Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea, April 2026, Newsletter (# 202)
- I went to the North East Surrey Crematorium Board on 10th January. I hear you all say, “What on earth is he doing there ….?” Good Question. Well way back In 1889, when Battersea’s population was nearly twice as large as it is now the Battersea Burial Board bought the 127 acres of farm land in Merton – between Raynes Park and Worcester Park stations – and created the New Battersea Cemetery. It is indeed the home of John Archer’s grave. At 127 acres it is about 60% the size of Battersea Park, probably making it nowadays the second largest track of land in Wandsworth’s ownership.
So, when in 1959, a group of north east
Surrey councils decided to club together to build a crematorium, this was the obvious site. The Board is now run by Wandsworth, in conjunction with Merton and Sutton Councils. It is a curious business – where the board’s finances improves as the death rate rises, as it did during Covid, and business perks up, but worsens as business falls when we all get healthier and live longer!
- The Planning Applications Committee was on the 13th The most significant application was not actually a Wandsworth one, but from Lambeth. It was for a hotel and hundreds of flats, and associated shops, etc., at Vauxhall. It included one tower 230 metres high – 755 feet – about 30 metres, or 100 feet, higher than the current highest tower in Vauxhall. The site borders Wandsworth, hence we were asked for our comments. We agreed unanimously that we objected to the sheer scale of the proposals and their impact on local Wandsworth residents. However, I doubt that our objections will do much to prevent the growth of Vauxhall as our own mini-Manhattan.
- On 15th March, Penny and I went to the
Old Bailey for a reception in the Grand Hall, see the picture of the main dome, and then the staging of Justice! Trial & Error 2026 in Court 1. This annual dramatic show is staged and performed by the staff of the Old Bailey. The actors, directors, writers, etc., included retired and practising judges, KCs, law students, and backroom staff at the Old Bailey.
This year the review took the form of a dozen one act scenes about famous, and critical cases spread over the last 500 years. It started with the sixteenth/seventeenth century trial and eventual execution of Sir Walter Raleigh, and concluded with two famous twentieth-century cases, namely Derek Bentley’s conviction and execution and the Ruth Ellis trial. Interestingly, the theme of these playlets, written and performed by lawyers working at Britain’s most famous criminal court, explored some notorious cases, when the legal system and contemporary public opinion failed the defendants. As aresult some innocents, at least as seen through 21st Century eyes, were imprisoned and executed.
- We decided to go to Goodwood for a
couple of days of swimming and walking in rural Sussex, on 16th-18th They were those wonderful sunny, warm days we had in mid-March. Goodwood was indeed Glorious Goodwood, as this picture of the House and daffodils demonstrates. The swimming was good and the Jacuzi marvellous; the daffodils were dancing in a Wordwothian cloud; it was a perfect English spring break.
- On the 19th March I had the pleasure of opening Battersea’s Harris Academy gymnasium –
see picture. Many of you will have noticed and hated the boarded up site at the junction of Culvert and Battersea Park Roads. It followed the Academy’s sale of the schoolkeeper’s house to a property developer and the Council’s grant of planning approval for a tower block in the late 1990s. One of the so-called benefits of the planning approval was the provision of a gym for the school.
For years nothing happened on either site and at one time the gym site on Dagnall Road resembled a World War 11 bomb site. But now at last, following a change of ownership, a new developer has built the gym at pace and hopes to start work on the main site at the end of the year. I know that very few local residents will like the new high-rise flats on Battersea Park Road but, with the gym, they will be an improvement on the boarded up sites we have known for a quarter of a century. And the gym itself is an excellent facility, which will keep the Academy pupils fit!
By the way, the developer, Adi Hodzic is an interesting character. He is Bosnian by birth and fought for the Bosnians in the 1990’s post-Yugoslavian wars, coming here as a penniless immigrant. He is now a successful developer, and, unlike his predecessors, he fills me with confidence that the development will be completed when he says it will be.
- On Saturday 21st March, Wandsworth’s London Borough of Culture Year came to an official close with a grand
finale at Battersea Power Station (BPS). The occasion was marked by a broad programme of events, inside the power station itself, but the main show was on the Power Station Stage outside the northern entrance to the Power Station, overlooking the river.
It was hosted by Romeo – pictured here – of the So Solid Crew, the group that started life on the Winstanley Estate. The finale was spectacular, and a memorable conclusion to Wandsworth’s year as the London Borough of Culture.
- On 25th March, I introduced Vicky Asante and Daria Hass, my fellow Labour candidates
at next month’s Borough Election, to George and Hannah working at Carney’s Community, in Petworth Street. Carney’s is a busy, thriving youth club, boasting a full-sized boxing ring, a recording studio, a bicycle repair and maintenance shop, a small snooker table, table tennis table and the other facilities needed by a successful club. Hannah reckoned that membership is somewhere round 70% male and 30% female – but nonetheless George reckons the best boxer they have is one of the girls. Here are, l to r, George, Daria and Vicky discussing the work of the youth club.
George has excellent relations with both the Council’s Youth Offending Team and the Magistrates Courts, both of which refer to him kids in trouble or on the verge of getting into trouble. His open, community-based approach and his methods are an important ingredient in the education of many youngsters. If you would like to volunteer your skills and make a serious volunteer contribution to Carney’s Community, I know that George would be delighted to hear from you.
- On the next day we went to the opening of a
great new play-space at Russell Court on the Doddington Estate. Have you ever seen a child’s-size trampoline set into the ground? I hadn’t either, but it was perhaps only the most striking of the several new safety-conscious play apparatuses installed. I am sure, by the way, that this see-saw was not intended for my two fellow Battersea Park ward Labour candidates for the May election, Vicky and Daria, but it does make for a cheerful picture.
- Penny and I went to see a play, called The Holy Rosenbergs by Ryan Craig at the Chocolate Factory Theatre near London Bridge on 27th It is about a north London Jewish family, who have lived their lives without ever facing the harshest reality of their own internal tensions. The occasion for this explosion of passions and cruelties, in this apparently secure family unit, is the imminent funeral of the eldest son who had recently died as a member of the IDF (the Israeli Defence Force), fighting in Gaza.
It exposes the conflicts between the father, so proud of his dead son, and the leftie sister, who adored him as a child but now works for a UN peace-keeping mission, let alone the younger brother, struggling to live up to his sibling’s image, and Mum, who as always wants to keep the family together and avoid family arguments. It is a searingly difficult and yet stimulating play, which remarkably is also at times very funny.
I recommend it, and it is on until 2nd May.
- On 28th March Labour candidates for the May 7th Borough Election launched our manifesto in Hildreth Street, Balham. The Manifesto’s cover boasts of Cleaner Streets, Safer Neighbourhoods, a Fairer Wandsworth all on the lowest level of Council Tax in the country. The launch was led by Labour Leader, Councillor Simon Hogg, pictured here in a crowded, market street. It was a fun opening to the six-week campaign.
- I was in Parkgate Road on 30th January
and stopped off for a cuppa, and to investigate Parker’s new sitting out area – otherwise known as Radstock Street, which I was told only opened a couple of days previously. For those of us who were wondering whether we would ever see the end of roadworks and big building projects in this small corner of Battersea it was a welcome sight and will become a focal point for local residents, for staff and pupils of the best art and design school in the world, for couturiers from Vivienne Westwood, for architects from Fosters and for the techies from Hutchison (UK) Ltd. These few acres must be one of the most intensive export hubs in the country.
- Finally, some of you will know that I have, for a long-time, been writing a history of Wandsworth Council from its creation in 1965 to 2022. Well on Friday 27th, I signed a contract with the publisher, Austin Macauley, for the publication of my book in the late autumn of this year. It is titled The Wandsworth Crucible: Contesting State Welfare and Thatcherite Privatisation, and, as I hope is implicit from the title, not just about Wandsworth’s parochial importance but also its significance as both a model and a guinea pig for national events. Further details to follow.
My April Programme
- The Council is in what is called purdah because of the upcoming May 7th Borough General Election. Essentially that means the Council, as a political operation, closes down – of course normal Council services continue as usual. Most councillors will be out canvassing, something which probably fills you with some dread. But please be kind to us. We all, in every party, get accused of only talking to you, the public when we want your vote – not really true even if it seems like it – but don’t turn us away when we do.
- On April 4th I am going to the Mayor’s Boat Race party on the Putney Embankment. I am desperate for an Oxford victory; we haven’t had one in years!
- I am chairing the Planning Applications Committee on 15th April – the one Council-style meeting that takes place during purdah, since there is a statutory time limit of 56 days, in which Councils must respond to planning applications.
Did you know?
Last month, I asked, “Why was Voltaire Court so named? And what adjective about optimism do we have in the English language as a result of his writings?”
Francois-Marie Arouet was imprisoned in the
Bastille, where he adopted the name “Voltaire” a word he associated with youth and radical thinking. He “fled” to London, 1726-28, to escape his harassment by ‘l’ancien regime,’ and for a period he lived near Wandsworth Town, close to the French Huguenot community.
He admired Britain for its enlightenment figures and its freedoms of speech and thought. Indeed, he wrote about it in a book titled, Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733).
But by far his most famous book is a short satirical novel called Candide, about Candide’s absurdist adventures where Dr. Pangloss is forever glossing over the most impossible disasters with the immortal phrase “everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” Hence the English word ‘panglossian’ for the most incredible optimism. If you see, or have, the Penguin English translation I recommend it. It is quite short and very readable.
And this month?
Did you know that a Battersea-based athlete won a silver medal at the recent Parisian Para-Olympic Games. Do you know who that might be and what is the connection to Battersea?
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 