April 14, 2016  

Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere April, 2016, Newsletter (# 83)

  1. I am going to start with the last day of the month, 31st March, 2016 – a disaster! I have been well and truly hacked. I was rung by a Microsoft support technician, except that it turned out that he wasn’t. Indeed he was a modern highwayman, a crook. After he had conned me and stripped my computer of all locally held data, including photographs and software, and got into my bank and transferred $5,000 (I can’t at present find the GBP sign on my keyboard!), to a Mr. Cardusi, I was able to get free from him. Fortunately the Bank refused to transfer the money and I have access to the internet
  2. So I am able to type this newsletter using Mailchimp, with its limited word processing capabilities. I also have all the email addresses that I used in Mailchimp, namely Latchmere constituents, but I have lost many of the rest. How much of the rest of this newsletter I will be able to finish, you will know when I get there. But I think I have lost photographs I intended to put in and maybe have been so hit by this emergency that I miss stories and forget events. But one thing I do say to you is be more rigorous about backing up all your data and filing copies of your software than I have been.
  3. I will spend much of the next week trying to recover the accounts of two voluntary bodies, of which I am Treasurer; constituent casework, maybe 4,000 photographs, etc., etc. I look forward to a miserable week and I do hate criminal hackers! And now onto the rest of the newsletter – though if any of you are experts on pc recovery then I look forward to hearing from you!
  4. There was a Council Meeting on 9th The March Council Meeting was traditionally an important debate about the Budget and next year’s Council Tax. But it has rather lost its point since successive governments, of both persuasions, have so limited Council’s capacity to raise, or in effect cut, Council Tax that although we go through the debate and we try and find grounds to vote against each other, in practice there is very little to debate.
  5. So the main debate was about the Ofsted Report condemning Wandsworth’s performance relating to “children looked after”. The Labour councillors, me included, called AGAIN for the resignations of those local politicians responsible for the “inadequate” services provided for these vulnerable children. Of course the Tory members took no notice.
  6. The March Planning Applications Committee PAC meeting was on 23rd and had one application of real interest to Latchmere residents and that was for the redevelopment of the Shell Garage in York Road – the one on York Road, right opposite Doris Emmerton House. It involved the demolition of all the existing buildings and the erection of essentially a nine storey building and basement to provide 78 private rented apartments, and a replacement filling station, with a shop. Savoy1York Road, admittedly not the most glamorous of roads, looks like being transformed beyond recognition.
  7. By the way, here is just a reminder of what used to stand on the site – the Savoy cinema – I mentioned it in my February, 2014, newsletter. The massive auditorium, built in 1938, sat over 2,000 people and was damaged by a V2 in January, 1945, and was finally demolished in 1960.savoy2
  8. Talking of planning applications, the latest news on that front is that a developer has acquired the site of the old schoolkeeper’s house at Harris Academy, formerly Battersea Park School, and is in talks with the planners about putting a 13/14 storey block on theIMG_1755 site at the corner of Culvert Road and Battersea Park Road. This might look something like this, with Castlemaine House on the right.
  9. A few days earlier, 19thMarch, Wandsworth Labour Parties had a fish ‘n chips fund raising supper at York Gardens Library. There is not really much reason to mention it except that it was to mark International Earth Day, which I dare say you have never heard of. I hadn’t and when you look it up on Google there are conflicting accounts of when it actually is with some saying 22 April and others 21 March. In any event it has been “invented” to salute the earth and all of those environmentalists making efforts to save it! So we ate by candlelight and MP, Hilary Benn, gave his first ever candlelit speech. A bit odd really but very pleasant.
  10. Where were you during Hurricane Katie? I went down to the Duchess _88974872_88974871[1]in Nine Elms Lane not long after Easter Monday and saw the “blown-out” gable end for myself. This is the best picture I got of it! You can see by the amount of masonry on the road what a mess it would have made of any person or thing (car) below on the road!
  11. Of course, we all know just how perverse the British IMG_1766weather can be so it was fun to take this picture from my house at sunset, two days later!
  12. On Saturday, 26th March, a number of people staged a “Welcome to Refugees” event at Battersea Arts Centre. Here is IMG_1753Aaron Barbour, in the sweater and jeans, of the Katherine Low Settlement welcoming some of the recent arrivals, largely from war-torn Afghanistan and Somalia.

My Programme for April

  1. First of all, I have to sort out my computing mess. Do I go for Apple? How much of my data can I recreate or recover? Be more thorough about back-ups. Put as much into the sky as possible. Don’t make my mistake!
  2. On Wednesday, 6th, I will be attending my first Corporate Parenting Panel. I must say I am very dubious about this. I just do not see how the Government can really believe that councillors can take on the almost entirely theoretical role of corporate parents. Just try suggesting that they should legislate for MPs having such a role. MPs would run a mile – in my view – especially the opposition MPS who would be said to have the responsibility but no power to set the agenda or policies.
  3. I am going to a friend’s new house in Hastings over the 9th/10th week-end for my birthday – just which one I will keep to myself for now!
  4. The Battersea Society has tasked itself to make a record of all the buildings, terraces, views, memorials, etc. that it believes are of note in Battersea in an attempt to get them all, or as many as possible, listed and protected by the Council. And I and another Battersea Society member are going to spend all day Sunday 24th driving round Battersea listing and photographing them! That should be fun – I am looking forward to that.
  5. I have the Education and Children’s Services Committee on 12th April, when we will yet again be discussing introduced after the Ofsted Report! But that won’t be all as there will be another committee on 19th and a full Council Meeting on 27th, just devoted to this one matter.
  6. On the 21st there is the Planning Applications Committee, which will be deciding amongst other things – ring and check the list!
  7. And all the time the Mayoral Election, Khan vs. Goldsmith, and the Referendum campaigns are going on in a background full of Tories fighting like ferrets in a bag and Labour unable, or is it unwilling, to get its act together. What a turbulent political world.

Did you know?    Last month I asked for the connectionBrown Dog 1906 between the famous playwright, George Bernard Shaw, and  Latchmere. Quite a few of you got this right but unfortunately one of my PC losses was my inbox so I don’t know who – It would be really nice if you could resend your answer. The answer was that when John Archer unveiled the statue to the “Little Brown Dog” in Latchmere recreation ground, Shaw was there and was one of the speakers.

And for this month: There was a horse trough, there were actually quite a few, in York Road, but one in particular had the charming legend engraved in it – Be Merciful to your Animals. It has a new home 30 or so miles away – any idea where?

About Tony Belton

Labour Councillor for Latchmere Ward 1972-2022, now Battersea Park Ward, London Borough of Wandsworth Ever hopeful Spurs supporter; Lane visit to the Lane, 1948 Olympics. Why don't they simply call the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, The Lane? Once understood IT but no longer

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