Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere July Newsletter (# 62)

June highlights

1. The first month of a new Council was an odd experience for me on several counts! For starters, it is the first time since 1971 (Yes, 1971!) when I haven’t been in some kind of leadership role either in office or in opposition during the first month of the new Council– so I only hear second-hand what has being decided! Secondly, the Labour leadership, in its wisdom, have decided to give me the lead role on the Education and Children’s Services Committee – schools and school children but also quite a lot more, and a new experience for me. I continue to be on the Planning Applications Committee.
2. Under financial pressures from the Government, the Council has decided that the Council and most Committees are to meet only 4 times a year instead of 6 and that there should be fewer councillors on each committee. This might seem like sensible financial efficiencies to those of you with a very business-related background but to me it seems like dangerous under-mining of the democratic process. I find it difficult to see just how councillors can build up a level of expertise and common understanding – call it teamwork if you will – on the basis of meeting and talking to each other so infrequently. Why does that matter? Well in my mind I think that is a sure-fire recipe for leaving the paid officers in charge and removing the elected members, and in the end, you the electorate, out of the process. It also will result, I think, in further centralisation of the already over-centralised British governmental system. Officers will never, ever be able to resist the threats and bullying tactics that Governments, Labour as well as Tory and Coalition, use on local authorities. Not that we councillors always did but at least we stood a fighting chance! What does that mean for me? Well I will do my best to be a voice for a more democratic and slightly more rebellious (perhaps “questioning” would be a better word) role for councillors.
3. My first meeting as Children’s Speaker was fascinating. It was a meeting of the so-called Academies and Free School Commission. “What on earth is that?”, I can hear you cry – well a jolly good question. The Commission is a Wandsworth Council special, a Tory joke, a bureaucratic piece of hypocrisy and/or a jolly good idea – take your pick.
4. Let me try and explain. Michael Gove came into Government with a more or less explicit plan to get rid of local education authorities (LEAs) – he doesn’t want local councillors involved in running schools. His argument is let’s leave running the schools to the Heads (oh, and of course, Michael Gove).To achieve his objective Gove has forced schools to become academies, as he is currently doing with Battersea Park School which is due to become a Harris (Carpet and also Tory funding grandee) Academy; he has also ruled that all new schools have to be either so-called Free Schools or Academies – as in the Jewish Mosaic school set-up in Putney.
5. However Wandsworth Council actually thinks it is doing quite a good job as an LEA and also doesn’t want one of its main functions stripped from it. So it has appointed this Commission, in order to advise the Government on which organisations should be allowed to run schools and/or start up new ones.
6. Funnily enough, I think it probably does quite a good job and, by the way, it is a model being recommended by Government for other LEAs to follow, despite it being set up precisely to thwart the Government’s objective of keeping councillors out of the process. The ironies are endless! We had Church of England representatives at the Commission arguing that they were NOT at all like faith schools – they don’t want to be caught up in the backlash against Muslim faith schools which is now embroiling Birmingham. The Commission is chaired by a Baroness Perry, a stalwart of the education establishment who says on Google that “My biggest mistake was underestimating how awful the Inner London Education Authority could be,” but interestingly enough never seems to have been elected to anything in her quango-studded life.  She actually didn’t get the irony about the Church of England.
7. Unfortunately, from the Tories point of view, they have to have a minority party member on this commission. I am not usually as political as this in my newsletter but the Commission is an absolutely fantastic example of making decision-making the province of the great and the good, and of course by definition Tory, and keeping everyone else out of it
8. My second meeting was a far less contentious visit to Allfarthing School– don’t know what the kids made of it but I enjoyed it! Though I do wonder a bit what these visits of supposed bigwigs actually accomplishes – an interesting occasion for us (there were some half a dozen councillors) but to what end? Well, one thing that strikes a relative newcomer to the world of primary schools is just how female dominated they are. Is this one reason why boys are falling further and further behind girls in school performance and if so what can we do about it?
9. As for the Education and Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee itself on 25^th June, I hardly know what to say. There was a presentation from young people on the work of the Youth Council in Wandsworth. It was all very nice and interesting and said a lot about what the Youth Council do but I am not at all clear that it had anything to do with the meat of local politics. Another interesting paper was one about the re-tendering out of the Leaving Care Services. This is a really important service, which is responsible for mentoring, almost parenting, children in care when at the age of 16 or so they have to move out of Council care and into the wide world as independent people. For those of us with a well parented background, the thought of being out on your own at the age of 16 seems horrifying, or perhaps terrifying. So it really is an important service but there doesn’t seem anything for councillors to decide about it, other than to proceed with the tendering! It seemed to me important to ensure that the service would not be threatened by the tendering process – but that was all.
10. On the 17^th June there was the Planning Applications Committee. There were lots of applications but none of them very significant except for the three Council applications for the expansion of Albemarle, Hillbrook and Allfarthing primary schools and another for the demolition of the Battersea Power Station’s Pumping Station. The primary school expansions are a sign of the population explosion happening in the Borough and most particularly in the central and western parts. It is ironic that the Council closed some dozen schools and sold off the sites in the late 1990s and early 2000s and is now desperately trying to expand many of the ones that remain.
11. As for the Pumping Station, there was quite a campaign to refuse this application to demolish the station with many people confusing its demolition with concerns about the demolition of the Power Station. In my view the campaigners were deliberately trying to confuse – surely there cannot be too many people concerned about a building that is almost totally unknown to Battersea residents and whose continuing existence, the developers claim, was merely delaying the day when the Power Station is at last re-opened.
12. By the way, the south west chimney of the Power Station will be demolished in the next few months with re-building said to be completed by 2016, by which time work will have started on the other three chimneys.
13. On a personal level, I and partner, Penny, went to Spain for a week with the grandchildren and their parents. The excuse was a friend’s 60^th birthday party in a small Spanish town called Jesus Pobre, which also had its annual fiesta. Plenty of bulls (not one killed – Spain is changing), flamenco, Rioja and rather tragically for our hosts Spain’s 5-1 defeat to Holland in the World Cup! Here is Scarlett, with Penny and me!
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15. And a week later, I went to the Lake District to scatter the ashes of my old friend and fellow Labour councillor Peter Ackhurst from the top of Bowfell. The picture gives an idea of the beauty of the Lake District for those who don’t know it.
16. And on the last day of June, ex-Council Leader Edward Lister, now Deputy Mayor of London, announced the plan to introduce a Formula-E race in Battersea Park in the summer of 2015. Formula-E is motoring racing’s response to criticism of Formula 1 as a non-green sport, designed to burn up more carbon fuels in 2 hours than any other sport. Formula-E, as I understand it, would focus on electronic-powered racing cars and might just become the model of motor racing in the 21^st century. If successful it would presumably be the first of many annual grand prix events and would bring massive crowds to Battersea Park and possibly disturb/ruin Battersea Park for the best part of a whole summer month. Just what do you think we should do in response – welcome the idea with open arms or resist the plan to the end?

My Programme for July

1. On 2^nd July I have an Education and Standards Group, which investigates school performance – on this occasion Allfarthing School and Latchmere’s own Sacred Heart Primary School.
2. July is always the height of the summer social scene. One of my favourite parties is the Knowsley Street Triangle party on Saturday, 5^th July. Then on 10^th there is the Battersea Society summer social in the grounds at St. Mary’s – always a splendid occasion – if the weather is good. And on 12^th Women of Wandsworth (WoW) are having a BBQ for the elderly at Haven Lodge.
3.  On the 16^th there will be the first Meeting of the new Council. This is always an interesting occasion as one weighs up the strengths and weaknesses of the new councillors but is, of course, almost unknown to you the electorate. If any of you fancy coming then do get in touch with me and I will ensure that you get a tour of the Council Chamber and a ring side seat at a Council Meeting.
4. The Planning Applications Committee, which will meet on 17^th.

Do you know about Ron Elam’s Battersea photo collection?

My friend Ron Elam has been collecting photographs and postcards of Battersea for the best part of 40 years! He has something in the range of 40,000 of them stored in a large shed in his back garden. He used to run a market stall, occasionally in Northcote Road and more frequently in Bellevue Road. Well he has now published a book “Battersea Through Time”, with his colleague Simon McNeill-Ritchie, and included in it many photographs from the past but with every picture from the past alongside its modern equivalent.

Everywhere from Clapham Junction to Lavender Hill, Nine Elms and Battersea Park is featured.

Here is a sample from the east end of Battersea Park Road in 1920 and today.

The book is priced at £14.99 but for the next month it can be obtained for £12 if you mention the Wandsworth Guardian by contacting Mr Elam on 0208 874 8544 or by emailing ron@localyesterdays.demon.co.uk.