Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea September 2022, Newsletter (# 159)
- August was, of course, a holiday month for the Council and so, it was also quiet for this councillor. But on 6th August I borrowed a friend’s Spurs season ticket and saw “my team” romp home to a convincing 4-1 win over Southampton. Some of my constituents are surprised that I support Tottenham, when I represent a ward, for whom Chelsea is virtually a home team (at its closest Battersea Park ward is less than 2km from Stamford Bridge). But when I explain that, when I was 6-9 years old, I lived 500 metres from White Hart Lane, most understand! 4-1 was a good win but what lives in the memory is the simply stupendous stadium
and the 60,000 crowd, bathed in sunlight. And the facilities! A free programme on arrival, a free lunch, a free drink at half-time and a free chocolate chippie post-match. Ok, so there is no such thing as a free lunch and the season ticket price needs justification, but it’s not a bad justification! It’s all a bit of a stretch from the old Lane, with its terraces and its heaving 60,000 crowds, and Tottenham’s then main men, Alf Ramsey and Bill Nicholson – later respectively Managers of England’s World Cup winners of 1966 and Spurs’ Double-winning team of 1961. For those who do not follow soccer, the picture is of today’s main men, Kane & Son.
- I got home that evening just in time to get to Carol and David’s for a great summer garden party, with lots of neighbours and friends. Exactly a week later, Penny and I went to Islington to a friend’s eightieth birthday. (Today’s 80 really is yesterday’s 50!). Penny had, years earlier, supervised the friend’s PhD on the “Spanish Main”. He became an
expert on discovering the wrecks of Spanish galleons, sank in storms or after piracy, carrying gold and silver from the New World to the Old. He hardly needed to tell me that he was lucky, in his choice of subjects, which, ever since, has earned him a living helping salvage companies – what a life! But. as is so often said, someone has to do it.
- Meanwhile, the Tory Party has been entertaining (?) us all with its leadership campaign. The final debates between Sunak and Truss must be amongst the most depressing and trivial imaginable. Any stranger listening to the debate (?) would find it difficult to imagine that we are on the verge of a climate crisis, a fuel crisis, a food crisis, a war crisis, a poverty crisis, a labour shortage and surely a political crisis. And to think that most of us know that one simple tragic but reversible mistake is the cause and part of the solution for some of this chaos. Yes, Brexit has been part of this disaster and surely it is about time more of us said so. No serious commentator disagrees with the argument that Brexit has hit the British economy badly. And who can doubt that the loss of foreign labour has caused farmers problems with harvest gathering, and construction firms with building skills, and the hospitality industries with lack of bar-staff, hotel and restaurant staff.
- In my view, Labour made a bad mistake in not distancing itself from the Referendum and its result. Of course, friends said to me that a democratic vote had to be respected and, of course, it did have to be. But democracies do make mistakes. Indeed, after every election, a high proportion of the population thinks that the electorate had just made a mistake (regardless of who won) and immediately commits to reversing the decision. Re-joining the EU will not be easy. Frankly, we will not be quickly forgiven by all, even if we will be very much welcomed by the Irish, the Dutch and some others. We almost certainly will not be able to re-join on such good terms as we had. But, apart from any other gain, a positive attitude to the European Union would, at the very least, help the Union of the four nations of the UK.
- Keir Starmer is not currently getting a good press, even if he is ahead in the polls. But a positive attitude to the EU would do much to re-vitalise the Labour Party, especially here in inner south-west London. It was no accident that the three Wandsworth constituencies of Battersea, Putney and Tooting all had large Remain majorities, that the three constituencies all had healthy Labour gains in the disastrous 2019 General Election and that Putney was the only Labour gain in the UK. Can I suggest that you write to your MP, and press her (or him) to lobby Keir and start a campaign for the country to re-join the EU as soon as possible? If nothing else, it would give the Labour Party a real cause with which to fight the Tories. Otherwise, we will lose out to the Lib Dems and the Greens.
- On 22nd August, enabling works started on the new Surrey Lane development at Randall Close. The enabling works involve re-arranging car parking facilities in several places on the estate in order to free-up the car park in Randall Close and make it available for the new development. Work on the development itself will start at the end of September or early October and will take a couple of years to complete. Wandsworth Council will then have 106 new council homes available to rent. Making all of these properties available to those in the greatest need, as opposed to some being on the open market, was, you may recall amongst the first decisions made by the new Labour Council in May, this year.
- On 23rd August I had the Planning Applications Committee. I was concerned by public comments that developers, whether the neighbour creating an extension or a major company building 1,000 new homes, often took little notice of the rules and conditions imposed on them, when permissions were granted. So, I decided to place enforcement notices
higher on the agenda. I wanted to publicise that Wandsworth Council does enforce its own rules. It was a success as on this occasion, there were three good examples on the agenda. One was enforcing BT, or their agents, to remove this piece of equipment they had installed without permission on and clearly – see picture – blocking the pavement in Old York Road; another was to remove a semi-permanent bar extension built out on the pavement in Balham High Road and the third was to remove an over-large, un-neighbourly front garden shed.
- The main item on the agenda, however, was an application to build a 24-storey block on the corner of York and Lombard Roads, largely for more than 500 single units of what is called shared accommodation. “Shared accommodation” is a new concept in the UK,
although such schemes are well known in the USA. They are aimed at single-person family units and could be seen as like student halls. The rents are high, but they are all-inclusive and so tenants do not have to pay for the utilities, or Council Tax, or for the use of the communal kitchens, the sports facilities, the cinema, the karaoke bar. Interestingly the fastest growing “family” unit in London is single-person households. As well as well-paid youngish professionals, the tenants could include people who want a London-pad for some days a week, divorcees, bereaved partners – the list is endless. However, the application was refused by 7:1 because of the lack of “affordable” housing and because of its overall size.
My programme for September
- Penny and I are off to Croatia on 30th We are going by train, hover-ferry, bus and ferry, staying overnight in Munich and Zagreb; coming back through Graz in Austria, where Penny has a history conference. We get back on 23rd September.
- The Planning Applications Committee is on September 28th.
Did you Know?
Last month, I said, “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? And I don’t think I have ever had such a flood of correct answers!
Yes, the Duke was indeed, Hollywood star John Wayne, who was in a car chase, which started in the Shaftesbury Estate and finished on Tower Bridge. He was featured in a film called, Branigan (1975; dir. Douglas Hickox), as a Chicago cop of that name, bringing a slightly American style of policing to the streets of London.
And if you have the time let me recommend 20 minutes watching at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pArxm5sfsrk. This Youtube tube video has Steve Brazil narrating the story of how this chase film was shot in London in 1975. He claims that the chase was done through real traffic, which beggars belief as you see one of the cars hurtling past traffic on Latchmere Road and turning hard right into Sheepcote Lane. There are other entertaining chase sequences on top of a multi-storey carpark and finally on Tower Bridge and also of a pub brawl, with distinctly Western references. The Youtube sequence is part of a series produced by Reelstreets, a site which shows films and locations.
And this month?
Pete and Polly have an affair; Polly is a rich girl slumming it; you might be forgiven for thinking that you were in Clapham but no, this is all set in Battersea (and Chelsea and Worthing). What is the film? Easy for those of a certain age but how many people aged under 50 know this one?
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 