1. Two regular readers wrote to me about last month’s newsletter in generally warm terms but rather critical of me not mentioning, at least to their satisfaction, the two most important issues facing local residents – the two issues being traffic chaos in north Battersea and the so-called financial crisis facing the Council. So let me say something about both in paragraphs 8-14, following my September summary.
   

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2. I went to the Czech embassy on 2 September to attend the launch of Lord Dubs’ book called The Boy with the Knapsack. Alf Dubs was, of course Battersea’s MP from 1979-87. Many will know the simplest outlines of his life but for those who do not, then let me repeat them. Alf was a Jewish boy born in 1932 Vienna, who at the age of 6 became one of the famous KinderTransport – put on a train in Prague with a label around his neck, to be picked up a couple of bemusing and no doubt terrifying days later at Liverpool Street station. He was later Battersea’s MP and was enobled as Lord Dubs of Battersea in 1994. He has long since been considered a national treasure by those of us on the left of British poltics. Unsurprisingly, given his background, Alf is and has been a great supporter of asylum seekers, particularly children. His book is a collection of dictated reminiscences and as such has the charm and warmth of an after-dinner conversation with Alf, and has many revealing stories. It is not a formal auto-biography but rather a moving personal testimony to his life and beliefs.
   

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3. Penny and I went to the Goodwood Hotel for the 11/12^th September weekend. The weather was spectacular – but when this year hasn’t it been? The pool is great and the jacuzzi, much used. On Saturday evening we went to Chichester’s Nest theatre to see a one-woman show called Red. It wasn’t, we thought, our cup o’ tea, but the other option was fully booked. Happily we were in for a pleasant surprise. Amber Topaz (sic) gave a whole-hearted, blood and guts performance based on the careers of famous thespian redheads, from Rita Hayworth to Nicole Kidman. She ended the show with a stomping rendition of Liza Minnelli’s “Maybe this time” from Cabaret. OK, so Liza isn’t a redhead – is she? But Amber wanted a storming finish, so she went for it. The evening was a triumph for Amber and we were happy to be there. Oh, and the picture is of my favourite seat on the Sunday morning walk to the local pub.
   

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4. On 15 September there was an Extraordinary Council Meeting. The ‘extraordinary’ moniker is just a bit of Council-speak, although on this occasion it actually was extraordinary. Essentially, we were there to approve or oppose the Council’s proposal to double Council Tax as from 1 April 2027 – see paragraph 11 below. But we had no advance papers to consider, and all the Council’s procedures have been so changed by the new Tory administration that we (that is Labour councillors) had to commend this resolution to the Council just to have a chance to vote against it. Are you confused? I certainly am and I have only been dealing with Council processes for 55 years. The Tories have revolutionised procedures and the end result, in the vernacular, is a right f… up.
   

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5. The 17 September Planning Applications Committee (PAC) had two very interesting but not very important applications.
   

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• The first was a plan to replace the giant advertisement structure that stands in the middle of Wandsworth Bridge round-about with this – see picture. Slightly larger than the current bagel-like structure, it has caused quite a bit of controversy. The planning officers recommended approval but we, the Committee, rejected it overwhelmingly – partly because of its size but mainly, I think, because we just did not understand it – what is it?
• The second was the Pavement flower stall right outside the main pedestrian entrance to Clapham Junction station, which was agreed for another two years. We consider this every few years and I was arguing to give them permanent permission, but I lost that one.
• By the way, thanks to new Government rules being introduced at the end of this month, in future neither of these applications would come to PAC but be decided by the officers without any public or councillor input. I doubt whether Andy Burnham is aware of all the ramifications of this change, but it is certainly ironic that a government, he says, committed to the devolution of power from Whitehall is, by Whitehall decree, about to make public or councillor involvement less relevant than before. In future applications of this scale will be decided by local government planners alone.
  

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6. On 23 September we went to Tate Britain to see the Whistler Exhibition. James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was an American painter, who lived most of his life in Europe, mainly in Moscow and London, and was famous for many, many paintings created from his Cheyne Walk house and largely of the old Battersea Bridge and the Thames between Chelsea and Battersea. I am sorry to say that I don’t think I liked Whistler, nor in fact did I like his paintings very much. His fantasies that the chimneys of the old Morgan Crucible factory, seen through what would have been a rather smoggy London landscape, reminded him of the campinale (towers) in a Florentine mist struck me as ludicrously self-indulgent – rather like this fanciful self-portrait. I decided that I am not a Whistler fan, but he did at least provoke an interesting discussion about what we thought of as art.
   

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7. Andy Burnham’s Labour Conference speech on 29 September was certainly a stirring and immensely important one for those of us, who feel as I do about politics. The major themes as far as I detected them were:-

• the rejection of the Thatcherite inheritance that I have fought against in Wandsworth Council for well over 40 years;
• the end of dogmatic privatisation; the restoration in belief of the public sector;
• the promise of a serious consideration of proportional representation and the end of our out-dated first-past-the-post voting system;
• positive steps towards the end of the Brexit disaster – a bit hesitant perhaps but nevertheless significant;
• commitment to Great Britain, but with devolution – a slight problem is that given his Manchester experience Burnham understandably sees that as devolution to Mayors – instead, I strongly advocate devolution to councils.
  

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8. Now back to the two criticisms I mentioned in paragraph 1. First: Albert Bridge, which is one of three road bridges crossing the Thames in this particular loop of the river. It is nearly 200 years old; it is in almost everyone’s list of favourite London bridges and it is fragile. Engineers have found something wrong with it and advised that it should be closed to traffic, excluding pedestrian and cyclists. The bridge happens to be Kensington & Chelsea’s (K&C) responsibility – ever since the abolition of the GLC the bridges have been assigned to one or other riparian boroughs, so Wandsworth had to repair (and pay for) Wandsworth Bridge three or four years ago. K&C are a relatively wealthy borough and the costs of the work are not a major problem – but I doubt that K&C’s Treasurer would quite say that. Repairing an old bridge with appropriate parts and doing half the work below water level is the challenging task. K&C are planning on a re-opening in the spring of 2027 and have promised to keep Wandsworth Council informed of progress on a monthly basis.
   

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9. But several of you have complained about the other changes that have taken place contemporaneously with regards to traffic lights, cycling facilities and banned turnings. And demanded that they are reversed or revised or amended in this or that way, according to taste. The traffic engineers at both councils, K&C and Wandsworth, and at Traffic for London know the position very well. I can vouch for the fact that they have been on site on many occasions – I have been there on a couple of those occasions. This is not something that they are ignorant of; and they are professionals, who use computer modelling techniques. There are no simple solutions to losing 33% of one’s river crossing facilities overnight.
   

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10. Finally can I remind people of the reason some of these changes have been implemented – in very recent years cyclists have died at the junctions at either end of the bridges – changes had to be made. Meanwhile we must wish the K&C repair effort well and adjust our own travel plans as best we can and have patience. I also will try and keep you updated with the latest developments – despite several promises K&C have not yet sent me their monthly progress reports. Stop Press I have just heard that K&C plan to start physical works in the last week of November.
    

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11. The second criticism concerned the council’s so-called financial crisis. First let us start with a few basics that the Tory councillors want you to ignore, namely Wandsworth is by any standards one of the richest local authorities in the country; that it had, as of 1 April 2026 an outstanding external debt of zero, zero, zero, zero pounds; it still has a very large reserve – compared to other London boroughs; and, let’s not deny it, a Council Tax that is less than half that of any other local authority in the country, bar similarly affected Westminster council. It is not in financial crisis. And let us not forget that Wandsworth’s large financial reserves are actually our money – and by our money, I mean yours and mine. If, you took its £100+ million reserve and divided that by the population of 350,000, then that would be £300 for me, and for you, and for your partner, and for your kids. There was nothing wrong with the last council choosing not to put up your Council Tax over four years. Indeed, in other circumstances, Tories would argue that individuals should have the right to keep their money and not to be taxed unecessarily.
    

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12. But let’s be honest across the board. It is also true that the Government has hit Wandsworth (and Westminster) hard with its latest grant settlement. The Government’s intention was, I suggest, very clear. Regardless of whether the low Council Tax in both Boroughs was a consequence of previous beneficial settlements made for many years OR as a result of greater efficiency OR lower levels of service, the government simply could not accept that the residents of both boroughs paid so much less for civic services than any other UK residents.
    

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13. Therefore, it is unlikely, I suggest, that Wandsworth (and Westminster) will continue to have such comparatively low Council Taxes. However, I also recommend that you do not for one moment believe the worst prognostications coming from the Tory councillors. In my view, they will hype up the scale of the crisis, and the increase in Council Tax that we can expect, only to prove how good they are at financial management, by announcing a significant but lower increase than they are hyping. That was the tactic they employed time and again when the old rates system was abolished, when Community Charge was introduced and when it was scrapped and Council Tax introduced. Remember when they came in with a Council Tax of zero; even then the Tory leader had told similar scare stories of a massive increase.
    

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14. Remember: whatever their claims might be, Wandsworth Tories inherited a strong financial position from the previous Labour Council. Remember: this announced doubling of Council Tax is not a reality but a Tory press release stunt, as one famous right-winger would say “Fake News”. By the time it comes to the real setting of Council Tax in February, my guess is that we will face a 25-30% increase; it may be as high as 50% but I suspect that is the absolute maximum that Tory councillors will accept.
    

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15. The economy, as a whole, may be standing still but you can’t say that about Battersea Park ward, and particularly in Parkgate Road. In the last month, demolition work, prior to redevelopment, has started on both the old Meadbank site (right) and the Vivienne Westwood site, whilst construction has started in earnest on the large Ransome’s Dock site (left). In a year’s time this vibrant corner of Battersea will look very different.
    

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My October Programme

The chaos that has followed the change of political control of the Council means I am still uncertain as to the precise details of this month’s calendar. What however is certain is as follows:-

1. There will be a Finance Committee on 8 October, which you can watch online and see the Chair, Councillor Peter Graham, justifying his 94% Council Tax increase predictions.
2. A Council Meeting on 21 October.
3. The Planning Applications Committee on 22 October.
4. And for all readers, who are also members of the Battersea Labour Party an AMM, All Members Meeting, on 22/10/26. All members should get separate notice – let me encourage you to sign in and watch online, or preferably turn up in person.
   

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Did you know?

Last month my question was: Do you know these parochial boundary stones in Queenstown Road and/or know of any others marking the old parish boundaries? Well one or two of you, not many, had seen and noticed these parochial boundaries without necessarily knowing the answer.

But my friend Carol gave the answer to cap all answers. I knew of about 6 of these on Queenstown Road, Clapham Common Northside, Wix Lane, and on Wandsworth Common, by the path from the Surrey Arms to the café, and in Alderbrook Road. But Carol tells me that there are 17 and they are all described in a pamphlet. If any of you wish to see the pamphlet or find out more detail, then do let me know and I will connect you to Carol. 

And this month? 

A large council estate in North Battersea – originally built by the GLC and not the Council – is called the Ethelburga Estate, a magnificently Anglo-Saxon name. Why? The blocks on the estate include Heron House, and Henty, Maskelyne, and Searles Closes. Does anyone have any idea about where any of these names come from? I only know the origin of one of these names myself, so happy if people can help fill in the gaps!

PS For back-dated numbers, web-search ‘Tony Belton’ to access my blog: to sign on for future copies email tonybelton99@gmail.com.