Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere December Newsletter (# 55)
November highlights
1. Thanks again to everyone asking about the streptococcal G poisoning – slow improvement but not brilliant prognosis is all I can say at present. Maybe a knee replacement is called for!
2. I never like to resign. I always think it better to stay in the battle fighting away for one’s corner. But I am afraid that the saga of Battersea Park School (BPS) just became too much! When the Board of Governors are, in effect, ordered to vote for the school to be made a Harris sponsored Academy despite being overwhelmingly opposed in principle and told that they will be replaced by Harris appointed placemen then it is time to stand up, as they say, and be counted. Not, I am afraid, that my resignation in mid-November will be seen as any more than a gesture but given that I think Michael Gove is destroying our educational system, I didn’t have much choice. STOP PRESS since the end of November the Chair of Governors has resigned and the Head, Gale Keller, who has been main man behind the resuscitation of the school over recent years 
has also resigned. There is now an eight month hiatus until Harris take over – this does not look good for the students and all thanks to the Government’s cavalier attitude towards our schools!
3. On the 13th November I attended the unveiling of the John Archer plaque at 55 Brynmaer Gardens, which despite being on the “wrong side” of Battersea Park Road is in fact in a small enclave of Latchmere ward. Here is a picture of the plaque itself, the Mayor, Wendy Speck, my fellow councillor, and me.
John Archer was the first black mayor in the UK (actually not true as there was a little known black mayor of the small Norfolk town of Thetford, but people conveniently forget that one!) and I have covered him before in one of my Did You Know sections. I have never done this before but since November was the centenary of his election by 30 votes to 29 to be Mayor of Battersea I thought it was fair enough to do a repeat – see below.
Oh and by the way here is another picture of me with Hyacinth Stone, a Latchmere resident and constituent who was at the unveiling. Hyacinth lives in Buxton House and in her honour I am goi
ng to do a “Did you know” next month which links Buxton House directly to Victoria Tower Gardens, Westminster.
4. The November Planning Applications Committees really was very thin, at least from the point of view of any Latchmere resident and hence unusually I will not even report back from it.
5. The Survey of London’s long awaited volumes on Battersea were produced in November. They are truly massive books and tell you all that there is to tell about the buildings past and present of Battersea. They do not come cheap, indeed the pair sell at £100+ and are clearly meant for libraries, but if you want to find out anything about your street or block then here is the place to start looking. However, I must say it is le
ss good on the council estates than it is on anything else and so Latchmere misses out a bit! I attach one of the illustrations from the book – a watercolour of the Battersea river front by Cecil Hands painted in the early 1930s. Note that the Power Station only had two chimneys and stayed that way until after the War.
6. BAC (Battersea Arts Centre) had the 120th anniversary of the opening of Battersea Town Hall on 15th November. In many ways it was a launch for a big fund raising effort for the Town Hall and its re-furbishment but it was also a launch of a small booklet produced by BAC of the “Great Hundred”, who had contributed to the Town Hall over the 120 years. At the moment the list has about 76 names categorised under headings such as social, architectural, political and artistic. They are looking for another 44 to make the 100 actually 120. There are some odd omissions such as Douglas Jay, Battersea’s MP from 1946-79, but if you think someone you know should be on the list then let me know and I will see if I can get them included.
7. I went to the SERA annual general meeting in Manchester on 23rd November. This green lobby group, of which I am the Treasurer, is concerned with all kinds of green issues but a growing area of concern is the quality of the air we breathe. Did you know, for example, that Putney High Street regularly has the worst air pollution ion the country. Cleaning up our roads is a major aim for SERA.
8. And on the 27th I attended the Civic Awards dinner at the Town Hall, where fellow constituent and resident of Scholey House, Marlene Price was presented with an award. Marlene has been involved with the York Road Estate Residents Association for over 30 years and has been the Chair of the Police Special Neighbourhood Team (SNT) for well over ten years. The photograph shows her being presented the award by Mayor Graham.
9. I had a Strategic Planning & Transportation Committee on 19th November and a Housing Committee on the 21st. I realise that most of you will think these meetings are dull although I usually enjoy them, but I must confess these two were really dull. You would not think it possible, would you, for us to be facing a real housing crisis in this country with a desperate shortage of affordable housing and for the Housing Committee to be dull but it was. Governments have done so much to strip local councils of power and/or money that we seem unable to re-act and I am afraid that this Council actually doesn’t want to act. After saying something like “It is all up to the market” they have nothing to say – pathetic?
10. But on a much more cheery note I went to the GCSE – Success organisation’s Annual General Meeting in York Gardens Library on Saturday 30th. Not heard of them, understandable but they are great. Led by Ella Spencer, they are a group of young professionals and/or post-graduates, who live or work in and around Winstanley and York Road estates, and have set up a “homework club” running out of the library on Saturday mornings. They started with an aim of lifting up the average GCSE grades for local kids. Their main areas of study are English and Maths. Last year GCSE – Success provided over 800 hours of free one:one tuition.
My Programme for December
1. On the 4th December we had the Council Meeting itself followed on 10th by the Planning Applications Committee.
2. I also met the Chief Executive of St. George’s Hospital on the 10th.
3. Unsurprisingly perhaps there are many Christmas events from the Falcon Road and Kambala Estate residents’ Xmas events, from the Big Local Xmas lunch to the BAC (Battersea Arts Centre) show. Needless to say, like for you I hope, December is not a good month for the waist-line.
4. Finally a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to you all or in modern twitter speak MX&HNY2U.
What do you know about John Archer?
John Archer came to Battersea in the late nineteenth century, when he became a friend and ally of John Burns, the charismatic working class leader of the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea. What was unusual about Archer was that he was from Barbados and in 1914 he was elected the first Black Mayor in the UK. He is pictured on the left and appears in the mural on what used to be the Haberdasher’s Arms in Dagnall Street.
Archer, and his Bajan wife, lived and worked in Latchmere ward. He had a photographic studio at 220 Battersea Park Road, where there is today a small plaque of commemoration. The building is not very interesting, being a 1950s infill of a bomb site, but it was well located for Archer’s business as the tram from town terminated at the junction of Albert Bridge and Battersea Park Road and his business clientele could come in on the way back from work.
Archer had humour and charm, which I think shows in the photograph, and is commemorated in a couple of other places in Battersea. There is John Archer Way, the new bridge over the railway, which leads to what used to be John Archer school, before it was demolished 20 odd years back, and Archer House, the ex-Council block in Battersea village.
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 