September 14, 2017  

Councillor Tony Belton’s North Battersea September, 2017, Newsletter (# 99)

  1. This newsletter is going to be short, well, comparatively – August was a quiet month! In passing, have you noticed the number (# 99) in the heading?  It indicates that this is the 99th edition of my monthly newsletter. In other words, I have been producing this for 8 years and 3 months, well actually 2 months, because in August, 2011, I produced 2 editions so as to cover the Clapham Junction riots. I am now wondering if and how to celebrate the 100th edition, next month!
  2. One of the first things I did, after I got back from Scotland, was to have lunch at the Fish in A Tie restaurant in Falcon Road with fellow councillor, Simon Hogg. I went by bike and padlocked my bike against street railings in full sight of where I sat. So, imagine my anger, and amazement, when I saw three youths about 16/17 years’ old fiddling about with the padlock. I charged out, as best as my new metal knee would allow, and tackled the three of them. They rode off, after a short scuffle, but unfortunately on my bike and two of their own, assuming that they weren’t stolen too, leaving me holding one of theirs – and a broken padlock!
  3. The Special Neighbourhood Team, or most of it (pictured here with captured bike), arrived after a call from Simon. One of them came in and took a statement from me – at the dinner table. They said that one of the villains was arrested in Dagnall Street, but I have heard nothing since. I lost my bike and the police have “acquired” a bike as material evidence. What a nuisance! More to the point, what a tragedy! Three young villains, well on the way to wasting their lives on petty crime and under-achievement. It would have been good to have caught them properly and talked to them long and seriously, before they graduate onto more serious crime.
  4. On August 13th I went to a Labour Party fund raising garden party in Putney. Leonie Cooper (pictured here), our Greater London Assembly member, was the main attraction at this enjoyable summer occasion. She spoke about life at City Hall, the Grenfell Tower fire disaster and the housing crisis in London.
  5. On the 16th Seth Gowley, an Oxford geography student, writing a PhD thesis on urban regeneration, visited me to ask about my views on the Winstanley Estate regeneration. He had interviewed some of the residents and other local “experts” and had visited a few other examples of major regeneration projects in London and other big cities. Gratifyingly, he commented that he thought that we have done quite well here on the Winstanley, compared to other places in the country. He based this view on the largely positive reactions that he had had from residents.
  6. You may be surprised to hear that I am a member of the Licensing Committee – I have never previously mentioned it. It met on August 22nd to decide whether a Putney restaurant should be allowed or not to use some outside space for drinking and smoking for an extra 30 minutes. What a bore – a summer evening spent on such a minor matter!
  7. This was part of Tony Blair’s 1997-2002 reforms of local government and, to my mind, this was one of the more useless of those reforms. Prior to 1997, licensing at this level was decided by local magistrates. Having been a magistrate, I know that this kind of decision would be taken in 10 minutes, or maybe 30, in a busy day full of other largely administrative matters. Blair argued that he was returning powers to local government.
  8. This, however, was no such thing. Local government was being handed power over the trivial but was totally constrained on the major licencing policy issues, such as deciding on the total number of drinking establishments, pubs or bars, that would be acceptable in, say, Clapham Junction. Government thinking was, and is, that decision should be left “to the market”. Then, of course, one is left with the old neo-liberal lie “that one cannot defy the market”.
  9. The following evening, I had the Planning Applications Committee, which on this occasion had no decision to take of any significance, except to the applicant him/herself, and their neighbours.
  10. On 26th I went to the Ingrave People’s Project Street Party, Hicks Close. The party was organised by Donna Barham, who some of you will know is a Hicks Close resident. Donna has been doing sterling work, maintaining community spirit in the Kambala Estate, organising summer day trips to the coast and winter trips to the Christmas market in Oxford. Donna was thinking of standing to be a councillor at next May’s Council election. It would have been great to have had her on Wandsworth Council as a colleague, but she decided her community work was, and is, more important to her. Here is Donna, second left, along, with two Spidermen, Princess Elsa, from Walt Disney’s Frozen, and a Kambala resident.
  11. On the political front, I was pleased to read Keir Starmer’s 26th August statement on the Labour Party’s position on Brexit negotiations. It has been agreed by Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Leadership and hence is of national importance. It has been clear to me that the previous ambivalent stance could not stand for long. Given the Government’s hopeless stance on Brexit, our two-party political system demanded that Labour, as the official Opposition, made its position clear.
  12. Changing the focus, have you seen the new electric car charging points installed in Grant Road opposite the station entrance. There are others promised across the Borough, Cabul Road for example. Soon we will all have to get used to having cars wired up across the pavement. That is bound to raise issues that have not yet been considered. But in the next 10 years we will see the end of new combustion engine cars and a massive increase in electric cars.
  13. Finally, I should congratulate all those students, who did so well in this year’s exams, with special mention of students at Latchmere’s Harris Academy and Thames Christian College.

My Programme for September

  1. On 11th September, my colleagues, Simon Hogg and Wendy Speck, and I will be on the platform at York Gardens Library at the Council’s Let’s Talk meeting. This is an opportunity for Latchmere residents to question us, and a team of council officers, about anything from potholes, to progress on the Winstanley Estate regeneration, from safety on our roads to social care for the elderly.
  2. On 13th September, I hope to go the Royal College of Arts (RCA), to see the plans for the new RCA building in York Road.
  3. On the 19th September, I have the Community Services Committee. I don’t know yet what will be on the agenda, but one possibility is a proposal to demolish and reconstruct the Northcote Road Library.
  4. The September meeting of the Planning Application Committee is on the 20th
  5. The Labour Party Conference runs from 23rd to 27th September and I am booked in to Brighton for the duration. I have been often enough before but this one promises to be something a bit special. I am sure that there will be masses of discussion about the future of the UK in, or out, of the EU.

Opinion Piece

The Tory Party is currently putting up a good imitation of total implosion. In July, 2014, I wrote a blog, where I suggested that the Tory party was in danger of a major split – right now that blog looks prescient. Read it at:-
https://tonybelton.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/the-tories-face-a-disaster-called-europe/
Tell me what you think. Is this just a blip or something more serious for the Tory Party? And if the Tory Party does implode, then what will be the impact on Labour? I don’t think that such a collapse will be simply an unmitigated benefit for Labour, except in the short-term.

Do you know?

Last month I asked whether anyone knew where is the larger identical twin to this the Barbara Hepworth statue, pictured here by the lake in Battersea Park.

A number of you got the right answer, which is the United Nations Building in New York City. It was commissioned from Hepworth as a memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld, following his death in an air crash in Africa in 1961. Hammarskjöld (pronounced Hammershelt) was General Secretary of the UN and his death was the subject of much speculation – was the plane shot down by Western agents or African warlords? Was it really an accident or was it an assassination? Were the killers, agents of western imperialism, or tribal warriors? A modern mystery.

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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