Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea March 2024, Newsletter (# 177)
- The big news of the month was that Wandsworth’s Labour Council has been able, for the second year running, to freeze its element of the Council Tax that you (or yours) will be paying from April to March next year. This decision was announced at the 27th February Finance Committee, though of course it was being discussed from early in the month. Your Council Tax will go up by 5.1% but that is because of other elements that make it up, namely 2% on the Social Services element, which largely pays for the care of the elderly; and the GLA (Greater London) element that pays for the police, the fire brigade and other London-wide services and which rises by 8.6%.
- It is, of course, impossible to predict the next two years, which will certainly include changes at both a Governmental and London level; but it is safe to predict that we, Labour councillors, will do our utmost to keep Council Tax rises to an absolute minimum.
- Our Tory opponents will say that our ability to do this is testament to the success of earlier Tory administrations in Wandsworth. But, if anything, surely it demonstrates that they raised Council Tax and built up reserves unnecessarily. Our critics on the Left will, however, argue that we should have raised Council Tax a bit (2.9% is the figure used) to safeguard services, but actually, we have increased services with the single largest cost of living relief fund in London, which included relieving more than 10,000 of Wandsworth’s most financially challenged households completely from the burden of paying Council Tax.
- On 2nd February, Council Leader Simon Hogg and Cllr Kate Stock hosted a Saturday coffee morning coffee get-together for
the residents of Falconbrook ward. It replaced the old Let’s Listen meetings run by the Council when under Tory control. It was much less formal, and I think very considerably more successful, than was the previous, platform and speeches, format. One notable difference was the much larger audience participation, particularly by women from the relatively large Islamic population. This picture gives a flavour of the meeting – Simon is arrowed explaining a finer point.
- The Council Meeting on the 7th February was only really notable for the debate about the 7.7% increase in Council rents. The Tories tried to embarrass Labour, and indeed I can remember occasions in the past when a 7.7% rent hike would have been a matter of serious argument. However, in a year when the Tory Government has been responsible for double-digit inflation, the dispute never really took off.
- Would you believe it, but I took Penny out for dinner on Valentine’s night, 14th February? We went to Augustine’s Kitchen on Battersea Bridge Road. It was frankly a little pricey, so be warned – don’t think of it for fast food, but it is superb for a special evening and with a very individual menu: braised seabass, champagne and caviar velouté, followed by beef filet, heritage carrots, mushroom ravioli and St. Emilion sauce, for example.
- On the 16th February I had a second design review panel of the potential developer’s plan for the Glassmills Readers will no doubt recall that the
first panel reviewed their plans for a 38-storey block at the base of Battersea Bridge Road as shown in this image, despite the local plan suggesting 6 storeys were appropriate. (Note: last month I incorrectly said 7-12 storeys – thanks to the ever-vigilant Cyril Richert for correcting me). This time their plans involved a 35-storey tower. Clearly, there is a big – one might say massive – discrepancy between 6 and 35 stories. I await the planning application, expected by 31st March, with interest.
- Our MP, Marsha de Cordova, hosted a fund-raising dinner at the Chelsea Bridge Pestana Hotel on Queenstown Road on 21st Speakers included David Lammy, Shadow Foreign Secretary, Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London and, of course, Marsha herself.
But the star of the show was undoubtedly the auctioneer, John O’Farrell, who managed to auction all the usual prizes with humour and without losing the audience. It was also an occasion for me to introduce Battersea LP’s new organiser, Zara Overton, to many party members – here we are enjoying the event. Zara is throwing herself into the job with admirable energy – and she will be happy to welcome to 177 Lavender Hill anyone who wants to help in our election campaign – or indeed drop in for a chat.
- The Planning Applications Committee on 22nd February had some important applications but largely of strictly local significance. But one entailed further development at Battersea Power Station (BPS). It was for a temporary leisure centre on the large site between the refuse transfer station and BPS itself. The application, which we approved for temporary (five-year) use, was for an “immersive leisure” centre and for four padel tennis courts (tennis for beginners, with smaller rackets and less fearsome hitting – I think). The applicants (and others) claim that padel tennis is the fastest growing sport in the world – the borough has negotiated thousands of free uses by local school-children.
- On 24th February I played chess for Surrey against Middlesex. You may have seen those newspaper stories recently about 6- and 7-year-olds beating Russian grandmasters. Well, it was like that! The Surrey team, not exactly in the flush of youth were walloped by a team of pre-teenagers – half of them had mum or dad along as chaperons. Chess is like that, but it doesn’t stop it being a bit humiliating! Ouch!
- The Finance Committee (as mentioned above) was on 27th It had many, many other items of major significance on the agenda as well as the Council Tax decision. For example, we have very considerably expanded the capital programme so as to reverse the situation in the recent past when our roads have been deteriorating faster than they were being maintained; we have increased investment in our leisure centres; we have added to our “Cost of Living” Emergency Fund; and we have safeguarded the Borough against possible cuts in grant from the Government.
- On the 29th February we had a meeting of all Wandsworth’s Labour councillors when the main item of discussion was the situation in Gaza and whether we should/should not take a position on the calls for an armistice. It was a very considered and mature debate, taken intensively seriously by all. Some of us are very keen to express our collective desire for the end of bloodshed. Others, meanwhile, could see the dangers of being mis-interpreted as pro- or anti-Islamic or pro- or anti-Semitic. And yet others thought that we should keep clear of foreign policy. My concern is and was to encourage negotiation and to resist any statement that could exacerbate the issue – it was a serious debate, which I am sure will continue as long as the current awful situation continues.
- Meanwhile, we are a month nearer to May’s London Mayoral and Assembly elections, and to the next General Election – I still think that the GE will be on the third Thursday of October – just 2 or 3 weeks before the American Presidential election. And, over all, there continues to be the dark, dark shadows of wars in Gaza and Ukraine. I guess the only certainty is that Putin will win his election – and we will carry on fighting ours!
My programme for March
- There is a Council Meeting on 6th March, when the Council Tax for 2024-5 is formally ratified. It will be a debate with Labour claiming that its first two years in power have gone well and the Tories unsure how to respond to the position they find themselves in after 44 years in power – as Leader of the Opposition for 26 of those 44 years, I won’t say I am sympathetic, but I do recognise the problem!
- The Planning Applications Committee is on 19th.
Did you know?
Last month I asked “about a pub in Lavender Gardens called 
The Cornet of Horse, which is now part of a very twenty-first century comedy pub-chain called Jongleurs” (and where incidentally John O’Farrell had some of his early success as a stand-up comedian). And asked “What is a Cornet of Horse and how did the pub get that name? And what is the link between the pub and a council block on the Ethelburga Estate?”
I had a few correct answers stating that a cornet was a cavalry unit of some100-300 horse, and that the pub was so-called because in the late nineteenth century, a book called The Cornet of Horse was written by G A Henty who lived in Altenburg Gardens, Battersea. Henty apparently used the pub as an office to do his writing. And in the 1960s the Greater London Council named one of its new blocks in the Ethelburga Estate, Henty Close.
Readers, Chris and Jeanne, think his writing is, shall we say, dated but given that he wrote over 100 novels and was a massive best-seller, I rather suspect that in the words of E P Thompson, they display “the massive condescension of posterity”. The Cornet of Horse was about the Wars of the Austrian Succession – the Duke of Marlborough’s battles, especially Blenheim.
And this month?
And to mark the International Day of Women on 8th March who can name the woman (born in Huntingdon; died in Biggleswade), who founded which major Battersea institution, without ever, as far as we know, visiting the borough?
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 