Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere August Newsletter (# 64)
August highlights
- Let’s face it, I’ve just had the longest August holiday in quite a long time
and so there haven’t been many highlights outside of holidaying – though I did get to meet the Deputy Mayor of Sofia, capital of Bulgaria. However I thought I’d share a couple of thoughts about holidaying in the former Yugoslavia and in Bulgaria. First and most obviously the Adriatic coast, of both Montenegro and Croatia where I was, is spectacular. The scenery is staggering, the sea is warm (though I did read last week about Great White Shark attacks in the Adriatic – but after I got back, thank goodness), the wine is good and the food OK. I don’t want to bore with holiday snaps but here is just one of the Montenegro coast. - Rather more sobering is the realisation that “Yugoslavia” is, or was not that long ago – 1990s, a war zone. The war affected the whole of the Balkans but, as far as I could see, the centre of the war was Bosnia and there the picture is rather less rosy than in Croatia. The bomb sites in the
centre of town and the bullet and artillery shell holes in the buildings are very noticeable. In the tourist haven of Mostar, the tourist area itself is largely and well re-constructed but just a hundred metres from the tourist sites are empty, derelict houses, flats and businesses. Our B&B host on one night was weeping that she, a Muslim, married to a Catholic, was living happily with her neighbours in the 1980s and then found herself overnight as it were at war with her neighbours. How did it happen and why? She could not understand. - It’s perhaps not very clear in this picture but this shelled out building, an empty husk, is a stone’s throw from the tourist hotspots!
- It would be impossible here surely! But then, uncomfortably, temperatures do appear to have risen a little north of the border. We must ensure that bitter feelings are controlled.
- However, the ex-Yugoslavian countries seem fairly vibrant compared to Bulgaria, where the collapse of the old Soviet-style heavy industries seems to have left the country as a complete economic disaster area. Massive industrial complexes stand derelict and empty with much of the rural population left to flee to the capital, Sofia. The Black Sea coastal resorts and, no doubt, the ski resorts are doing well but much of Bulgaria looks like a country with big problems.
- Here in Latchmere, the Council’s Community Safety Team have installed a security camera in Anerley St to assist in issues concerning the theft of mopeds and dangerous driving of the vehicles in the area. Anerley Street is the short link between Dagnall Street and Battersea Park Road and I must say it is encouraging to see the police and the Council co-operating in trying to control the young villains who are largely responsible for this annoying and dangerous vandalism.
- I also heard the good news in August that the South West London Law Centre is going to re-locate in Falcon Road, next to the Mercy Foundation and near to the Prince’s Head. We have not had an appropriate location for the Law Centre for some years now but this new accommodation will be right at the heart of the action and well placed to serve the people who most need its services.
My Programme for September
- I am going to the Labour Party Conference in Manchester, starting on Sunday, 21st.
- The Planning Applications Committee will meet on 15th and the Education & Children’s Services Committee on the 17th.
- I will be at the AGM of GCSE Success, the self-help homework club, at York Gardens Library on 20th.
Did you know? Oh, dear I haven’t got anything to put here this month! Hopefully inspiration will come in time for next month!
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 