan for Latchmere, covering the Winstanley and York Road estates. There is nothing definite to report yet but the planning consultants, engaged by the Council, to come up with a “grand plan” gave us an indication of their first, very outline thoughts. They intend to produce a plan for consultation in early 2014. Later that same evening I went to the Battersea Society Annual summer party at St. Mary’s Church

6. Sadly, I missed the Big Local party in York Gardens on 18th July but I am told that everyone had a good time and that it went very well. The York Gardens area does not always enjoy the greatest reputation outside the immediate area but there are real signs of a much improved community spirit developing here.

7. On Saturday, 20th July, Battersea Labour Party took over the York Gardens Library to hear from our candidates to oppose Jane Ellison at the 2015 General Election. We heard from former Latchmere Cllr Sam Heath, Cllr Sheila Boswell, Dr Sundar Thavapalasundaram and Martin Linton’s election organiser in 2005, Will Martindale. We were pleased with the qualities and abilities displayed by all candidates but Will Martindale won by a clear and handsome majority. He therefore becomes, in the jargon, our PPC or Prospective Parliamentary Candidate – Will is pictured here after the selection.

Will currently works for Oxfam, engaging the financial sector on their responsibilities to the developing world. He used to work in finance for JPMorgan in London and New York. Given the economy will dominate the next election, and that many Battersea residents work in the financial service industries, he is an excellent choice for Battersea. Will also volunteered for Rwanda Aid, a charity based on the Rwanda Congo border, where he worked with the families of genocide victims to rebuild homes and schools.

8. On the 3rd July I had the pleasure of taking about 30 kids to meet Wandsworth’s Mayor, visit the Council Chamber and talk with the Chief Executive. They were under the leadership of Victoria Rodney of the Mercy Foundation, which is in Falcon Road just behind the Prince’s Head. It was a great couple of hours and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Here is a picture of them all on the steps in the so-called marble hall at the Town Hall. I am the mature one in the back row! And the Mercy Foundation organiser, Victoria Rodney, is on the Mayor’s left.

9. The latest update on Grant Road exit from Clapham Junction station and the temporary bus-stop opposite Battersea Park School is that:-
“South West Trains say that the Grant Road entrance is officially open until 1am, although it is thought that in practice it stays open until after the last train at 01.20. The original opening times are shown on the wall of Falcon Road railway bridge” and
“TfL say that they are obtaining a traffic management order for a new bus stop for Beechmore Road, and the road markings should be installed by 10th August”, implying that the stop will be reopened around this time. We will see!

My Programme for August

1. Is not a lot – it is after all August but as ever the Planning Applications Committee takes place on the 6th.

2. My fellow councillors and I are considering what we can do to safeguard the future of Wandsworth’s pubs. This is because the Wheatsheaf at Tooting Bec is under threat as is also the Trafalgar. Meanwhile here in Latchmere apart from the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Tavern that I wrote about last month, we have recently lost the Havelock Arms on the corner of Dagnall Street. Indeed I was talking to an old-timer (well sorry Ted but you lived in Culvert Road during the war, so I guess you qualify) and he tells me that what with the two on the corner of Battersea Park Road there were then 5 in Culvert Road alone! Indeed can I ask readers with a long memory in Battersea to help me start a list of the lost pubs of Battersea! There’s also the British Flag, of course!

3. And later in the month my partner and I depart for a, wait for it, cycling trip round Holland! Yes, I know it’s mad but there it is. One thing I plan to do is drop into Schiedam, a working class suburb of Rotterdam, which is incredibly twinned with Wandsworth. But it is far too Labour, well Social Democrat in Dutch terms, for Wandsworth ever to note, but as a Labour councillor I thought I would drop in and visit it!

Did you know that last month was the NHS’s 65th birthday?

This piece is about one of its founders – Caroline Ganley. It is a re-print from the September, 2009 newsletter but as it is about a hero of mine and the NHS’s birthday I thought it worth another outing.

Modest Ganley Court, immediately behind Sporle Court, was named after equally modest Caroline Selina Blumfield. Caroline was born in 1879 in Devon and died in 1966. She was an only child and her father died before she was born. Her mother, who was in service, put Caroline into an orphanage. In 1901 Caroline met and married James Ganley, a tailor cutter. They had a daughter and two sons and the family lived in lodgings in Meath Street, near Battersea Park station. Like most places in Battersea then, there was no bathroom, and so they moved to 5 Thirsk Road in 1910, where she lived for the rest of her life.

Caroline used to listen to speakers on Clapham Common, when it had its own Speakers’ Corner. She decided to join the Social Democratic Federation, a league of London Working Men’s Clubs and also became a member of Battersea Women’s Socialist Circle. In 1909 Caroline was catapulted into speaking publicly for the first time, when as the only member and chair at a meeting where Charlotte Despard was the invited speaker, Caroline found herself replying to questions when Despard had to leave. One Sunday a few years later James returned from Trafalgar Square to tell her that he had volunteered her as the only women speaker on the platform at a demonstration against the visit of the Czar!

During the war Caroline wrote a strong letter to the Sunday Chronicle proposing that Servicemen’s wives allowance should be paid through the Post Office and thanks to her this was duly accepted and became the practice. By 1918 Caroline had become a member of the Labour Party. In 1919 Caroline Ganley, along with Mrs. Duval and Mrs. Hockley, was elected as one of the very first female councillors in Battersea. As chair of the Health and Child Welfare Committee she was instrumental in getting a Maternity Home established in Bolingbroke Grove. It was her proudest legacy.

She was among the first 131 women appointed as JPs (Justice of the Peace or a magistrate) in 1920. She was elected to represent north Battersea on the London County Council which Labour came to control in 1934. After 8 years as the prospective parliamentary candidate in Battersea South she won the seat in 1945 aged 65 alongside Douglas Jay in North Battersea. She was one of the 24 women elected, 21 of whom were Labour. She and James were the first couple to celebrate their Golden Jubilee in the House of Commons in 1951 not long before she lost the seat by 494 votes.

She was elected on to Battersea Council after an absence of 28 years in 1953, and re-elected in 56, 59, and 62 and was awarded a CBE. When Battersea was incorporated with Wandsworth she wrote a poem lamenting the passing of Battersea as a Borough. When Clem Attlee died she paid a moving tribute to him at an election meeting in support of Ernie Perry who became her successor in Battersea South. She was then 85 – a formidable woman. When she died in 1966 one tribute to her in the South Western Star remarked ‘Her mind was very acute and her ability to draw together the threads of the most rambling discussion was legendary. She was a great pioneer – the most outstanding woman the co-op has produced at a time when few women took part in public life.’