Archive | March 2025
March 3, 2025  

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea, March 2025, Newsletter (# 189)

  1. I had a councillor’s surgery on 1st. As usual, people had problems with their housing, but the most serious issue was the threat of violence, drug dealing and intimidation on one of our estates. Fortunately, the police were due to have a raid on that particular estate, and I was able to add some “urgency” to their efforts. Some arrests were made, but I have it on the authority of the tenants that the problem is not yet over. The police, the Housing Department and I will be keeping an eye on developments.
  2. In the afternoon, I went to Plough Lane to see high-flying, promotion-chasing AFC Wimbledon win a tough battle 1-0 against rivals Bradford City. AFC’s win moved them up to second place in Division 2 – given Spurs recent history of erratic performances, I was almost thinking of switching allegiance! Not really but …
  3. The full Council Meeting on 5th February was “enlivened” by a walk-out of the 23-strong group of Tory councillors. I did it once myself when leading the then 25-strong Labour Group – 1979 or 80. But that was over a real issue on an urgent timeline. The curious feature of this Tory walk-out was that it was about a consultation, not a decision. The result was that a whole 2 or 3 months of Council business was passed without a single Tory vote, comment, or observation – truly pathetic. The next day I came across two Tory councillors, Emmeline Owens on the left and Kim Caddy, working out on Wandsworth Common, with their personal trainer. Good for them but they should have a word with their Leader about pointless gestures.
  4. The next evening, the 6th, I had the Transport Committee, where the major consideration was the Council’s decision to increase the budget on road and pavement maintenance by some 400%. Labour Wandsworth recognises that we must tackle the scourges of dangerous pavements and costly and dangerous potholes.
  5. On the 12th, I met with the Battersea Fields Residents’ Association. We discussed a range of issues affecting the estate, from the trivial but annoying confusions caused by poor signage; to the state of the paving, and the need or otherwise for large-scale pruning of the estate trees. It was the first time that I had been to a meeting of that kind conducted online; strange but quite effective. Again – lots of issues to follow up.
  6. The Environment Committee met on the 13th to consider many items but, for my money, the most important related to climate change. The Council will be investing millions in insulating buildings and switching to the most environmentally sustainable fuels. I suggested that we must also spend more time and effort encouraging the private sector – the owner-occupier, the shop-owner, the publican – to do more. Currently, almost half of Wandsworth’s heat loss and pollution comes not from traffic, commerce or industry but from domestic homes.
  7. The 14th was a bit special. As you may have noticed, it was St. Valentine’s Day, and as it happens, the umpteenth (where umpteen is well over 50) anniversary of when Pen and I met, at a friend’s 21st. He and his girlfriend, now wife, and two other couples, who were there all those years ago, all met for a celebratory dinner on this 14th. Quite an achievement – 4 couples who got together 61 years back and are both together, and in touch. On the way Penny and I stopped off at the Courtauld Gallery. It is housed in Somerset House, pictured here and in itself is well worth a visit. And, in addition, its display of French Impressionists, Degas, Cezanne, et al., is as fine as anywhere in the world outside of Paris – and is also well worth a visit.
  8. On the 17th February, Simon Hogg, Labour Leader of Wandsworth Council, announced that the council’s take on Council Tax was frozen for the third year in a row. Is that a record? I am not certain, but I suspect that it is. It is certainly a measure of the financial prudence and the innovative policies we have introduced to Wandsworth Council’s operations – at the same time as relieving over 10,000 of our most financially challenged families from having to pay the tax at all and having the largest Covid Relief fund in London.
  9. I had a couple of meetings last month with a voluntary organisation, which is based in the Wilditch Centre, Culvert Road, and called The Baked Bean Charity. It is an organisation with 30 employees devoted to providing educational, social and training skills to a client group of about 160 largely but not exclusively Wandsworth residents, who are faced with learning difficulties. I have supported their grant applications, successfully, a couple of times in the past, but never before had such an in-depth session with them. It is a splendid organisation, full of warmth and caring.
  10. The Jobs Vacant section. The organisation, which once had a competition amongst its clients as to what it should be called, hence the Baked Beans moniker, is looking for a volunteer Treasurer. It has a turnover of £1 million plus, so it is not insignificant, but, as you might have guessed, all the staff have qualifications in speech therapy, social work, the performing arts and similar. They are conscious that they are not strong on the business and financial side of the operation, although it looked pretty good to me. I think that being their volunteer treasurer would be a great job for anyone local, who wishes to contribute to a worthy organisation and could spare/relish spending a couple of days a month doing something very worthwhile. If that is you, then please do email me at tonybelton99@gmail.com and I will put you in touch.
  11. On the 20th we were off to the Linnean Society, Piccadilly, to hear old friend Prof Brycchan Carey’s launch of his new book The Unnatural Trade: Naturalists and the Slave Trade.  He gave a fascinating lecture on the slave trade and its connection to the European/American industrialisation of the sugar/cotton/tea plantations of the Caribbean and neighbouring parts of both North and South America. It was both witty and deadly serious, stimulating and challenging, but the most amazing parallel becoming obvious from his story was its similarity to this month’s headline story about the Trump/Putin alliance to colonise and exploit Ukrainian resources – WOW.
  12. As for the Linnean Society itself, it was founded in 1788 as a botanical society and has a wonderful collection of botanical books, pictures, and samples, collected by many of its members, the most famous of whom was Charles Darwin. It is housed in Burlington House, a fabulous eighteenth-century mansion in Piccadilly best known for housing the Royal Academy. The Society’s collections, possibly the oldest and most important botanical collections in the world, are open to visitors. I thought I knew my London tourist sites well – but not this one, which should be on everyone’s list of things to see and do.
  13. On the 21st, Penny had a launch at Waterstone’s in Clapham Junction of her new book Time – Space We Are All In It Together. Here, she is autographing the book whilst friends are chatting amongst themselves.
  14. On the 25th the Council launched Wandsworth, the London Borough of Culture 2025. It took place in the splendid Grand Hall at Battersea Arts Centre – pictured here just before it started filling up. The event was buzzy and vibrant, noisy and brash. It was a great launch for the year, which officially starts on 1st. Hopefully, the year will be inclusive both of high- and low-brow, and of both high and popular culture – though what high and low means when used about brows and culture, I am blowed if I know. Mozart, after all, was both the composer of what we call classical music and the rock star of his generation.
  15. The February meeting of the Planning Applications Committee followed the next day on the 26th and was both uneventful and unremarkable but for the fact that I have had some 30 emails since congratulating us all for the considered, thoughtful and mature debate we had – oh and how well chaired it was, which, as I chaired it, has given me a little ego boost!
  16. On the 28th we went to All Souls College, Oxford, to have lunch with the Warden and for Penny to speak at the launch of a book, called, Christopher Hill, the life of a Radical Historian, by Mike Braddick. Christopher, the famous, some might say infamous, Marxist Professor of History, and Master of Balliol was Penny’s uncle. Here, she is holding the book and starting her contribution.

My March Programme

  1. I have the Council Meeting on 5th March, when the Council Tax for the year 2025/26 is officially confirmed.
  2. I have the North-East Surrey Crematorium Board at Sutton Council on the 11
  3. The Conservation and Heritage Advisory Committee meets on the 26th, followed on the 27th by the March meeting of the Planning Applications Committee (PAC). This will probably be the most significant PAC of the year. We will have the responsibility of deciding the fate of two major applications. One will be the application to build a 28-storey iconic tower block at the base of Battersea Bridge and the other larger, but not quite so high, blocks of flats on the old Wandsworth Gasworks site, near to Armoury Way.

Did you know?

Last month I simply asked, “Who was Mick Carney and in what way has he left his mark on Battersea?

As Roy pointed out to me from a simple read of the newsletter, Mick Carney was the inspiration behind much of the work of the Carney’s Community Youth Club, hence the name. He also inspired the Fitzroy Boxing Club, Vauxhall, who were well represented at the Carney event I featured last month.

He was from up north, Chester-le-Street, but spent much of his life in the Lambeth/Battersea area. He fought over 80 pro bouts, not from what I can see very successfully – looks like a less than 50% record. He is not on the record for saying very much other than that his career led him to respect everybody that he had ever fought. He sounds like a true gent, with a strong civic and community focus. He was appointed an MBE by the late Queen.

And this month?

This lion enjoys a life of domestic bliss. He’s been at his quiet suburban home since the very height of Empire. He has certainly seen many changes in the UK’s role in the world and, rather alarmingly, he is soon likely to see further changes, thanks to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Do you know where he lives and why he settled there?