Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere February Newsletter (# 69)

January highlights 

1. Last month, I talked a little about the Council’s threat to close Battersea Sports Centre (BSC) in Hope Street, in the autumn of this year. As I said then, this was a complete surprise to users, local residents and we three Latchmere councillors. Imagine our surprise therefore when the Tory councillors became really upset because we did NOT support the closure at the 21^st January Housing Committee meeting. One of them, the Deputy Leader, even circulated a rather childish and extremely unhelpful leaflet, accusing us of double-crossing them.
2. I had better explain. So far we three Labour councillors, that’s Wendy Speck, Simon Hogg and I, have worked fairly closely with the Council on the consultations and decisions involved in such a massive scheme as the regeneration of the Winstanley/York Road estates. It does after all involve the demolition of some 600 or so properties, most notably but not just Pennethorne, Scholey and Holcroft Houses, and the construction of many more new homes. Tenants and leaseholders (and a small number of freeholders) will have their homes demolished and rebuilt in what will be a major upheaval – or at least that is the plan. Clearly the Council would like to have the whole-hearted support of all.
3. You might ask what has that got to do with the closure of BSC – and it would be a good question. Well somehow or another in the minds of the Town Hall bureaucrats and their Tory bosses the closure of BSC had become an essential part of the whole plan for regeneration. The only trouble is that they had not bothered to tell anyone until the day of the January Committee meeting, having announced the closure more than a month previously. Not surprisingly both the community and we, Labour councillors, were already committed to opposing the BSC closure before they made the link. They should not really be surprised. The regeneration plan has been in gestation for three years and its link with the BSC has not been mentioned until this January. What is more the Council was making a completely separate claim in December that the BSC closure would be providing more affordable homes and not JUST replacement homes for the Winstanley!
4. The plan apparently is to use the site of the Sports Centre to build some 90 affordable units into which people from the York Road and Winstanley estates could be “decanted”. Our opposition to the BSC closure has already resulted in some back-tracking and some compromises. For example, the Council is now committed to providing a new all-weather, large soccer pitch at the south end of Falcon Park. But the Sports Centre is very busily and much more than a soccer pitch and is used by well over 20 sports clubs and local organisations and it is not as though the area is over-endowed with alternatives. We will continue to oppose closure until more is known about the replacement facilities, and the timing of their arrival.
5. After all “What did the Council’s own reports about the 2011 riots say?” That there was not a lot for young people to do in the area. But now the Tory councillors want to close down one of the busiest centres of them all! There is a petition for signature at the following address http://www.willtowin.org.uk/#!save-battersea-sports-centre/c150j if you wish to express your opposition.
6. The Planning Applications Committee met on the 20^th. There were no significant local applications this month but the trend to convert pubs to housing continues apace. This time the closure of the Prince of Wales on the corner of Surrey Lane and Battersea Bridge Road was confirmed but that was only the last in a long line. I can think of lots in Latchmere alone: the most recent being the Duke of Wellington, the Havelock Arms, the Grove and the Prince’s Head, but I am sure you can add to the list. The disappearance of pubs, one after another, marks the loss of important community assets, which we should safeguard.
7. One event that most of you will have missed, I am sure, was the launch of Wandsworth Radio on 12^th January. I understand that it had some 3,000 listeners in the first week – we wish it well. To listen just Google Wandsworth Radio.
8. I actually missed the launch because as I said last month I went into hospital for an “arthroscopy”. Although I said then that I would say more this month, there isn’t actually that much to say. My knee is not back to normal and it’s not killing me. But, I am afraid the story has not ended yet!
9. There was a Council Meeting on 28^th January but it was largely inconsequential except for the surprise announcement of the possible merger of Wandsworth and Richmond-upon-Thames Councils. The first thing to say about this is that this cannot be a full merger in every sense of the word as the London Boroughs were set-up by Act of Parliament (London Government Act, 1963) and can only be merged, abolished or changed by Parliament. However the Tory Leaders of the two Councils have decided that there should be economies of scale in merging many of the two Council’s operations. Hence rather than having two refuse collection services they can make do with one. Instead of having two education departments they can make do with one. Instead of having two Chief Executives, two Housing Directors, two Borough planners, etc., they can make do with having just the one.
10. There are some obvious ways in which this plan makes sense, although it is interesting to speculate what would happen if one of the authorities went Labour and just how a Tory and a Labour authority would work together as one. But there are also many other implications, not least that the savings being discussed can only be as a result of losing about 500 jobs in the two Boroughs. But one remarkable thing about the whole process is that we are embarking on this whole adventure on the say so of two men, Ravi Govindia of Wandsworth and Lord True of Richmond-upon-Thames. There has as yet been no Council decision in either borough, no referendum amongst the people – nothing! No doubt we shall learn more with time but meanwhile we wait and listen.

My Programme for February

1. I went to the Ram Brewery redevelopment launch (Model pictured right but not including the 42 storey Tower block) on 2^nd February, had an Education and Children’s Services Committee on 12^th and then of course there was Valentine’s Day, although that isn’t yet a Council event!
2. On 18^th February I have the Planning Applications Committee and then on the 19^th a discussion of the two Borough merger at the Finance Committee.

In response to some of your comments.

Thanks, Viv and Shirley, for your best wishes re the operation – as stated above fairly, or indeed totally, painless but not sure unfortunately that it has done the job! Daniel and Kathleen were of course right in describing this picture as the alleyway between Cabul Road and Latchmere Road and Daniel was right also in thinking that I thought it would be called a snicket. But he tells me that it could be either a ginnel or a snicket, but that it is actually too wide for either. I bow to the expertise of a real Tyke.

Kathleen was also right in saying that the gypsy encampment is right down the bottom of Culvert Road, between all the railway lines. I managed to get into the encampment purely by chance when taking a dozen or so people on a History Walk of Battersea. The only other way to see it is from the train but not just any old train. I think, but would be happy to be corrected, that the Overground Line from CJ’s Platform 2 to Wandsworth Road might be the best place to see it. By the way, if anyone is interested in going on the History Walk, which goes from the Latchmere pub to Battersea Arts Centre and takes a couple of hours, I am doing it next as part of the Wandsworth Heritage Festival on 24^th May. Just let me know and I will book you in – but I should say that I do it as a Labour Party fund-raiser and charge £10.

However, I have had no reply to the question about the third picture: “what and where is this”? I have to admit that it was difficult to take a very clear picture but it is a boot scraper set in the wall. There are 3 or 4 in consecutive houses on the west side of Latchmere Road immediately opposite Knowsley Road. This is the best preserved of the set and is at 46 Latchmere Road.