Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea October 2021, Newsletter (# 148)
- What a month! Two funerals, a death, a wedding and a “50 years as a councillor party” in the first fortnight; Council candidate selections amid confusion during the whole month; petrol queues and empty supermarket shelves at the end of the month; a new undergound station (or two) for all of us; a new baby for fellow Councillor Kate Stock; and entombment in a Sporle Court lift for me – and those are just the headlines! Oh, and a pro football games.
- 3rd September was the day of Kathy Tracey’s funeral. Kathy was a strong Tory councillor and therefore wicked – but actually not on every issue.
She of course supported, what to me, were some fairly outrageous Tory policies, but, as boss of Wandsworth’s Children’s Services, she genuinely cared for “children looked after” (or “taken into care” in lay language). She was a passionate supporter of girls’ education and of sex education – perhaps particularly for boys! I well remember an epic battle she fought with some hard-right young Tory councillors on that particular issue. I suspect that she might well have become the Leader of the Council, if she had been a man. Here she is after the refurbishment of the Doddington Activity Centre. I certainly respected her.
- On 4th September, fellow councillor Annamarie Crichard invited me to join her and her husband, Steve, at Wimbledon AFC’s new Plough Lane stadium for the league match against Oxford United. I had been to the old Plough Lane stadium,
with my parents, in the 80s – but what a difference. The new ground is very neat and well organised and there is clearly space for the expansion required if the club were to be promoted (unlikely this year but they were in the Premiership equivalent forty years ago). One startling difference between new and old was the playing surface. It was like playing on a carpet as opposed to the mud that used to pass for a football pitch in the 80s. As for the game itsrlf, Oxford United started well and took a 1-0 lead into the second half. But then the Dons came good and ran out 3-1 victors.
- The 9th September was the day picked for the
Celebration of my 50 Years as a Wandsworth councillor. It seemed to go well; and I am delighted to record again my thanks to all who put so much effort into its organisation. And to those of my fellow councillors who funded the event (no Council-paid-for junketing here!). I greatly appreciated the engraved beer tankard presented to https://www.msn.com/en-gb/feed me by the Mayor and which I am holding close to my heart in this picture. -
- And then on 10th September I attended the Quaker funeral of an old friend, Ron Elam. Ron and I were “flat neighbours” in the 1960s and worked together in County Hall from then until the abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986. Away from County Hall, he became a very senior and experienced school governor, travelling the country inspecting and monitoring school governing bodies. Although a Labour Party member, he was frequently used by Tory Wandsworth Council to help and advise on the recovery of failing schools. The Quaker funeral service was very moving, very restrained and very comforting. In general, I’m not one for religious occasions and find some positively off-putting but I must say that the Quakers are in a different class! Plain speaking from the heart is hard to beat.
- To complete the week, on the Saturday, Penny and I were off to the delightful village of Aynho in Northamptonshire for the wedding of one of my colleagues from University – Yes, you read that properly – one of my colleagues from college in the 60s. Mind you it was his third wedding and a very cheerful, happy day it was – lots of dancing, including by me!
- The following day, Penny and I explored the village.
It didn’t take long. It’s not very big but it is spectacular, with a magnificent seventeenth-century mansion (Aynho House), which is used for wedding parties, but not by our party. The most spectacular of the village sites is St. Michael’s Church. It was originally fourteenth-century, but it was destroyed by fire in 1723, except for the tower. Amazingly enough the church was rebuilt in the mid eighteenth-century to look like a country house of the period, but with the church tower standing rather incongruously at one end of it.
- It really was a turbulent fortnight.
- The Planning Applications Committee (PAC) on 16th September included one fascinating decision regarding yet another massive application in Nine Elms. To be honest, I didn’t quite understand it as we were asked both to defer making a decision and to delegate it to the officers. That procedure was very strange and I don’t recall a similar case in all my years’ experience. After all, if there was no urgency, which a decision to defer seemed to imply, then logically there would be enough time to come back to the Committee for due consideration and therefore no need to delegate. It looked frankly odd to me and to most of my Labour colleagues, but the resolution was passed by the Tory majority. I will certainly keep my eyes open to see what follows from their decision!
- One of the biggest events in Battersea
in 2021 has to be the opening of the Battersea Park underground station. I didn’t go to the actual opening but I did travel from the station to the new Nine Elms station just a few days later. What is so noticeable is how clean, fresh and empty the station and the platforms are. It is a timid commuter’s delight but the impact on TfL’s finances is too dreadful to contemplate. Of course, the line needs to continue to Clapham 
Junction. That would transform the pattern of usage but the money just isn’t there (without government intervention), despite what some critics are claiming. As a result it does run the risk of becoming a massively under-used facility. One fascinating indicator of this is the lack of business at mid-day in the massive Sainsbury’s lower car park at Nine Elms and its usea as a training ground for these young in-line skaters!
- If you are not interested in the minutiae of politics, you should skip this paragraph because much of the rest of September was taken up by Labour councillors and newcomers competing to be the party’s candidates in next May’s Borough election. The process has been delayed by Covid, and complicated by the ward and boundary changes. So, to take an obvious and personal example, the old Latchmere ward will cease to exist in May 2022 and its three councillors, Simon Hogg, Kate Stock and myself, are competing with two newcomers for the two Falconbrook councillor positions. By definition we cannot all win. It’s a tense time in Battersea Park, Falconbrook and Shaftesbury & Queenstown wards but we will know our candidates by 10th October.
- Meanwhile, life continues! On 19th September,
fellow Latchmere Councillor Kate Stock gave birth to a 10 lb 4 oz baby boy, named Jude. Congratulations to Kate and her husband, Tom. Kate doesn’t, by the way, believe in half measures. As well as coping with Jude, and his young sister Edie, and with ward reselections, she and Tom moved house on 30th September and became very near neighbours of ours.
- On September 23rd Kambala Cares, one of the two main volunteer groups helping to cook, shop and care for the vulnerable during the Covid lockdown, organised a party for its volunteers. I went as did Cllr Hogg and, most significantly, Mayor Richard Field. The party organised by Chair Donna Barham was well deserved by the many volunteers and very enjoyable for all.
- As a councillor, I make regular tours of
Latchmere. On September 25th, I visited a constituent in Sporle Court (pictured here), the old high-rise, giant of north Battersea before all these new higher developments. As it happened, my constituent lived on the 19th I was alone in the lift, thank goodness, because as it started there was a great clunk, which worried me rather. The lift continued but, when it stopped, just inches short of the 19th floor platform, the door would not open! Have you ever been trapped in a lift, regardless of which floor it was on? An interesting experience! It was a warm day, so the first thing I did was take off my vest. It was getting hot in there. A few years back I had a bad attack of claustrophobia when in a long dark tunnel. It is essential to keep calm. So, it wasn’t great to be told by Penny, when I rang through to her, “Don’t panic!” She sounded like a government minister on speed!
- Actually the alarm system worked as it should and, after about 40 minutes, a team of 5 fire-fighters arrived and prised the doors open. Phew! I now have first hand experience of what many of our residents fear on a daily basis; and, whilst incidents like mine are not that frequent, minor lift malfunctions are. Is this the result of poor maintenance? Or a function of age and/or cheap original products. By the way I did visit my constituent!
- Talking about not panicking, What do you think about the Government’s performance during the petrol crisis, during the food delivery crisis, during the never-ending Covid crisis? Perhaps there is no need to panic about petrol, food or Covid but there certainly seems to be good reason to panic about our government and its competence levels!
My Programme for October
- Well, of course, Labour councillors in Battersea are pre-occupied with the tense, process of selecting candidates for the council election in May 2022. Thankfully the decision day is not now far off and then normal life can resume!
- In terms of regular, scheduled meetings I have the full Council on 12th October, and the Planning Applications Committee (PAC) on the 19th.
Did you Know?
Last month I asked, “where I was in Latchmere ward 
when I took this picture of more than 100 solar panels?”
Plenty of you had an answer to this and many were nearly, but not quite, correct – such as the response that I was on the train pulling into Wandsworth Town station. The actual answer was on the 10th floor of Oxborough House, which is the tallest of the new blocks on the “newish” development in Eltringham Street.
And this month a different teaser:
Which ward will be abolished next May and take with it the proud record of being the only ward in Wandsworth never, ever to have been anything other than represented by Labour councillors? And don’t say that is a difficult question!
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 