Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea August 2024, Newsletter (# 182)
- “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive; but to be young was
very heaven!” wrote Wordsworth as he recalled hearing the news of the storming of the Bastille in 1789. Not sure that I could claim exactly the same thoughts on July 5th, as I took in the full glory of Labour’s 174 majority win in the 2024 General Election. I can after all hardly claim to be young anymore – but nonetheless the news brought Wordsworth’s words to mind.
- There wasn’t for me exactly one “Portillo moment” as cabinet member after cabinet member fell before the onslaught of an angry public. The voters showed that they did not want the Tories anymore – even if they were not quite as enthusiastic for Labour as I might have wished. Nonetheless, bliss it was!
- Moreover, haven’t the first few days of the Labour government already made such a difference? It feels and sounds as though the adults are back in charge of events – as even some of my Tory friends ruefully acknowledge – for the first time since the 2016 Referendum and the emergence of joker Boris Johnson as our Prime Minister.
- July 2024 will obviously feature in Keir Starmer’s future
biographies if not in this version but, in hindsight, it may be even more significant than it already appears to be. On July 1st Starmer was the Opposition Leader of a medium-sized power in the Western alliance but within days of Starmer’s election victory, the French President Macron committed what appears to be political suicide and President Joe Biden has written himself out of the script. Suddenly Keir Starmer is one of the senior leaders in the Western world and the leader of one of the most stable countries in that alliance. What a month! - Meanwhile, back in Wandsworth, the Planning Applications Committee was held on 18th There were three particularly significant applications – all of which were approved. The first was for 12 new council houses – way over in Roehampton. However, the other two were in Battersea. One was for a Tesco store to replace the gymnasium on the Falcon Road, though there are legal issues around that application which makes its implementation far from certain. The other is for a major development of residential units in two blocks – one of twenty storeys
and the other of seven storeys in Gwynne Road, North Battersea, near Lombard Road. It is planned that 35% of the residential units will be affordable and the other 65% will be available at market prices – a split which is in line with the current Greater London Authority’s London Plan. It is not, however, as ambitious as Wandsworth Council’s more radical ambition of achieving a 50:50 split, between affordable and market housing. Our ambitious, proposed plan amendment has not yet been approved by the Secretary of State, who may think that we are in danger of discouraging developers. The graphic shows the design line of development from the large, new block on the riverside down to the 14-storey block on the right. - July has seen a number of encouraging developments in Wandsworth Council services. I have not been closely involved with all these initiatives, but I am sure everyone will be interested in, for example, how we are trying to make many facilities accessible (i.e. free) for children on free school meals. But we are also doubling the number of mega-skips available; encouraging developers to fund local improvements; introducing free breakfast schemes for many more schoolchildren; and initiating a mega-regeneration programme on the Alton Estate in Roehampton.
- Two events dominated the middle week of July, both slightly taking the gloss off Labour’s optimistic and confident control of the Council. The first was the discovery that on the night of July 4th, the Council got the Putney result in the General Election wrong by a few thousand votes. It was a bureaucratic error, nothing to do with the political control of the Council and fortunately, it appears as though it has made no substantial difference to any candidate – no deposit was lost, no wrong result – but it was not good for the Council’s reputation – to put it mildly.
- The other event was the resignation of Wandsworth’s (and Richmond’s) Chief Executive, Mike Jackson. We are told that this was for personal reasons – and I am sure that it was – but it certainly was not in the plan when he was appointed almost exactly on Day One of the Labour Council. Best wishes to him and his family. But for a Council, that has been used to long-serving senior leadership, this third major change at the top of the organisation represents an interesting corporate challenge.
- Meanwhile, on 14th July back in the “real world”, England lost 2:1 to Spain in the Euro- final. As always, the commentators said that we had man for man the better players whilst everyone, me included, could clearly see that Spain was the better team. Therefore, QED they must have the better manager. So, let’s blame poor old Gareth Southgate. But, I think Southgate has played a blinder ever since he was appointed as England’s manager. Hence, my guess is that our players are not actually better man for man than the Spanish team. Perhaps, because all the commentators are ex-Premier footballers, they hate to criticise players and turn instead against Gareth.
- Also, on the 14th I went to the Northcote Road festival, which was mainly distinguished by food and drink stalls, where, as expected, I bumped into neighbours and a few old friends – even if this year it was notable for the lack of Tories on show – were they licking their wounds?
- On 19th July immediately after the PAC (well at 8 the next day) Penny and I set off for a much anticipated 10-day break in Ireland. We spent the first six days in Killarney and the last few days in Maynooth, near Dublin. I had always wanted to return to Kerry having had good experiences of the Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry in the 1960s!
- We started with a tour of the Ring of Kerry (the beautiful coast road around Ireland’s extreme south-west peninsula) but unfortunately,
the weather was very Irish and we only really became acquainted with the inside of an Irish cloud. Then two days later I stupidly managed to fall over, whilst cycling around Killarney National Park. I ended up with a cracked rib – ever had one? Don’t bother if you haven’t. They are very painful and can only be left to mend at their own pace – not fun – and so I spent the rest of our time in Ireland in a hotel bed, getting up on a couple of occasions for nice choral evenings in Irish pubs. This picture of us at Ross Castle in Killarney National Park, does remind me that the sun came out just a little before I injured myself! - We finished off in Maynooth, a small Irish University town 30 miles west of Dublin, where Penny was participatng in one of her eighteenth century studies conferences. I usually enjoy those occasions – plenty of socialising and entertaining discussions, but I am afraid that on this occasion, cracked rib an’ all, I was a bit of a weakling and largely stayed in bed! Happily, Penny reports that her Conference went well – she certainly came back to the hotel in merry mood on the last evening.
My August Programme
- The August Planning Applications Committee is on 21st
- But apart from that August is entirely free – bar a couple of planning meetings with officers and fellow councillors – until 22nd, when Penny and I will be off for what has become our traditional holiday in Croatia.
Did you know?
Last month, having listed all Battersea’s MPs, since 1900, I asked if you could list streets, parks, houses, named after any of them. Well, that certainly taught me a lesson – not one person bothered to reply – such is the interest in our MPs. (Though to be fair JP and a couple of others noticed a bad error I made about Alf Dubs’ dates!) But just in case some of you are interested in the answers, here is my list:-
- Burns Road, named after John Burns of course,
- Stephen Sanders Court in Salcott Road,
- Ganley Court, after Caroline Ganley, and
- Jay Court, after Douglas Jay, now anonymously Park Court South.
And this month?
This is a genuine question, in the sense that I do not know the answer, but would like to know it – and you may be interested as well. How many of the competitors in the Paris Olympics are resident in Battersea, if any?
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 