Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea September 2023, Newsletter (# 171)
- I am sure that many of you will know the beautiful swan
sculpture, that stands next to Battersea Bridge, looking over the Thames. Very sadly, a constituent tells me that one of them was knocked from its pedestal and left smashed on the pavement after one presumably drunken occasion in the last month. What a depressing piece of mindless vandalism – We have few enough pleasant items of statuary but this one was both beautiful and magnificently appropriate for its sight.
- On the 12th August, Penny and I joined her sisters, Alison
and Rebecca, on a drive to a family party in Wantage, Oxfordshire. It was very pleasant but otherwise unremarkable except that one of Pen’s relatives was able to get a halfway decent shot of me smiling – not always a given when posing for a photograph!
- I had the Planning Applications Committee, on 22nd August and this too was unremarkable with just one very minor Battersea application. Is this just high summer or is the economy really tanking? I guess that August is never the busiest time for processing planning applications, but, with the mood across the country being so grim and the spirits so low, perhaps we are in for a recession to cap them all! PS If any of you are finding life particularly difficult then don’t forget the Council’s https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/search?qt=Cost+of+Living+Hub website or your councillor, to discover what help is available.
- On 15th August I had lunch with old college mates in town. When there I took the opportunity to wander around Trafalgar Square and pay a brief visit
to the National Gallery. As always, I am surprised at the number of Canaletto paintings the Gallery displays. It really does demonstrate just how the affluent British, largely English, tourist came back from their Italian trips laden with Italian art. But the eighteenth century was also a spectacular time for British art, including Reynolds, Gainsborough, Constable and Turner. And also, Joseph Wright of Derby, whose paintings of scientific and industrial scenes are a superb record of the Industrial Revolution. I am showing here a detailed portrait from his most famous painting called, An Experiment with an air pump, in which an observer is seen captivated by the occasion.
- On the 16th August I was delivering welcome letters to new constituents in Battersea Park ward. It is something I do every month, partly to keep fit, but also because I think new constituents get little enough welcome from the Town Hall. Personally, I think that the Council should send a welcoming letter to all new residents, listing the MP, councillors’ names and contact details, along with many other useful contact address details such as the CAB.
- On my tour, I stepped into the Library Space at the west end
of what used to be Battersea Technology College, before becoming Kingsway College, Battersea Campus. It is the grand Victorian building on Battersea Park Road, opposite Tesco’s car park and used to be a real part of Battersea life with hundreds of students and evening classes. It is now home to some 220 people, living in rather grand and quirky apartments. This grand unknown Battersea jewel used to be the colleges’ library. I took the opportunity to step in and have a look around. It is exquisite and used as an activity space – but for what?
- And then off to Croatia on 24th August for a welcome holiday – which is why this September newsletter is so early. Please note, however, that we are going by train and ferry. Isn’t it outrageous that the eco-way is so expensive (and inevitably slower) and that all countries, not just the UK, subsidise flying so massively? Tragically, as a species, we are subsidising our own mass destruction.
My programme for September
- I have the Planning Applications Committee on the 19th September, but nothing has yet fixed for the rest of the month. I won’t know what to do!
- Except that on 28th September, my partner, Penny, is giving an illustrated talk to the Battersea Society on “The History of the Handshake” at Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill. Time 6.30,
Did you Know?
Last month I said, “Everyone, of course, knows about Battersea Power Station. But who knows or even remembers the other Battersea power station? Who built it, who ran it, what was it called? And why did it have an interesting role in political history?”
Interestingly these questions drew an almost completely blank response. The answer was the Lombard Road Power Station, which stood across Lombard Road and operated from 1901-1972. The coal came up the Thames to a wharf just downstream from the heliport, from where it was carried on a conveyor belt high across the road into the Power Station. Why was it significant in political history? Because it was built in the 1890s at the height of so-called municipal socialism, by Battersea Borough Council to help the Borough run the street lights and trams replacing gas-lights and the horse. I rather like this picture from the first decade of the twentieth century, where close observation shows an ad on the lamp post for electricity at 1d per therm (NB for younger readers 1d was the pre-decimalisation representation of 1P, although there were 12 to a shilling and 240 to the £1). Christchurch was destroyed in 1944 by a V1 bomb. The 1950s re-built Christchurch and Christchurch Gardens are now on the site between Candahar, Cabul and Battersea Park Roads.
And this month?
Where in Wandsworth Borough is there a statue of Edward VII? And who paid for it?
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 