Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea July, 2020, Newsletter (# 133)

1. This year continues its most extraordinary progress. Can any government ever have lost public support as rapidly as this one has? My own favourite mark of ineptitude came from Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, who told us not once but time and again that “we, the Government, will make the right decisions at the right time”. Have you ever heard of anyone boasting of making the wrong decisions at either the right or wrong time?
   

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2. On 4^th June, we had our last street “clapathon” in honour of the emergency workers. It was followed by a concert, given by 11 local schoolgirls. The picture shows 6, with the harpist hidden by the violinist, the 8^th and 9^th playing cellos off to the left and two flautists off to the right. All were accompanied by the pianist, the musical mother of the violinist, who arranged the ensemble. They were spectacularly good with the violinist simply outstanding.
   

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3. On Friday, 19^th June, an old friend, Andy Fearn, led a dozen or so refugees and asylum seekers, all members of Caras Community Centre, a charity based in Tooting, in giving a presentation to Wandsworth councillors. The presentation was a short film, Hold on to your Hope, showcasing their poetry and art. It was put together over 8 weeks during lockdown, with guidance from drama and arts facilitators from the Phosophoros Theatre Company and People’s Palace Projects. Through a series of online workshops, they explored issues around community, identity, challenges, fear, and future hopes. The workshops were part of a wider project called ‘Our Wandsworth’, which is being funded by the Wandsworth Community Fund and the National Lottery and delivered by the charity Protection Approaches. The aim of this project is to prevent prejudice and discrimination and to assist those from marginalised communities in Wandsworth to speak of their experiences to the wider community. The thought-provoking film can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DEePjbm5MU&feature=youtu.be
   

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4. The presentation was done on Zoom. I am conscious that some readers of this newsletter may not be acquainted with Zoom, or with Microsoft’s Teams (almost none of us were pre-lockdown). They are software tools, now used across the world, to run meetings, or to teach children, or for presentations, or to play chess, or bridge or a countless number of other things. If you have not used either of them or something similar get your children to teach you, or if not your children then someone else’s. There will be very few jobs, or possibly even much social life, in future where Zoom is not used.
   

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5. Last month, I wrote of the work of volunteer organisations delivering food to those, who need that support. One of those organisations was WNWN (Waste Not Want Not) and, cleverly, they offered to deliver a meal to anyone prepared to pay for a fund-raiser. So, on 20^th June, my partner and I settled down for the evening and right on time a meal was delivered by one of the volunteers. It was a scrumptious treat.
   

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6. Can I remind you of my last month’s message: If you want to help our community at this difficult time but perhaps can’t for medical/physical reasons of your own then one option is to give at – https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/wastenotwantnot
   

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7. On 22nd June, 26 Labour councillors held our annual meeting on Teams. Most of the evening was spent on important but totally internal matters but it was also the occasion of our annual election for Leader of the Wandsworth Labour Group. This year, it was contested and the winner, by the narrowest of margins was Leonie Cooper. Leonie, who as I am sure some of you will recall, was a Latchmere councillor 2006-10 (she was the one with the dog). Leonie succeeded Simon Hogg who, of course, is and continues to be a Latchmere councillor. Leonie is a highly effective member of the Greater London Assembly, where she represents Merton and Wandsworth, which is clearly a good fit for someone aspiring to be the Leader of Wandsworth Council after the 2022 Borough elections.
   

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8. On June 24^th we had the third virtual (that is to say conducted remotely via a Teams link) Planning Applications Committee PAC. There were some large, important applications relating to sites in Earlsfield and Putney but the largest single application related to Battersea Power Station. Actually, the application was largely technical, switching the use of two very large (22,000 square metres) buildings from residential to office and vice versa, but leaving the total space for residential and office unchanged. The important sub-text is whether development continues across London, Wandsworth, and in particular Nine Elms, or whether the economy comes to a grinding halt, leaving to the developers by Harris Academy in return for a school gymnasium and associated facilities. As for the gym and facilities: where are they now?
   

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9. The PAC meeting had 105 live viewers with 38 later watching the archive “film”. The May meeting had 432 live viewers and has since had 329 views of the archive film. This decline in the ratings could mean that the original novelty of being able to watch the Committee at home has worn off but perhaps more likely it was because the May meeting dealt with more controversial applications. Either way, I think that, although we are not going to challenge Coronation Street in the ratings, there is little doubt that live streaming of Council and committee meetings are a modern fixture.
   

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10. Councillor Melanie Hampton, Mary Park, had the fun idea of making videos, from Julia Donaldson’s Gruffalo books. The idea was to provide the videos to schools so that they can show them to children in class and also share them with children, who are homeschooling.  The videos will also go to local libraries and will be shared in Brightside with links to YouTube.
    

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11. Sandra Evangelista, the Wandsworth Council officer tasked with putting this into action, thought it would be a great idea to film the videos in our local green spaces and for them to be distributed to people who are unable to get out and about. She also had the idea of using councillors to do the “acting”. So, on 26^th June I went to Battersea Park to play my part in a drama called A Squash and a Squeeze. The picture is of me as the wise old man on the set!
    

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12. The first video out on release is The Gruffalo, starring fellow ward councillor Kate Stock and three other councillors. You can see it here at https://youtu.be/Cs8T4INVfOM. I think you will agree that it is a charming film. I just hope that “mine” is half as good.
    

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13. Meanwhile, we face a summer of off-and-on lockdown, public disturbances, rising concerns about community:police relations, high levels of unemployment, social distancing in schools, trains and buses, pubs and cafes; and, on top of all that, worries about life through and after Brexit. When a Chinese guru said, many years ago, “May you live in interesting times” he obviously had 2020 in mind!
    

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My Programme for July

1. On 6^th July I am going to the dentist, having lost a tooth on 6^th April – a very minor problem compared with many others. I am intrigued about how that will work in a socially distanced manner. Should be fascinating.
2. Once again, in an official sense, July will be a quiet month. There will be a virtual Council Meeting on 14th July and a Planning Applications Committee (PAC) on 23^rd We are now quite practised at virtual committee meetings with about a dozen participants but a full, formal Council meeting with 60 participants – that will be a new experience!

Last month I asked whether anyone knew who this woman was?

         I got a few responses with one person guessing it was Charlotte Despard, the indefatigable campaigner for women’s rights, and many other issues such as Indian and Irish independence. But moments before I finished this newsletter someone gave me the correct answer. It is a picture of Dame Millicent Fawcett (1847–1929), painted by Theodore Wirkman, now hanging in the Royal Holloway College gallery. Fawcett, who gave her name to a road on the Kambala Estate (Fawcett Close, SW11 2LT & 2LU), became the leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies in 1897. Her more reformist campaigning methods were possibly more important in winning the vote for women than has been acknowledged, in comparison with Christobel Pankhurst’s more radical Women’s Social

and Political Union.

Millicent Fawcett was also very active in furthering the cause of women’s education. She was a founding member of Cambridge University’s first woman’s college, Newnham College, and of Bedford College, London, later part of Royal Holloway College.

This month let me ask whether you can place my tree of the month? It is a weeping willow in Latchmere ward but where exactly?