Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea February, 2020, Newsletter (# 128)

1. The General Election dominated my January just as much as it dominated December. In many ways the main chore for the agent (I was Marsha de Cordova’s election agent once again) is to do the expense returns and to do them by January 16th. Miss that date and you could be fined; get the expenses wrong then you have to explain why. It is not a fun job and I, like many, leave it to the last minute. I was getting worried that week, only to be told by the Electoral Registration Officer, when I eventually handed ours in, that I was one of the first to do so! Those sleepless nights!
   

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2. One interesting piece of analysis showed just how well Labour had done in Battersea. I am indebted to Councillor Emily Wintle, St. Mary Park ward, for the stats, which she was busily producing whilst the rest of us “invigilated” at the count.
   

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3. First of all, a note on the methodology: the ballot is of course secret but the ballot boxes are numbered and the Town Hall produces a list of numbers per ward. So, for example, ballot papers for residents in polling district LMA in Latchmere ward votes were in, say, boxes 201 and 202. Party observers, all parties, stand behind the counters (as you have probably seen on TV) and count as many votes for each party as they can. Hence if out of 200 votes seen, one can see that the Labour candidate had 83 votes and the Tory candidate 76 votes then the Latchmere sample would suggest Labour has 42.5% of the vote to the Tory’s 38%. Rough and ready perhaps but fairly accurate.
   

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4. Emily’s first conclusion was that Turnout was high overall at 76% compared to 71% in 2017. It seems that the projected turnout was highest in Balham, Northcote and Shaftesbury at just over 80%. However, in Queenstown only just over 65% made the effort. There are, of course, other factors. Queenstown almost certainly has a more transitory electorate than Northcote and because of that instability Queenstown’s register is probably less accurate – in other words the 15% differential in turnout is half technical, because the register is less accurate, and half demographic, because the population is less locally committed, younger and less established than Northcote’s.
   

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5. The actual result was, as shown in this pie chart. Labour’s share was 46% of the overall vote and the Conservative share 36%. Labour’s vote share was also 46% in 2017 but the Tory vote was 42%. So, this indicates that Labour held on to its vote share, but the Tories lost votes to both the Lib Dem and Green.
   

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6. The sampling suggested that Labour won every ward, with the biggest majorities in the core Labour ward of Latchmere and with the slimmest win in traditionally the safest Tory ward in Battersea: Northcote.
   

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7. The rest of the month was, in political terms, very quiet – even to the extent that not one constituent turned up to my Council surgery on the 18^th Actually, I doubt the value of council surgeries. It is an iron law of representative politics that elected MPs and councillors should hold surgeries, but it is an iron law from an earlier age. Today, most constituents have readier access to a phone or emails than to weekly councillor surgeries and there is no question that the vast majority of cases come through the phone or email. So, when I go to my surgery, I make sure that I have plenty to read!
   

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8. The only other big event of my month was the Planning Applications Committee on 28^th January – and this was a “biggy”. The agenda was a brutal 796 pages long, or should it be thick? Obviously, there was very little chance of all 796 pages being read, analysed and understood by all the committee members in the five days we had the papers. But that’s not the total point. The paperwork demonstrates all the issues that had been considered and the conclusions that planning officers had drawn before making their recommendations to the Committee. The paperwork is, itself, a public and legal justification for the recommendation in the event of a judicial challenge.
   

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9. By far the largest application this month was about the Winstanley Estate Regeneration. That really is a misnomer as it includes the total demolition of the York Road 2 Estate and only relatively few of the Winstanley Estate blocks. In outline, the development envisages the demolition of 759 residential units, a school and a chapel, and their replacement by 2,550 new units. In addition, there is to be a new swimming pool, a gym, a library and new healthcare facilities. The new housing units will be in a combination of new tower blocks and of quadrangles of mansions, designed to complement the mansion blocks surrounding Battersea Park. The new housing will be a mix of council housing, shared equity, affordable rent, shared ownership and private units.
   

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10. The Labour councillors have for many years been in negotiation with the Tory councillors, who are formally and constitutionally in control of the Council, about the mix of social and private housing. There are nowhere enough social housing units in this development to satisfy our demands, but on the other hand there are not as may private units as Tory councillors initially wanted. There will also be scope to vary the mix in the future. Personally, I think that the tall blocks are excessive – one has 35 storeys – and, I am sure that relocating

    York Gardens itself a few yards to the east (nearer Falcon Road) will have its problems. But I, and I am sure most of the residents, will be pleased that at last the project is really getting underway.

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11. The new externally completed block at the corner of Grant and Plough Roads as seen here is, I think, an encouraging sign of the design quality that is being introduced, with the balconies referencing the Winstanley’s famous William Mitchell’s concrete sculptures.
    

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12. There were also two applications for 23 storey blocks in the Nine Elms Lane area, which included residential units and “affordable” office accommodation, and another for a 16-storey development opposite Caius House and what used to be the Chopper pub. This latter item was deferred as councillors were not convinced by recent design changes, which reduced the amount of housing provided simply because social housing providers are NOT prepared to use the same entrances and exits as private residents. This complication is not a reverse snobbery but instead a justified fear about high service charges.
    

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13. The end result of the evening was yet more tower blocks in north Battersea, which, if nothing else, has revolutionised the townscape. I doubt whether this change is very popular with the public at large, but given the rapid expansion in London’s population and the kind of developments the London Mayor and the Government are prepared to accept, the trend seems inexorable.
    

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14. Finally, on 31^st I went to hear Keir Starmer give a “Labour leadership bid” speech in Westminster Abbey hall. He doesn’t give ribaldly funny speeches, laced with jokes about Boris Johnson, or passionate, “to die for” speeches as Michael Foot used to deliver. But he does give very considered, comprehensive speeches and, when he answers questions, he does actually answer the question asked and not the one that allows him the flashiest answer.
    

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My Programme for February

1. Battersea Labour Party had a fund-raising evening on the 2^nd.
2. There was a Council Meeting on 5^th
3. And a Strategic Planning and Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 6^th.
4. I have a Wandsworth Foodbank event on 13^th February, centred around a film by Ken Loach, which is bound to be both brilliant and agonising.
5. I will be going to a hustings event in Central London on 16^th February to hear the candidates for both Leader and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Younger readers might be surprised to hear that this procedure is a very, very recent innovation into British politics. It has a functional similarity to the American Primary Elections, even if we do them in a rather different way. But because it emphasises the Leader, in rather the same way as the Americans emphasise the President and his principal opponent, as opposed to the collective of MPs, I can’t help feeling that in the long-term this trend will have constitutional implications not yet understood.
6. February’s Planning Application Committee is on 20^th.
7. I may be playing chess for Surrey on 22^nd.
8. And finally, on the 25^th February there is a presentation on the Tideway Tunnel, which appears to be a large-scale infrastructure improvement in London, which is both on time and on budget. It is due to be completed in 2024 and only just in time judging by the increasingly variable weather!