Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea August 2022, Newsletter (# 158)
- July started well with an interesting trip around Arding & Hobbs. Every one must have noticed the scaffolding
around the famous old building, and I was keen to tour it when invited by the new owner. He expects to provide retail units at ground floor level with high-class office facilities above. Although not known as a location for offices, he believes that the Junction, with its connections to the City and the West End, to Gatwick and Heathrow, is well-placed to become one. He has certainly invested a great deal of time and effort into the project. This view is from inside the famous old cupola atop the building. By the way, have you noticed the new top floor of the building? It is designed to stand back from the bulk of the building to reduce its impact on the building’s profile. I think it will work rather well.
- I had the first meeting of the Labour-controlled Finance Committee on the 7th July. This often rather bland and technical committee was very important in that it outlined many of the ambitions of the newly elected Labour leadership of the Council. Amongst the core themes was the Council’s commitment to pay all its workforce the London Living Wage as a bare minimum. I still remember to this day my shock when ex-councillor, now Lord, Lister declared in the 1980s that Tory Wandsworth did not care about the staff wage levels. When introducing the Tory policy of Compulsory Competitive Testing or CCT, he and his colleagues broke with nationally agreed wage levels and started the low wage culture that has left us with the UK’s failing “gig economy”. I am delighted to have been a party to bringing that to an end, at least as far as Wandsworth Council as an employer is concerned.
- Another crucial commitment made on that day was to increase the supply of council housing available to those in greatest need. The specific target of 1,000 new homes will be difficult to achieve but we have made a start by re-allocating some 50 new-builds on the Surrey Lane estate from market to council housing. There was also a decision to make £100,000 extra available for our hard-pressed voluntary sector, a resource that has been crucial for many during the Covid crisis. And another commitment was to convene a Citizen’s Assembly to focus on climate change and air quality issues.
- On the 8th July, I took part in the selection process for Wandsworth’s new Chief Executive. It is a very different process from the one I first took part in some 50 years ago. For a start, Wandsworth’s Chief Executive is now “shared” with Richmond, so the final selection is made by three councillors from each authority. I was part of a “Wandsworth team” of councillors, chosen as a selection of “stakeholders”, who had the task of interviewing the final short-list of candidates about their approach to managing the two authorities. I was very impressed by the final, very diverse, three candidates and look forward to the imminent arrival of Mike Jackson as the new Chief Executive after the summer break.
- Incidentally, this was the same day that Battersea Labour Party decided that Marsha de Cordova will continue to be our candidate for Parliament at the next General Election. Then, of course, many of us thought that would be in opposition to Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. Now less than a month later it appears likely that the PM will be Liz Truss. Just how many people would have guessed that as an outcome? After centuries as a successful campaigning party, the Tory Party seems to be having a collective Death Wish! I suspect that, unfortunately, it will recover with time but not before suffering some humiliating defeats.
- June and July are of course the months of garden parties
and socials so on the 9th I went to Putney for a delightful garden party to mark my old friend, Annie Trevelyan’s, birthday. And on 14th to St. Mary’s for the Battersea Society’s ever-splendid annual summer party, where we were entertained by Junction Jazz. Unfortunately, the party was winding down by the time I took this picture!
- July 14th was the day of the Tooting
Graveney by-election caused by Councillor Andy Gibbons’ untimely death. Rex Osborn was elected in Andy’s place. Coincidentally and most dramatically Rex played the major role in leading the “celebration of Andy’s life” the very next day, July 15th, at Putney Vale Crematorium The very large turn-out of old friends and colleagues was testament to the love and respect Andy got from so many of us. RIP, old comrade.
- Unfortunately, the ceremony and wake turned out to be a super-spreader event, with many of us, including me, going down with Covid 19 in the next few days. I should say that I was very lucky. So many people, of my age, have had really bad experiences but I had virtually zero symptoms though I did get a bit of what some people have described as brain fog – I don’t need the old joke about how could I tell? However, it took me twice as long, as usual, to do my Guardian Sudoku puzzle for a couple of weeks.
- The sad thing was that I missed our planned trip up to Alnwick for a wedding – a trip, which I was really looking forward to. I also had to miss the Battersea Chess Club Annual General Meeting; the first real full Council Meeting since Labour’s victory in May; and the Wandsworth Society’s summer dinner at Le Gothique.
- On the 26th I chaired my second Planning Applications Committee, though not to my satisfaction. I think that perhaps I was suffering from Covid-induced brain fog! It was a little chaotic. I mis-placed notes and lost my way round the agenda. It was not a great performance, though I hope that no lasting damage was done!
My programme for August
- On August 6th, I had the pleasure of going to Spurs’ opening match of the season, of which more next month, followed by a great party given by close friends and neighbours Carol and David.
- I also have several internal “planning” meetings at the Town Hall – though in practice they are all on MS Teams (like Zoom).
- The Planning Applications Committee is on August 23rd.
- And then on 30th, we are off on our three-week trip to Croatia – I am not complaining as I get around a fair bit but it will be our first holiday since 2019 – and it feels like it!
Did you Know?
Last month, I asked, “Who was St. John Bosco? Did he come from Battersea and if not why does the relatively new Battersea school bear his name?”
That so many of you knew the answer just shows how ignorant I am about the history of Roman Catholicism and how ignorant I am about the strength of Roman Catholicism today. It certainly wasn’t like that when I was much younger! The steady march of organised, usually right-wing, religion, especially in the USA, worries me. One would hardly believe that the American constitution deliberately separates state and church!
But enough of me pontificating (note the irony of me even using a word with papal connections!) and back to Bosco. John Bosco was born in 1815 in Castelnuovo d’Asti, (now ludicrously renamed Castelnuovo don Bosco – it’s just like Petersburg becoming Leningrad and now St. Petersburg) a few kilometres east of Turin.
Bosco spent much of his life teaching and developing education and schools for the under-privileged boys of the Turin area and founded the Society of Saint Francis de Sales, later the Salesians of St John Bosco. Bosco was beatified in 1924, and unsurprisingly when a Catholic school was established in Battersea it was called Salesian College. St. John Bosco School is the latest manifestation of this history.
And this month?
The Duke was in London and got involved in a car chase up and down Elsley Road, on the Shaftesbury Estate, then under the bridge on Latchmere Road, down York Road and up Trinity Road, finishing on Tower Bridge. Who is the Duke? What is he doing here in Battersea? And when?
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 