Archive by Author | Tony Belton

Labour of Love

A Play by James Graham @ Noël Coward Theatre, 16th November, 2017

If NEC, LGC, GMC, AMM, LCF, EC, and a score of other acronyms are second nature to you then this is a “must see” play about life in the Labour Party. I went with 20 other addicts from Battersea and Tooting and got a powerful shot of nostalgia, regret and sentimentality. James Graham, who specialises in political drama, is clearly equally captivated by the intimate dynamics of personal pyscho-drama.

The action covers the rise and fall of Blairism in the Labour Party in the period from the fall of Thatcher in 1990 to the “triumph” of Corbynism in June, 2017. Martin Freeman, as David Lyons, is the spirit of Tony Blair and Tamsin Greig, as Jean Whittaker, represents the heart and soul of the party.

Their failures and triumphs are first plotted backwards from the failure/triumph (as in Dunkirk) of the June, 2017, General Election. It opens with Lyons awaiting his inevitable defeat in a Midland heartland seat, which along with defeats in Stoke and Mansfield, represented the nadir of the early morning of 9^th June. Here there is a good laugh for Battersea locals, I suspect Tories as well as Labour, as Lyons humorously contrasts his fate with Labour in Battersea and Leamington.

From here, the action takes us back, step by step, from election to election; from the disaster of 2010 to the triumphs of 2005, 2001 and 1997 to the hubris of 1992. The action, as the play goes into reverse concentrates, on the triumph of Blairite modernism from bringing in new technology to the constituency office to the replacement of the coalmines with call centres.

There are plenty of good jokes on the way and not a little personal drama. Lyons’ wife Elizabeth, just too-too Cherie-like, shows appropriate metropolitan disdain for both his constituency office and the local party activists. Whilst the CLP (see what I mean! For the uninitiated I mean Constituency Labour Party) organiser/agent, Whittaker, is dismissive and disparaging of both the new MP’s and his wife’s metropolitan ways and affectations.

At the interlude, it was clear that the second act was going to change into forward gear and replay the history but why and to what purpose? By the end of the play, I was only left to admire how Graham had created and used this temporal structure to show the different sides of personal dramas, political imperatives and technical gismos.

As the curtain fell, I was left to ponder the vagaries of political certainties; of how yesterday’s truths become today’s old lies and presumably how today’s certainties are as likely to be just as vulnerable to the ravages of time. Time had been just as harsh, as it happened, on new technologies as on new labour, with the fax machine and the tele-text as redundant as any New Labour nostrum. But the play also demonstrated how time and the intense pressures of political lives can be just as damaging for many personal relationships.

The question remained: how were the personal dramas, Lyons and his wife and more particularly Whittaker and her two husbands, going to be played out? As it turns out, of course, the denouement could be divined within the action, both in reverse gear and in forward gear. Along with another message, deeply embedded in the play and that was a successful Labour Party needs both the “winners” and the “dreamers”.

James Graham has given us another clever and witty play for political nuts of all persuasions, not just those of a left-wing bent.

November 16, 2017

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea November, 2017, Newsletter (# 101)

On 9^th October, I was due to be on the platform at Shaftesbury ward’s version of the Council’s Let’s Talk meeting, but, unfortunately, I got substituted. This was a pity, because it turned out to be a bit of a bunfight between outraged voters and Tory councillors, Cook and Senior. Neither are known for pulling their punches or retreating from a fracas and with, an angry audience, the evening must have had its highs and lows. One thing is for certain the evening embarrassed ex-Tory now Independent Councillor Jim (James) Cousins. Jim, a senior member of the Wandsworth Tory Cabinet for many years, now writes an interesting blog at jamescousins.com, which includes coverage of that evening. Many of us are waiting with bated breath to see if he is going to challenge the Tories at next May’s Council elections, meanwhile his blog makes a well-informed commentary on some aspects of Wandsworth Tories.
The 11^th October, Council Meeting, was as unexciting as I predicted it would be. Nowadays, we councillors don’t even get answers to the questions we ask in Council (a bit like Prime Minister’s Question Time but without the answers! Can you imagine PMQs without the answers!). This is important for me, and on this occasion for some of you, as this month I asked about an issue bothering many residents of the Latchmere Estate and what’s more I promised them an answer. BUT I am afraid I don’t yet have an answer and can only apologise to those of you still worried about this neighbourhood issue – hopefully I will have one soon.
I have been concerned about some of the back-land developments that have recently been given planning permission. One particular development that has concerned me is one in Cabul Road, which I visited on the 13^th October. First, it strikes me as being very close to the rear of the houses in Rowena Crescent (from which this photograph was taken) and secondly because the developers have chosen to use their own building regulations inspector rather than the Council’s. The freedom to do this was granted by David Cameron’s Government in one of the crazier anti-regulation moves made in recent times. It leaves the poor neighbours with no recourse to an independent arbiter. I await developments with interest.
On the 14^th October, I and maybe 150 others attended the launch of Sally Warren’s bid to win the Thamesfield by-election on November 9. Sally makes a very impressive candidate, very local, friendly, extremely articulate and committed. Labour won Thamesfield way back in 1971 so clearly winning next month, for the first time since then, has to be a long shot. But the Tories are currently in such disarray, that anything is possible.
On the 15^th, I attended an “awayday” think session on how we, Labour candidates, are going to tackle next May’s election. We held it on a glorious autumn day, in the bucolic surroundings of Manresa College – part of the Roehampton University campus. The mood was buoyant but we must avoid complacency. I have been on the verge of two other Borough elections we were “certain to win” only weeks before the event – on one occasion General Galtieri launched the Falklands War and overnight turned Mrs. Thatcher’s fortunes from being the most unpopular PM in modern history into Saviour of the Nation!
The October meeting of the Planning Applications Committee was on the 18^th. There was one application, which I know is a cause of concern to residents of the Battersea Fields Estate and that was the extended permission, for three years, to Harris Academy to use their playground for a car boot sale. It is now 18 years since the school first got temporary permission and during that time there have been plenty of objections, as well as a lot of support for the “market”. It is often tricky when developments are given “temporary” permission as too often they then seem to go on for ever.
On the 20^th I went to County Hall to see Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution. I don’t mean the modern City Hall, near London Bridge, but the old County Hall standing on the Thames alongside the Eye and boldly facing Parliament. The play, staged in the old debating chamber, was splendidly done and I recommend it to everyone – though it is not a cheap evening – it was almost worth it just for being in the chamber. You can see my review of the play on my blog site at https://tonybelton.wordpress.com/.
On the 23^rd I went to see Iannucci’s Death of Stalin, a film which I was looking forward very much to seeing. What a great subject! A film about a man, who my working-class London family (and many others) revered, in war-time, as Uncle Joe, much more, to their minds, the saviour of embattled Britain than the Johnny Come-Lately Yanks. Yet Stalin later turned out to be a tyrant and an ogre. The film had also had rave reviews and plaudits from many friends – but I found it vaguely disappointing. Somehow treating the death of this giant historical figure, both responsible for millions of innocent deaths and saviour of the Soviet Union, as the centre of a farce was massively inappropriate. Did one care whatever happened to the ghastly Beria, or the cowardly Malenkov or the scheming Khrushchev or any of the other villains of the piece? Well, I didn’t. It is billed as a “dark comedy”, but I guess I found the subject a little too dark to be very comical.
On the 30^th I had a meeting with planners and designers about the so-called Winstanley Re-generation scheme. The scheme is, at last, beginning to get under-way. It is aimed at maintaining the number, but vastly improving the quality (and looks), of social housing available in Battersea, but it is also providing private sector housing for sale and rent – very much in line with the London Plan and the city’s population growth. However, one thing I wish to put on record, is that the largest tower blocks, which, dominate the models and drawings, have NOTHING to do with Winstanley regeneration. They are instead related either to the Council’s plans for major developments in York Road or to the plans for Crossrail 2. Crossrail 2 and the potential new interchange at Clapham Junction does not yet have any funding or Government approval, and even if does get approved it will not happen until at least 2030. And all the developments in York Road are already happening now regardless of Winstanley regeneration.
Late in the month, I made a point of going to look at Tooting Common’s
grand “Chestnut Avenue”, which you may remember I highlighted last month when it was due to come under the council chop. On the left you can see the mature chestnuts, before the axeman came, and on the right the new lime saplings. From maturity to fragile immaturity almost overnight! Whether you think it an environmental disaster or good husbandry, it certainly makes the point that landscape design and planning is a multi-generational project and not something to be resolved in one electoral cycle.
On the 31^st October, I took Year 6 pupils of Falconbrook School on a 75-minute tour of the Winstanley area. Obviously most of them live on the estate and know it very much better than I do – but they don’t know it in an adult or geographer’s way. I hope that they found following the course of the Falcon Brook, the naming history of the estate and William Mitchell’s concrete sculptures interesting. I certainly enjoyed it and, if keeping 30 odd 11 year-olds’ attention for 75 minutes is a measure, then it went well.

My Programme for November

On 1^st November, my partner Penny is hosting a book launch in the Speaker’s House, Westminster. The book is about Arthur Onslow, the Great eighteenth-century Speaker of the House of Commons so Penny and the author wrote to Speaker Bercow to ask for use of “his” House to launch the book. The House, in the corner of the Palace of Westminster, next to the Big Ben tower and facing over the river, should make an impressive venue.
The next day, I am going to CAW (Citizens Advice Wandsworth) Annual General Meeting at Battersea Library.
On the 6^th I have a meeting of Wandsworth Conservation Advisory Committee.
I hope to go to WOW (Women of Wandsworth)’s Annual General Meeting in City Hall on 8^th November.
On the 9^th we have the exciting and surprisingly tight Thamesfield by-election.
The Second Providence House Fund Raising Dinner is on the 11^th November and the Council’s Civic Awards dinner is on the 14^th. And, of course, on the 12^th there will be Remembrance Day services across the Borough.
I have the Community Services Committee on 15^th November and the Planning Applications Committee on 22^nd.
On Saturday, 18^th November, there is something called the London Councils Summit held in the City of London’s Guildhall. All councillors from across London are invited to attend and the Summit is usually addressed by the Mayor and a Government Minister. It should be an interesting day.
Marsha de Cordova, Battersea’s MP, and I are hosting a Reception for new members of the Battersea Labour Party in the House of Commons on 23^rd.
The Battersea Police Ball, the Borough’s largest and brassiest charity big bash, takes place in Battersea Park on the 25^th.

Do you know?

Last month: not many of you appeared to be very interested in why this boat moored at Vicarage Crescent is called Ringvaart III. According to Wikipedia, Ringvaart is a 38 mile circular canal, built 1839-1845, as part of Holland’s land drainage system. It is also a commercial, industrial and recreational canal, part of the very extensive Dutch commercial waterway. This houseboat, being extensively renovated by Joel and Rosie, must have started its life hauling freight around Holland until some enterprising sailor decided to take this river/canal boat across the North Sea and into the Thames.

As for my question this month: it relates to the Kambala Estate, the red-brick, 2 and 3 storey estate on the west-side of Falcon Road. The street names on the estate are Fawcett Close, Coppock Close, Hicks Close, McDermott Close, Wolftencroft Close (note 2 ‘f’s and no s), as well as Ingrave, Wye, York, Mantua and Kambala. Forget the last 5, Who or what were Fawcett, Coppock, Hicks, McDermott and Wolftencroft? Can you answer just one or all five?

October 28, 2017

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Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie

I went to County Hall to see Lucy Bailey’s Witness for the Prosecution. The play’s action largely takes place in an Old Bailey court-room with a couple of scenes in the defence counsel’s chambers. Designer, William Dudley, might not have done much to stage the play in County Hall’s Council Chamber, but whatever he did do he did brilliantly, because it proved to be ideally and dramatically suited to be transformed into a magnificent Old Bailey court-room. The Chamber was built for political debate, with majority and minority parties benches, a Mayoral dais and press gallery splendidly reflecting the prosecution and defence, judge and clerks of the court and jury seats required for staging a court-room drama. The single-purpose, somewhat claustrophobic, controlled environment of a political chamber also has its obvious parallels with the court-room.

For those unaware of the plot, the play has a very clever, typically Agatha Christie, twist. However, the twists and turns of the plot do demand a remarkable performance from Leonard Vole, the defendant, played by Jack McMullen. He needs to be thrillingly and seductively attractive to women of all ages and at the same time to be naïve and of Machiavellian cunning; unfortunately, McMullen’s acting did not quite have the range to make his character totally credible. Actually, of course, the problems really are the demands of the script. Agatha Christie’s work is to be enjoyed for the clever twists and turns of the plot and not necessarily for the credibility of the demands she places on her characters.

In any event, the central character, defence counsel, Sir Wilfred Roberts QC, is beautifully played by David Yelland and it is his character, which is the central lynchpin of the plot. Indeed, Sir Wilfred is the tragic hero of the piece; well intentioned, polished and sophisticated, elegant and fearsomely clever in a nice aristocratic manner he is made a buffoon and a loser by a scoundrel. The powerful last scene lost nothing by being so well known to many of the audience.

The setting and the dramatic conclusion, the moral dilemmas posed by the story and Yelland’s acting made for a very enjoyable theatrical performance in an interestingly new environment.

Go early and spend 20 minutes walking around the outside of the Chamber, reading the marbled engraved names of the leaders of the London County Council (LCC), the Greater London Council (GLC) and the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) – most of them now sadly merely names in the records of the past, but some still talked of today – most notably Ken Livingstone, but there is also Chris Chataway (pacemaker along with Chris Brasher for Roger Bannister’s Four Minute Mile but also briefly a Tory Leader of the ILEA) and Sir Ashley Bramall. Less well known but with a very small connection to me, one can also find Norman Prichard, later Sir Norman – as well as being Chairman of the LCC he was also a Labour councillor for Latchmere ward – my ward, then of Battersea and now of Wandsworth.

Witness for the Prosecution runs at County Hall until January and I heartily recommend it although I may have been slightly swayed in that I worked in County Hall for 23 years and it was, therefore, a bit of a sentimental journey. I look forward to seeing many more dramas, especially courtroom ones, staged there in future.

Just a word of warning! If you go in the cheaper seats (but not exactly cheap), in what used to be the public gallery, both view and accessibility need to be checked in advance!

October 22, 2017

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea October, 2017, Newsletter (# 100)

I spent the first week of September in a small village on the Croatian coast. For the fourth year we stayed in the same very basic, very simple pension – nothing to do except try all the local fish in one of the 3 brilliant local restaurants – and swim across this bay – great!
Meanwhile, back in Battersea Latchmere Labour Party members re-selected Simon Hogg and myself as two of the three candidates for May’s Council elections. Strange to note that, with all the scare stories about how Corbyn’s Labour Party was going to “de-select” sitting MPs and councillors, this is the only time since 1971 when I have been re-selected without an interview!
What about Wendy Speck, our third councillor? I hear you say. Wendy has decided to move on to other things and so members chose a new candidate, one Kate Stock. Here are the three of us in York Gardens, me on the left and Simon on the right. I will say more of Wendy, who has been a great partner for Simon and myself – probably in May next year, when she steps down.
We were in York Gardens on 11^th September at the Council’s Let’s Talk meeting. Some of you will have received flyers for this event from the Council, but, despite a very wide circulation, only about 40 members of the public turned up. It is clearly a “good thing” that the Council should “consult” with the public but the way we do it in Wandsworth doesn’t really work. The only lively point was when one of the public, probably reading this right now, weighed into my failure to solve everything wrong with his block of flats. PS However, since that meeting I have heard that one person, who came along and talked of potholes, actually got one fixed! The meeting at least made one difference!
On 13^th September, I looked into the Royal College of Arts exhibition of plans for its proposed development on the Howie Street, Parkgate and Battersea Bridge Roads site. One comment I found particularly interesting was how North Battersea is becoming the centre of the UK art world. Not only is there the Royal College of Arts, but the Royal College of Dance, currently in Battersea Square, is also being “re-developed” in York Road.
On Sunday, 17^th, I went with Marsha de Cordova, MP, to the Battersea Chapel service run by Pastor Leroy Burke. You may remember that Leroy organised a very impressive public meeting about knife crime. Pastor Burke’s intention is to keep the public interest focused on the horror of knife crime until we have got rid of it.
The picture shows a sculpture done by Philip Dorman, a Providence House volunteer. It is called The Wall of Pain and has 185 model coffins, representing the young victims of knife crime in London, 2005-15. The three stand-alone coffins in the front represent the three young men killed in Battersea earlier this year.
The following day I had a meeting with Marsha in the House of Commons, along with her office manager Tracy Smith-Robinson. We discussed a range of matters, such as where her Battersea office will be – her intention is that it should be in the heart of Clapham Junction – and her programme for Labour’s Conference in Brighton.
On the 19th September, I had the Community Services Committee, when the Tory councillors decided to go ahead with their plan to demolish and reconstruct the Northcote Road Library. The Labour councillors opposed the proposal, not least because the 17 planned housing units in the new development are NOT expected to be either so-called “affordable” or socially rented.
Within a week of that decision, Wandsworth Council cut down Tooting Common’s grand Chestnut Avenue. This fiercely unpopular action (you may have seen coverage of the destruction
Chestnut Avenue

on TV or radio) followed from a Community Services Committee’s decision a couple of months ago. But with both this and the controversial decision on Northcote Library being taken, within 6 months of the next Council Election, it leads one to wonder whether the local Tories have a death wish.
On 20^th September, I had the Planning Applications Committee, which for the second month running had no decisions to take of any significance, except to the applicants themselves and their neighbours.
On Saturday, 23^rd September, I went with Marsha de Cordova to Brighton for the Labour Conference. Marsha MC’d a reception for the London Labour Party, with guest speakers including London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Labour’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson. On the following day, she and I hosted a dinner for Wandsworth Party friends in one of Brighton’s popular Italian restaurants.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling too well and came back from Brighton on Monday morning, but the Conference was clearly a great success and left most of us in good heart. There are obviously serious problems facing Labour, with, for example, our stance on the European Union being to say the least – woolly. But, if our position is woolly, the Government’s confusion and divisions are simply untenable.
You may remember that last month my bike was stolen in Este Road. Well on the 29^th I was rung by the police. They told me that they had caught all three “villains” and that it was now up to the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether to press the case to court. The police officer told me a little about the three youths, most of which I can’t repeat in public, but the salient point was that it looks very possible that this is the start of a downhill path, which may well result in three wasted young lives, unless society takes immediate remedial action. We really do need a better and stronger Probation Service and not just the shattered remains of a privatised system.
I could get really angry at this point but then something wonderful happened. A Battersea resident, Joel is his name, gave me his bike – see below!
I went to an afternoon charity Coffee Party on behalf of McMillan nurses at Battersea Fields Residents Association clubroom on 29^th of the month – not sure how much was raised but younger members of the community had a rousing game of table soccer. I kind of remember when the participants would claim to be Bobby Charlton or George Best – nowadays the screams were all for Messi and Ronaldo!
Finally, on Saturday 30^th September, there was the funeral of Tory Cllr Jim Maddan. Jim was elected Mayor of the Borough as recently as May. Some of you will have met him but he was best known in Putney, where for many years he was not only a councillor but also the street bobby. Popular across communities and politics, his funeral in St. Mary’s Church Putney was a big occasion.

My Programme for October

On 9^h October, I will be on the platform at Shaftesbury ward’s version of the Council’s Let’s Talk meeting – but as a stand-in for Labour Leader, Simon Hogg, who has to be elsewhere.
On 11^th October, we have a Council Meeting. Nowadays these are as rare as hens’ teeth – the old model of local government desperately needs a re-think. Currently, it is just not operating other than as a once every four-year plebiscite on who should run the place – this party or that one.
In the week of the 16^th I have two interesting viewings: first on 16^th itself when I am going to get better acquainted with the design, work and looks of Battersea Park’s new tube station rapidly taking shape alongside the Dogs’ Home; and then two days later I am visiting the Tideway Thames Tunnel works. This major infrastructure development, perhaps only second to Crossrail, promises to solve some of Londonâ€™s sewage problems, taking tons of sludge away from the Thames.
The October meeting of the Planning Application Committee is on the 18^th.

Opinion Piece

This is NOT an original observation but my caseload as a councillor more and more reveals just how bad the housing crisis in London is. Housing problems have always topped the list of issues brought to me as a Latchmere councillor, but this year there has been a significant increase in both the number and seriousness of the issues people are facing. The most desperate cases are frequently very young families coming from broken relationships, and usually with no job and no income and very little in the way of personal belongings. The shortage of cheap, rented accommodation – council housing – is desperate but meanwhile we continue to see luxury flats, often built as an investment and not an answer to a housing shortage, springing up in North Battersea.

This Council development of 6 council flats in Rowditch Lane is one very small exception to the trend. This block is intended for re-housing folks displaced by the Winstanley Estate regeneration. It’s a small step in the right direction but we need a new building programme numbered in hundreds, not in tens,

Do you know?

I mentioned Joel above. He had read my last newsletter, about the bike theft, and so he emailed me to say that he had a spare bike that he kept on his houseboat (pictured here), moored near Vicarage Crescent – and I was welcome to have it. I went and picked it up the other day and had a nice chat with him and Rosie, who is joint owner of the boat. They tell an interesting story about buying the boat (as cheap as you can imagine) and buying a mooring (more expensive than I could have imagined) and doing up the boat themselves – well pretty much – including taking it downstream to Greenwich for large-scale welding repair jobs. The boat has the interesting, original, name of Ringvaart III.

So, my question is “What does that tell us about the boat’s history and where does the boat come from?” A new fixture on the Battersea scene with, no doubt, its own interesting story.

September 14, 2017

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Councillor Tony Belton’s North Battersea September, 2017, Newsletter (# 99)

This newsletter is going to be short, well, comparatively – August was a quiet month! In passing, have you noticed the number (# 99) in the heading? It indicates that this is the 99^th edition of my monthly newsletter. In other words, I have been producing this for 8 years and 3 months, well actually 2 months, because in August, 2011, I produced 2 editions so as to cover the Clapham Junction riots. I am now wondering if and how to celebrate the 100^th edition, next month!
One of the first things I did, after I got back from Scotland, was to have lunch at the Fish in A Tie restaurant in Falcon Road with fellow councillor, Simon Hogg. I went by bike and padlocked my bike against street railings in full sight of where I sat. So, imagine my anger, and amazement, when I saw three youths about 16/17 years’ old fiddling about with the padlock. I charged out, as best as my new metal knee would allow, and tackled the three of them. They rode off, after a short scuffle, but unfortunately on my bike and two of their own, assuming that they weren’t stolen too, leaving me holding one of theirs – and a broken padlock!
The Special Neighbourhood Team, or most of it (pictured here with captured bike), arrived after a call from Simon. One of them came in and took a statement from me – at the dinner table. They said that one of the villains was arrested in Dagnall Street, but I have heard nothing since. I lost my bike and the police have “acquired” a bike as material evidence. What a nuisance! More to the point, what a tragedy! Three young villains, well on the way to wasting their lives on petty crime and under-achievement. It would have been good to have caught them properly and talked to them long and seriously, before they graduate onto more serious crime.
On August 13^thI went to a Labour Party fund raising garden party in Putney. Leonie Cooper (pictured here), our Greater London Assembly member, was the main attraction at this enjoyable summer occasion. She spoke about life at City Hall, the Grenfell Tower fire disaster and the housing crisis in London.
On the 16^th Seth Gowley, an Oxford geography student, writing a PhD thesis on urban regeneration, visited me to ask about my views on the Winstanley Estate regeneration. He had interviewed some of the residents and other local “experts” and had visited a few other examples of major regeneration projects in London and other big cities. Gratifyingly, he commented that he thought that we have done quite well here on the Winstanley, compared to other places in the country. He based this view on the largely positive reactions that he had had from residents.
You may be surprised to hear that I am a member of the Licensing Committee – I have never previously mentioned it. It met on August 22^nd to decide whether a Putney restaurant should be allowed or not to use some outside space for drinking and smoking for an extra 30 minutes. What a bore – a summer evening spent on such a minor matter!
This was part of Tony Blair’s 1997-2002 reforms of local government and, to my mind, this was one of the more useless of those reforms. Prior to 1997, licensing at this level was decided by local magistrates. Having been a magistrate, I know that this kind of decision would be taken in 10 minutes, or maybe 30, in a busy day full of other largely administrative matters. Blair argued that he was returning powers to local government.
This, however, was no such thing. Local government was being handed power over the trivial but was totally constrained on the major licencing policy issues, such as deciding on the total number of drinking establishments, pubs or bars, that would be acceptable in, say, Clapham Junction. Government thinking was, and is, that decision should be left “to the market”. Then, of course, one is left with the old neo-liberal lie “that one cannot defy the market”.
The following evening, I had the Planning Applications Committee, which on this occasion had no decision to take of any significance, except to the applicant him/herself, and their neighbours.
On 26^th I went to the Ingrave People’s Project Street Party, Hicks Close. The party was organised by Donna Barham, who some of you will know is a Hicks Close resident. Donna has been doing sterling work, maintaining community spirit in the Kambala Estate, organising summer day trips to the coast and winter trips to the Christmas market in Oxford. Donna was thinking of standing to be a councillor at next May’s Council election. It would have been great to have had her on Wandsworth Council as a colleague, but she decided her community work was, and is, more important to her. Here is Donna, second left, along, with two Spidermen, Princess Elsa, from Walt Disney’s Frozen, and a Kambala resident.
On the political front, I was pleased to read Keir Starmer’s 26^th August statement on the Labour Party’s position on Brexit negotiations. It has been agreed by Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Leadership and hence is of national importance. It has been clear to me that the previous ambivalent stance could not stand for long. Given the Government’s hopeless stance on Brexit, our two-party political system demanded that Labour, as the official Opposition, made its position clear.
Changing the focus, have you seen the new electric car charging points installed in Grant Road opposite the station entrance. There are others promised across the Borough, Cabul Road for example. Soon we will all have to get used to having cars wired up across the pavement. That is bound to raise issues that have not yet been considered. But in the next 10 years we will see the end of new combustion engine cars and a massive increase in electric cars.
Finally, I should congratulate all those students, who did so well in this year’s exams, with special mention of students at Latchmere’s Harris Academy and Thames Christian College.

My Programme for September

On 11^th September, my colleagues, Simon Hogg and Wendy Speck, and I will be on the platform at York Gardens Library at the Council’s Let’s Talk meeting. This is an opportunity for Latchmere residents to question us, and a team of council officers, about anything from potholes, to progress on the Winstanley Estate regeneration, from safety on our roads to social care for the elderly.
On 13^th September, I hope to go the Royal College of Arts (RCA), to see the plans for the new RCA building in York Road.
On the 19^th September, I have the Community Services Committee. I don’t know yet what will be on the agenda, but one possibility is a proposal to demolish and reconstruct the Northcote Road Library.
The September meeting of the Planning Application Committee is on the 20^th
The Labour Party Conference runs from 23rd to 27th September and I am booked in to Brighton for the duration. I have been often enough before but this one promises to be something a bit special. I am sure that there will be masses of discussion about the future of the UK in, or out, of the EU.

Opinion Piece

The Tory Party is currently putting up a good imitation of total implosion. In July, 2014, I wrote a blog, where I suggested that the Tory party was in danger of a major split – right now that blog looks prescient. Read it at:-
https://tonybelton.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/the-tories-face-a-disaster-called-europe/
Tell me what you think. Is this just a blip or something more serious for the Tory Party? And if the Tory Party does implode, then what will be the impact on Labour? I don’t think that such a collapse will be simply an unmitigated benefit for Labour, except in the short-term.

Do you know?

Last month I asked whether anyone knew where is the larger identical twin to this the Barbara Hepworth statue, pictured here by the lake in Battersea Park.

A number of you got the right answer, which is the United Nations Building in New York City. It was commissioned from Hepworth as a memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld, following his death in an air crash in Africa in 1961. Hammarskjöld (pronounced Hammershelt) was General Secretary of the UN and his death was the subject of much speculation – was the plane shot down by Western agents or African warlords? Was it really an accident or was it an assassination? Were the killers, agents of western imperialism, or tribal warriors? A modern mystery.

August 5, 2017

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea August, 2017, Newsletter (# 98)

I said last month that I was off to Sardinia for a week on 24^th June, with the grandchildren. We had a great time in a “resort”, which, whilst not exactly my style, was good for the kids with four (!) adult and kids’ pools and plenty of good mainly, but not exclusively, Italian food. The first few days were, however, soporifically hot. Global warming really is making much of the Mediterranean almost impossible for summer holidays – except for lobsters of course. Here is the clan, minus me the photographer.
I got back on the evening of 1^st July, hoping to get to the Falcon Festival, but was too late. The Festival started in 2016 and will now hopefully be an annual event. I am told it went really well and that the Battersea Labour Party stall, with a guest appearance from our MP, Marsha de Cordova, was a great success – I am sure that our stall will be a regular feature of the Festival in the future.
On 4th July, I had a meeting of Wandsworth Council’s Heritage Selection Panel. 456 heritage assets were reviewed, by the Battersea Society and the other Wandsworth amenity societies (Balham, Putney, etc.). The meeting ran for more than three hours and nominations for the various categories were put forward for final approval. The categories include:-
- post boxes, e.g. VR (Victoria Regina post boxes in Battersea Square)
- boundary markers
- blue enamel street signs
- ghost signs, like this Peterkin Custard ad on St. John’s Hill (Do you know it?)
- “street furniture” such as granite setts, York paving stones, the electricity sub-stations and sewer sink pipes, etc.
- English Heritage blue plaques.
  
  The full revised list will be submitted to the Council’s Heritage committee in September.
  
  A private company has mapped all these assets on to a “geographic database” and in future we have the exciting prospect of being able to research all these assets on-line, placing them in our neighbourhood and seeing images of them as well.
On 5^th I was rung up by Poppy Naylor, a politics student at Graveney School. She asked me if she could “shadow me” for a month or so and learn something about politics at both a local and practical level. Over time, I have had university students studying, say, journalism, who have worked with me writing news stories as part of their course, but I have never had a school student looking for some work experience in politics, prior to deciding whether to study the subject at university. It struck me as an interesting project and so now meet Poppy, for a month at least part of the team! And here is her contribution!

“I approached Councillor Tony Belton in the Summer of my first A Level year as I wanted to find out more about politics at a local level. Our politics course at Graveney School focuses on government and parties at a national level. I felt I knew a little about councils and how they worked. By the time I attended my first council meeting, I knew I understood absolutely nothing. I was very grateful that Tony had given me the opportunity to start to figure things out.

So far, I have attended a Labour group meeting and a council meeting in Wandsworth Town Hall. The meeting rooms are very grand and the council meeting itself seemed to run along the lines of the debates I have seen in the House of Commons. It was encouraging to see how united everyone was in the light of the Grenfell Tower fire about implementing the correct safety measures in Wandsworth. There was a real grass roots and local feel to these meetings. Councillors talked about how the Grenfell fire had touched the lives of some constituents who lost family that night.

It has been an interesting experience so far to see how decisions are made locally that can affect our everyday lives. There is still a lot that I wonder about.”
A couple of councillors have for some time now organised annual week-end trips to battlefields to commemorate the part that Wandsworth military men have played in either World War I or II. This year the trip was to Villers Plouich, near Douai, over the week-end 7^th June to 9^th June. The village was totally obliterated 100 years ago in 1917, but was liberated by troops from Wandsworth, and particularly Battersea. This was such a major event in the history of the village that there is a square called “Place de Wandsworth”! But my favourite story of the area was of this man, who only 10 years ago discovered this World War l tank buried in a bomb crater – after a dozen years of looking! It was one of the first ever used.
We had a Council Meeting on 12^th July. The main debate was about the truly awful Grenfell Tower disaster and its implications for us here in Wandsworth. I wrote about this last month and about our concerns, but the Council Meeting was an opportunity, a month later, to discuss and review the steps that Wandsworth has taken to ensure the safety of our residents. Clearly, we were all shocked by Kensington & Chelsea’s abject failure. We can only hope that we have taken all necessary steps to avoid such a disaster in Wandsworth.
The sheltered housing residents of Doris Emmerton Court, Wynter Street SW11, had a BBQ on 14^th July. They invited me and I was delighted to attend, even if I did get there a little late. Doris Emmerton Court is a purpose-built sheltered housing block of 66 flats for older people aged 55+ who choose to live independently in the community with access to support offered by the sheltered housing officer.
A couple of hours later, Poppy and I were at the Battersea Society Summer Garden Party in the grounds of St. Mary’s Church on the river-front. It is one of the most spectacular spots for such an occasion, that one could imagine. No one that J M Turner painted river scenes here, but about 200 years ago when the view was just a little different!
I won a pair of tickets to the men’s final at Wimbledon on 16^th July! (N.B. I won the right to buy them! This was not a freebie) I took Marsha with me – see the dreaded selfie! As for the game itself, Federer was, of course, immaculate even if Cilic was over-awed and injured. Perhaps the second match, in which Jamie Murray and Martina Hingis defeat Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen, was the more entertaining spectacle.
On 20^th July, I had the Planning Applications Committee, which on this occasion was very important for the future of Battersea. The first application, relating to a site opposite the Dogs’ Home, was to demolish Palmerston Court, and the Pavilion and Flanagan’s pubs and to replace them with 4 buildings up to 16 stories high, comprising 162 residential units, a replacement pub, retail and some open space. No doubt the 162 units will be useful but only 25% of them will be “affordable”, that is far too expensive for, say, the majority of first-time buyers! What is more, we all know that demolishing a vibrant community pub like Flanagan’s is rather more important than just replacing bricks and mortar. The replacement pub, in perhaps 5 years’ time, is extremely unlikely to have the same roots in the community as Flanagan’s. This application was opposed by the Battersea Society and the Labour councillors but was passed by the Conservative majority! No doubt the fact that the development will bring £6+ million into the Council’s coffers also had some influence on the decision!
The second major application referred to the Candle Factory site. This time we are talking about a 25-storey block, containing 136 flats and a gym. 21% of these units will be “affordable” and the contribution to the Council’s coffers will be £4.9 million. The result of the discussion was much as the Flanagan’s debate; opposed by the Labour councillors and supported by the Tories, though interestingly enough one of the Conservative councillors representing the area spoke against the application!
And on 21st July I was off on hols, again. I am making up
Ramsay McDonald’s home, Lossiemouth

for a couple of years without a big break by having a few short breaks this year, including 10 days in Scotland, one of my very favourite destinations. One place I had never been to before was the small fishing village of Lossiemouth, just north of Aberdeen, where I came across this house. It was, and is, the birthplace of Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour Prime Minister in 1924 and 1929-1931, and, famously and contentiously, the Prime Minister of the 1931-35 National Government. I wonder whether any other British Prime Minister came from such a humble background.
Last month I did say that I would say something about the news from the Finance Committee of 29^th June, re Tours Passage and Falcon Park. Unfortunately, there is not a lot that I can say other than that the Committee decided to allocate £174,450 to the Tours Passage (between Maysoule Road and the railway) scheme and £115,000 to the Falcon (Banana) Park scheme. One of my constituents can take much of the credit for the Tours Passage allocation, as she has lobbied for it for years, and I like to think that I had something to do with the Falcon Park scheme. However, despite the precise nature of the budgets, I am told that the schemes are not yet worked through in any detail and that we must wait until the autumn for that.
Suffice to say that with the Council still intent on putting in an artificial playing surface in Falcon Park, I argued that money should be spent on improving the use and landscaping of the northern area of the Park, where the Latchmere Road cut is situated. The allocation for Tours Passage is simply at present for “environmental improvements”.
By the way other allocations in Battersea included £165,000 for the Wandsworth Common, Chivalry Road play space scheme; £74,000 for the Wandsworth Common, St Mark’s play space; £220,000 for the Fred Wells Gardens refurbishment scheme; and £334,000 for a Battersea Arts Centre scheme.

My Programme for August

August really is our recess (or holiday season) and my only commitment is to the Planning Applications Committee on the 23^rd – after two years of elections and, of course, the Referendum a complete month off is very welcome. But in September, we will be straight into the build up to and the campaigning for the May 3^rd, 2018, Council election. We have high hopes of making considerable gains and clawing back the advantage the Tories have had over us for nearly forty years.

Opinion Piece

Given my comments last month about our MP’s (Marsha de Cordova) stance on the Brexit/Remain issue, I think I should draw your attention to what she said in her maiden speech in the House of Commons on 17^th July. You can read, or view it in full, on various websites but I thought I should highlight the following extract:-

“As you can see, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in Battersea we are outward-looking and internationalist. It is that outward-looking spirit that I will endeavour to bring to Parliament. With the decision to leave the European Union, we face serious challenges ahead of us. It was a decision that my constituents care deeply about and voted overwhelmingly against. I will be standing up for them, drawing on that outward-looking Battersea tradition, one that values openness, tolerance, social justice and co-operation”.

Do you know?

The Barbara Hepworth statue, pictured here by the lake in Battersea Park? Well one of the organisers, Ian, of the Doris Emmerton BBQ I mentioned above, challenged me, and you, to name the location of its rather larger identical twin. Does anyone know?

July 10, 2017

Councillor Tony Belton’s North Battersea July, 2017, Newsletter (# 97)

First, apologies for failing to produce a June edition of my newsletter. Mrs. May’s mistaken decision to call an election cost her plenty but it also meant I lost a political bet and didn’t finish the June edition! I lost the bet but, as she discovered, I was absolutely right about why she shouldn’t have called the election!
On the 1^st May, I went to the Old Vic to see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, a play by Tom Stoppard. R and G are two minor characters in Shakespeare’s classic Hamlet. They are incidental characters in the tragic drama of Hamlet’s decline and death. Stoppard’s genius is to make a funny but tragic story out of the inconsequentiality of their lives and their best intentions. It’s not quite the tragedy of little men within a bigger tragedy for a bigger man, with all the elitism that would imply but it’s pretty near to it – brilliant.
And then the next morning, the 2^nd May, news started trickling through that Labour’s candidate for the 6^th June General Election was likely to be Marsha de Cordova – “who she?”, I heard, asked by 1,000+ Battersea LP (BLP) members. Marsha, of whom more later, turned out to be a charming and attractive candidate, enthusiastic and friendly. Here she is, front left, at a “candidate adoption party” with GLA member, Leonie Cooper and previous Labour MP, Martin Linton.
The selection was done by a committee of the London Regional Party and the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), inevitably dominated by party apparatchiks. This was not the way one would ideally choose the candidate and admittedly the election was sprung on us, but all could see that there was at least a possibility that the election would happen before the scheduled 2020 date. The Labour Party should have been more prepared – bad mark against Labour’s Leadership!
I volunteered to be Marsha’s agent for the campaign – what a mug to volunteer for all that work! Party agents, amongst other things, have a legal duty to ensure that their party’s expenditure for the election does not exceed the legal limit, which in our case was approximately £14,000, i.e. we, the agents, are the ones that go to prison if it does. The deadline for the statutory return of election expenditure is 14^th July.
Meanwhile I had arranged to have coffee on May 3^rd with one Matt Rosenberg to discuss his ideas for making a film of the Winstanley estate with, and even written by, pupils of Falconbrook School, Latchmere. It turned out that Matt had quite a record of making films/DVDs of London communities and neighbourhoods. It seems like a fascinating proposal, which we will pursue in the autumn.
I got back to the office, just in time to meet Marsha, then a quick drive round the constituency with Marsha and a photographer to picture her with the Power Station, Clapham Junction and Queenstown Road stations and, of course, St. Mary’s Church in the background. You may have seen the one of her from the other side of the river with the Power Station in the background. A few days later, I took this one, which was used on her election address. I am quite proud of it!
On 4^th May, we had canvassing to be organised, stationary to be printed, members to be contacted, supplies to be ordered. We also had a photo-shoot outside the Battersea Arts Centre with all of the current Labour councillors in Battersea, the GLA member Leonie Cooper and two ex-MPs, Lord Alf Dubs and Martin Linton.
Friday, 5^th May was quiet; just Marsha’s election leaflet to write, to design and to send to the printers. A few discussions about apostrophes (‘), split infinitives, spellings, “Are they Tories or Conservatives?” – that sort of thing. (Did you know that it has been a minor Labour Party debate for years “whether to refer to our main opponents as Conservatives, vaguely respectful and formal, or as Tories, more colloquial and less respectful. I belong to the “Tories” school of thought. What do you think?)
On the 6^th my partner and I went to the Royal Opera House to see the UK premier of Thomas Adès’s opera, The Exterminating Angel – pretty unusual for me, but Adès’s mother was my partner’s flatmate in London immediately after university and so we are old family friends. It’s not that I haven’t been to the opera a few times; I could almost claim to be a fan of, in particular, Mozart, but Thomas Adès is a very modern, “post-melodic” composer. His opera was staged impressively and sung brilliantly. The story, derived from the Luis Bunuel film of the same name, is of an elite dinner party, symbolically trapped in a stately home, deserted by the servants, helpless at caring for themselves and increasingly and pathetically blind to their circumstances – it could easily be a metaphor for a United Kingdom blindly, blithely and arrogantly trapped into a hopeless Brexit – except that I believe the UK will escape from the current Brexit impasse. How? Let’s wait and see.
On the following day, 7^th May, Marsha and I attended a meeting about gun and knife crime at the Battersea Chapel, Wye Street. It was called by Reverend LeRoy Burke and was one of the most extraordinary meetings, of the many I have attended. It began a little after 6 in the evening and was still going strong when we left at 10.30. There must have been the best part of 400 people there, of whom perhaps 10 were white and the other 390 of mixed and Afro-Caribbean background. At least 50 people spoke of their anger and concern about the extent of knife crime in Britain, in London and in particular in Battersea. It was part revivalist, part confessional but, whatever it was, it was so totally different from any Council organised meeting on such an issue would have been. Men got up and spoke, (though sorry to say it of my sex) but much of their contribution was bluster and anger. Women spoke with emotion and passion, they spoke of the need for the community to come together to rid itself of this scourge, but not in a self-pitying manner rather in a determined and encouraging way. It was impressive but is there the will or the organisation to make it any more than a one-off protest?
On Tuesday, 9^th May, Marsha and I had a pre-meeting with Wandsworth’s Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), in order to make sure that I submitted her nomination for the election correctly by the legal closure date of 11^th May. The ERO had similar pre-meetings with all the parties competing in the three elections of Battersea, Putney and Tooting. I must say that the ERO spoon-fed the political parties in the three Wandsworth constituencies and if any one of us had got the nomination process wrong they would have been be truly and amazingly incompetent!
On the 10^th, I took Marsha to meet Victoria Rodney, founder and boss of the Mercy Foundation, in her office in Falcon Road. What a woman Victoria is! As far as I can see she self-funds and supports an organisation, whose sole function is to provide various basic training to under-educated, usually ethnic minorities. I have helped her with teaching English to Somali refugees, but her organisation largely trains people in the use of IT and other basic skills, such as childcare. (So, imagine our surprise to see Victoria appearing in the Tory candidate, Jane Ellison’s, election literature – just shows the difference between us party hacks and someone like Victoria, who is simply keen on support wherever she can get it!)
From there we went to the Katherine Low Settlement (KLS), where Marsha met a couple of client groups, one of the elderly and one of the educationally challenged. I should say that in these days of limited state support, KLS, located in Battersea High Street, is now one of Battersea’s key social and welfare organisations.
Some Council events carry on regardless of elections and they include the Planning Applications Committee on Tuesday, 16^th May. But on this occasion, we were very much going through the process of democratic review. I don’t think there was one item on which there was any disagreement – all the applications went through, as they say, on the nod.
Then on the next day, Wednesday, we had the Annual Council Meeting. This is the annual Mayor-Making ceremony: that’s nothing to do with London Mayor Sadiq Khan but the swearing in of Wandsworth Borough’s ceremonial leading citizen: in this case Mayor Jim Madden. It’s a pleasant enough social occasion, the food isn’t bad and the drink is sufficient, but frankly it is becoming a bit of a farce. Every new Mayor adds a little embellishment that appeals to him/her so that the ceremony becomes less and less relevant to the business of the Council. An old colleague of mine would have called it Municipal Tom-Foolery and a new one, Queenstown’s Cllr Dickerdem, commented acerbically that one would never guess from the evening’s processes that the Council was cutting public services.
On the next day, back to KLS with Marsha and a mid-day performance of The Wait, written and performed by the Gold and Silver Players of the Katherine Low Settlement, a troupe whose only qualification is to be 60+. This was a quite brilliantly written, if far too short, very witty take off of life from a modern pensioners’ point of view – about queues in the surgery, young people not offering seats on buses – the stuff of ordinary life – very entertaining.
On the 19^th, Marsha and I joined half a dozen other Labour councillors at Wandsworth Foodbank’s presentation of their annual report and the statistics on foodbank use in Wandsworth. This year it was even more startling than in 2016. Foodbank use has risen in Wandsworth, one of the richest areas in the whole country, by three times the national rate of increase and last year foodbank use in the borough rose by 25% compared to a 4% increase across London as a whole. Clearly the safety net for Wandsworth’s most vulnerable residents is broken.
Then on 22^nd May came the ghastly Manchester bombing – what a tragic waste of young life. How cruel, how wicked, and yet life does and must go on. So, in what might seem a heartless way, those of us involved in the election campaign started thinking about what it meant for us. To start with Battersea Society’s York Gardens hustings meeting for the 23^rd was cancelled. Then all the major parties announced the suspension of campaigning for a couple of days. But what did that mean? All canvassing, all deliveries? We were already on a tight schedule; when would it be considered seemly and decent to start again? Indeed, without military style control and discipline (and communications system) over hundreds of volunteers how could one in any case guarantee a halt? Suffice to say, we worked things out and carried on – sadly.
On 2^nd June, my partner and I went to the Barbican to see a concert, conducted by Thomas Adès. The star event as far as I was concerned was his rendition of Beethoven’s 2^nd symphony. You could hear Beethoven’s development from his almost Mozartian virtuoso beginnings to the full romantic genius of his maturity. Congratulations to Thomas.
Marsha and I went off to my favourite Street Party, on 3^rd June: the Triangle (Poyntz, Shellwood and Knowsley Roads) Party. After years of not winning raffles, tombolas, etc., I have now won two in a row at the Triangle. My partner and I had a very nice dinner at the Nutbourne Restaurant, Ransome’s Dock – and very nice too but I’ll have to avoid winning again!
The next day we attended the much more ambitious Old York Road Street Party. This was on a much larger and more commercial scale than the Triangle, but of course it was less intimate – still fun though.
One of the interesting features of being Marsha’s agent was attending religious events, which I would never usually go near. So, for example, on 3^rd June we attended a Muslim meeting at the St. Anne’s Church Hall, St. Anne’s Hill, and then on 4^th we went to the Ransom Pentecostal African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Mallinson Road, off the Northcote Road. Marsha was invited to speak at both. The Muslim meeting was gender separated, ordered, quiet and orchestrated. The Pentecostal Church was emotional, exuberant and inclusive with a brilliant jazz pianist. Guess which a) I preferred and b) which I think has the greater future in this modern world?
And then on Monday, back to serious campaigning, first with the Borough-wide South Thames College hustings at mid-day. This had 2 Lib/Dems, a UKIP candidate, a Green party candidate and Marsha, Battersea’s Labour candidate. The audience, a group of maybe 50, was a very diverse set of further education college students, some of whom were interested from the off and some were bored and speedy departees (Interestingly enough when the UKIP candidate got into a dispute with the chair, a fair number walked out; they were not interested in any hassle). It was the first time Marsha had “appeared” at a hustings meeting. I was impressed by the amount of homework she did in advance but also couldn’t help noticing how nervous she was. She needn’t have worried. Marsha has such an authentic, enthusiastic personality that she has a head start over almost all competitors!
Then pretty well straight off to Newton Prep, opposite the Dogs’ Home, for a very different kind of hustings. Chaired by the Headteacher and attended by pupils and parents, with pre-written questions carefully presented by pupils, this was a much more ordered occasion. The panel was the Lib/Dem’s Richard Davis and Marsha but also the Conservative candidate, Jane Ellison, seen here at the lectern. Jane, our MP since 2010, knew her stuff, OK, but she does not put over her message with the same passion and belief as does Marsha. I know I am biased but I think Marsha won the hustings competition.
Then to Election Day itself, June 8th and, who should I meet outside my front door but Latchmere personality Joseph Afrane, pictured here – I love the shoes! I have “fought” 13 Council elections, 9 or 10 London elections for Mayor, GLC, etc., a few EU elections and this was my 12^th General Election, so I wasn’t up at 5 am delivering polling day leaflets as some of our keenest volunteers were. Nevertheless I was busy from about 9 am until 4 or 5 on Friday morning. So it was a pretty long day. In many ways, it was like all the rest: chaotic, frenetic, a few lost tempers (I got shirty a couple of times, including to one Tory volunteer outside the George Shearing Centre and if you are reading this then apologies – put it down to the heat of the day!), mistakes, heart-warming stories about the great efforts some people make to register their vote, and exhaustion.
On election days, I have never been totally confident of victory, nor indeed of defeat. But I was very confident of a Labour victory in Tooting and knew we were doing quite well in Battersea, so I was looking forward to the count. I stopped off at home and had a quick shower at 10 pm when I picked up the exit-polls announced on TV. Were we really doing that well? It looked good from the start as the Labour votes mounted up but there was a slight hiatus towards the end as suddenly several hundred Tory votes took Ellison into what appeared like a slight lead. I was girding myself up to demand a recount but then suddenly a large bundle of Labour votes tipped the balance into a de Cordova 25,292: Ellison 22,876 victory with a 9.95% swing to Labour.
I know Jane Ellison pretty well. She has always been an honourable opponent and has worked with me on some issues, especially planning. Of course, as a member of a Tory Government she has had to vote for some awful policies, not least Article 5 and, therefore, Brexit. I can only imagine how disappointed she must be and for that reason, if nothing else, she has my sympathies.
On 15^th June, Marsha invited me to her “swearing in” in the House of Commons. I had never been to this ceremony before and in some ways it is a very mundane process – after all they need to swear in 650 MPs at about 30 seconds per MP, which makes it a 6 hour process. But after Marsha’s “turn” we went and had lunch on the terrace and toured the balance. This picture shows Queenstown Councillor Aydin Dickerdem, photographing Marsha and her friend and supporter Tracey Robinson.
But over-shadowing all that was the disastrous fire that struck Grenfell Tower late on 14^th June. This meant that the Housing Committee on the evening of the 15^th was dominated by discussion of Wandsworth’s many tower blocks and in particular the three blocks with similar cladding to Grenfell Tower. The three are Latchmere’s Castlemaine and Weybridge Point and Putney’s Sudbury House. I think the Committee members gave the officers a pretty good grilling, but, to be fair, I also thought the officers responded with conviction and sincerity. Watch for cladding replacement and other remedial works in the next few months.
On 18^th June, I went with Marsha to the nation-wide Great Get Together in commemoration of Jo Cox, the Labour MP murdered a year ago in her constituency of Batley, Yorkshire. The Get Together was held in the grounds of the Holy Trinity, Clapham Common. It was the right and positive way to celebrate Jo Cox’s life.
On the 21^st June, I had the Planning Applications Committee. This had quite a few very interesting applications all over the Borough but the one that dominated the evening was the Battersea Power Station developer’s bid to reduce the volume of affordable housing that they are committed to deliver along with their total development at the Power Station. You have probably seen some of the controversy around this application with London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, coming out strongly against the application. The Labour members of the Committee, and one of the Tory councillors, hardly needed Sadiq’s exhortations to vote against, which we duly did. But, unfortunately, the Tory majority granted permission.
And then on 24^th June I was off to Sardinia with the grandchildren for a week – a break at last! I will report on that next month along with comments on the Finance Committee of 29^th June, which had interesting implications for Tours Passage and Falcon Park – both in Latchmere.
During the last month I put out a notice titled, Can you help me? In it I described the predicament of a young single mother in North Battersea, who found herself homeless. The Council provided her with a flat but she had no possessions and so I put out a request for help. I am delighted to say that quite a few of you volunteered furniture, kitchen utensils and even money. Well, in response another of you wrote to me saying, ”A neighbour sent me this as they knew I had some bedding etc. We have a sofa bed in pretty good condition, and single bedding – sheets, duvets etc that has only been used one year while my daughter was at uni. We’ve also got a dining table which is lovely but probably a bit big for a small family. I should also have some kitchen stuff. We live near Battersea Park, is any of it ok for you?” I am not sure that I want to become a volunteer Exchange and Mart, but if any of the above is of interest to you then do let me know.

My Programme for July

On 1^st July, there was the Falcon Festival and then there was an Independence Day Party that my colleague Councillor Peter Carpenter gives in honour of his American wife.
On 2^nd July, we have organised a fund-raising rounders match in Battersea Park.
On US Independence Day, I had a meeting of the Council’s Design Panel, which is spending time creating and extending a Wandsworth heritage database.
On 10^th July, there is a meeting of the Wandsworth Conservation Advisory Committee.
Two days later, there is the last full Council Meeting before the recess.
On 13^th the three Latchmere councillors are due to meet the contractors for the Winstanley regeneration programme, which first talked about in 2011, looks like really starting later this year. After the disaster of Grenfell Tower, we will need to take particular note of all fire safety measures!
On the 14^th July, there is a BBQ for Doris Emmerton Court residents, to which I have been invited, and the annual Battersea Society Garden Party in the grounds of St. Mary’s Church.
On the 20^th I have the Planning Application Committee.
On the 25^th we have an inspection of St. James’ Grove, which will be particularly interesting given that “cladded” Castlemaine is a major part of the estate. After Grenfell Tower this will be an important occasion.
On 29^th July, it is my turn to take the councillors’ surgery at Battersea Library.

Opinion Piece

Two months ago I wrote that “we in Battersea should, therefore, vote for the candidate most likely to argue (and vote) against Hard Brexit, whatever that is, and fight still for a Remain position”. I did say that the Lib/Dem candidate would also vote for a Remain position but that the Lib/Dems were not a realistic winning option.

In that context, some have argued that Marsha’s vote against the Chuka Umunna amendment to the Queen’s speech was a mistake and, worse, a betrayal of her constituents. I think that is a rather premature judgement. Clearly both major parties have major difficulties coming to terms with Brexit/Remain, especially given the Referendum’s majority in favour of Brexit and given the complex make-up of the Labour and Conservative parties.

I believe that it is probable that either or both of the Labour and Tory Parties will face a major internal crisis over the EU. How they get there and who gets there first will be major factors in the future of the UK. I am sure that there is much more jockeying for position to come and I know that Marsha will take an active, anti-Brexit role in the parliamentary debates.

Do you know?

Last month, I asked whether anyone knew anything about this house, including the simple question “Where is it?”

Well, the only correct answers came from people who lived there or were friends of those who did. The house is 22 Mossbury Road, barely 100 yards from the Falcon and the centre of modern Battersea. Actually, the rather more imposing traditional front is on the west side of the building, the right as you look at it, but unfortunately can only be seen from inside the property.

The house is one of the oldest in Battersea, dating from the very first years of the nineteenth century and so about 200 years old.

May 3, 2017

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea May, 2017,Newsletter (#96)

On the 5^th April, I attended a Citizenship Ceremony with a difference. Since 2004 becoming a British citizen has involved a ceremony. This was the second I had been to and was a moving experience watching 30 or 40 new citizens from all over the world swearing allegiance to the crown and the UK. For those sceptics amongst us, who might have thought otherwise in a post-Brexit world, they included Irish, Italian and Portuguese – it was also a reminder of what a cosmopolitan city we live in.
This ceremony was, however, different, because it was also the occasion when the Barbados (Bajan) High Commissioner came to present a certificate recording the contribution John Archer made to both Barbados and the UK. Archer, who lived in Brynmaer Road, Latchmere (see the blue plaque on no.55) was a Liverpudlian of Bajan origin, who in 1913 was elected Mayor of Battersea, the first black mayor of a major UK town and a reminder that London has a long tradition of being home to people from all over the world. He was a Latchmere councillor and I was invited as one of his successors. Here is a picture of the Commissioner with Wandsworth’s current Mayor.
Three days later I went to the National Theatre to see Twelfth Night – what a disaster. You can read more about it at https://tonybelton.wordpress.com/ where you will find a review that I wrote. Suffice to say that the evening started with problems on the railway and continued through what I thought was a self-indulgent and rather unpleasant production of what is meant to be, in modern terms, a Rom-Com; enough said.
The next day I went to Battersea Arts Centre for the much more pleasant occasion. It was the “significant” birthday of my friend, Jenny Sheridan, long-term editor of Battersea Society’s quarterly magazine, Battersea Matters. This was a far more successful evening.
After her Easter break, Mrs May decided to surprise us all with the announcement of a General Election. For those of you not involved in politics, which is no doubt most of you, you may not be aware of what chaos and panic, fun and frantic activity, this involves. In our case Battersea Labour Party did not, but does now, have a candidate (Marsha de Cordova, a Lambeth, Clapham, councillor), agent (me!) or funding. Don’t take this as criticism as I doubt that many other parties or constituencies were in a very different position UNLESS they had a sitting MP. This state of affairs does mean, however, that the last fortnight has been fairly lively.
With fortuitous good timing, the next day Battersea, Putney and Tooting Labour Parties had a joint fund-raising party at the Civic Centre at the Town Hall. The speaker was Keir Starmer, who is Labour’s spokesperson on Brexit. His speech was good, but perhaps more significantly he was very impressive when it came to the questions and answers.
As it happened, I already had a date earlier that Wednesday evening at a book launch in the Fulham Road. A Battersea resident read my April Newsletter and was interested enough to write to me saying that “My [i.e. her] writing, about history-enforced exile and uprooting, …., is particularly relevant in these days of increasing jingoism and xenophobia, which are even leading to crimes in our streets”. Her letter included an invite to her book launch – Miriam Frank’s An Unfinished Portrait.
Miriam (pictured right) writes of her journey through war torn Spain (the Civil War, 1936-38) and Europe and then in Latin America, much of it with just her mother and a suitcase. The book is beautifully and lyrically written and is largely about coming to terms with her difficult relationship with her mother and how central that has been to her life. However, her words to me about xenophobia and the crime on our streets are particularly poignant given that since she wrote them we have had murders in Sullivan Close and Melody Road, both within a mile of Clapham Junction.
There was a further incident in Tooting, which led to this response from the Borough’s Detective Chief Commander Peter Laverick. He said: “These events are unprecedented for Wandsworth and taken together over such a short period of time has increased the impact. We have had three tragic events over the last four weeks. I understand that people will be concerned but Wandsworth is safe [the statistics show Wandsworth to be the safest Borough in Inner London]. We are committed and are working very hard with the local authorities to tackle this sort of violence. On the whole, we are successful in doing so compared with the rest of London.”
On the 7^th April I went to the Quaker wedding of an old friend, Edmund Green to Eloise. It was a new experience for me, with the whole ceremony taking place in almost total silence, with their vows exchanged but directly between the two without any supervisory minister or vicar.
My last newsletter must have had an appeal to authors! On the next day, I had coffee with another author, Camilla Ween, who is an urban planner and has written a book called Future Cities. Camilla is keen to help me (and the Council) improve the quality of the urban landscape and design in Wandsworth. As we talked of possibilities we came up with an interesting idea for environmental improvements in North Battersea, which we agreed to work on. We are both busy people but if, and I emphasise IF, we come forward with an interesting plan then you heard it first here!
On 22^nd the Council had a ceremony to commemorate the three Victoria Cross winners won in World War I, but I was not there because on the same day I attended the unveiling of a blue plaque on Northcote Lodge School, 26 Bolingbroke Grove. The plaque commemorated blind, great Battersea jazz pianist George Shearing’s time at school there. George was born in 1919 of working class parents. His father was a coalman, when coal was delivered by horse-drawn wagons, and his mother cleaned railway carriages, no doubt at Clapham Junction depot. He was brought up in Rawson Street, where there is now Rawson Court. He went to Sellincourt School for the blind and then on to Linden Lodge, now Northcote Lodge, where he learnt to play the piano. In 1947, he moved to the States, where he became the only British musician to hit the big time in jazz. You can hear his signature tune Lullaby of Birdland at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zJnoQiIqDU. You can also read his autobiography, co-scripted by Alyn Shipton, in Lullaby of Birdland (2004).
The irony is that the two old London County Council schools, which once gave blind kids an education and in Shearing’s case an international jazz career, are now (respectively) a private block of flats and an expensive private prep school. Two of the Northcote Lodge pupils entertained us with some jazz but next term they are off to Harrow and Sherborne. Good luck to them but still ironic: we need more state schools but we have spent the last 30 years privatising them!
One nice feature of the day was the dozen or so members of the Shearing family, who attended and some of whom are pictured here – looking remarkably like pictures I have seen of Shearing himself.
On 24^th April, I attended the Passenger Transport Liaison Group – often very interesting about rail and bus improvements but not particularly on this occasion.
Two days later, I had the Planning Applications Committee. Two applications were of importance for Battersea. The first was an application from the Flower Stall (pictured here), which stands outside the main entrance to CJ Station. The officers recommended that we refuse the application for, what we, the Councillors, considered to be, purely technical reasons. We thought that if we stuck with the technicalities we’d become a laughing stock with the public. So, we approved the proposal and good luck to the flower-stall romantics.
The second was a major application for 343 residential units, a 15-storey block and three others at nine storeys on the Homebase site, Swandon Way. Again, we councillors ignored the officers’ recommendations and turned down the application, on the grounds that the large and dense development would overwhelm “the Tonsleys” and result in massive congestion at Wandsworth Town station.
At the same meeting, I also submitted a paper about the use of zinc in back and roof extensions. You may remember, from last month’s newsletter, the picture of a roof extension seen from Frere Street – one or two of you commented that they were not surprised that it was unpopular with neighbours. Well here is the same extension seen from Atherton Road. There is nothing that the Council could do in retrospect about the extension as built. However, the Committee agreed that the zinc addition was incongruous in a street, of properties largely built with London stock brick. We resolved, in future, to take more note of materials, when considering such future applications.
On 27^th April I went to a charity lunch in support of the Ammadiyya Muslim Community organised March for Peace on 14^th May in Newham. The Ammadiyya community consists of 200 million people world-wide, who have their world headquarters in Putney, largely because the Community are on the receiving end of much persecution in many Muslim countries. The prejudice towards them is a tragedy, given that the Ammadiyyas are noted for their attempts to be peace-makers between the current warring religious factions in the Muslim world. Without notice, I was asked to speak and found myself, as a member of the opposition, rather ironically, welcoming them on behalf of Wandsworth Council and councillors!
Earlier in the month, I visited the developing St. Peter’s Church in Plough Road and the new flats, recently finished and now largely occupied. Some of you have asked if and when the church is going to be completed; I was assured that they expect completion in late autumn this year.
It was a little difficult to tell what the church is going to be like but it is certainly very modern. As for the flats; they appear very smart with a fascinating view over York Gardens and the many, major developments taking place, as you can see, in North Battersea.

My Programme for May

I am sure the month will be dominated, for me, by the June General Election but I do have a Council surgery on 6^th May at the main library on Lavender Hill.
On 15^th May I have a meeting of the Heliport Consultative Committee and the day after there is the Planning Applications Committee. After that, on Wednesday, 17^th May, there is the Annual Council Mayor Making evening – a very simple, formal evening.
On 28^th May, as part of the Wandsworth Heritage Programme, I am leading a History Walk from the Latchmere pub to Battersea Arts Centre, via a few historical sites. If you are thinking of coming then please do contact me nearer the date, by email, for details.

Opinion Piece

In this newsletter, I have never hidden my politics but I have always tried to make the newsletter relatively non-partisan. That is, however, difficult in the build-up to any election, but especially this one – so here goes.

Most of you will know, or at least can guess, what my views are on the housing situation in London, or the NHS, or education spending, or taxation, but the major and unique new issue of the day is clearly Brexit. As far as I am concerned, it is becoming clearer day by day that our national vote in last year’s Referendum was the worst political decision we have made since …, well since as long as anyone can remember.

In my view, we in Battersea should, therefore, vote for the candidate most likely to argue (and vote) against Hard Brexit, whatever that is, and fight still for a Remain position. To be fair, the Lib/Dem candidate represents a party, which is committed to that position – strange given that it is so indecisive on almost every other issue! But the reality is that given the electoral situation in Battersea there are only two realistic winners: the Tory Party candidate, who is a member of the Government negotiating Brexit, and the Labour Party candidate, who is anti-Brexit and will take every opportunity to fight for our membership of a customs union and the open relationship we have had with the rest of Europe for 40 years. The choice seems simple enough!

Do you know?

Last month, I asked why are the York Road estate blocks, some soon to be demolished, named Inkster, Penge, Chesterton, Pennethorne, Holcroft and Scholey? I got no responses! Obviously too difficult or not very interesting to many of you but the answers are, I believe:-

Chesterton House: G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton, was a writer, poet and literary critic (1874-1936), who moved into Overstrand Mansions, Prince of Wales Drive in the late 1890s.
Holcroft House: Might be named after Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809), who was a radical Englishman, who travelled to Paris, during the French Revolution and probably knew ant-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce, but I have no definite evidence.
Inkster House: Major Inkster was a serving officer in World War II, who was a member of Battersea Borough Council’s Housing Committee, when the York Road Stage 2 estate was being planned in the 1960s.
Penge House: Simon Hogg tells me that In the nineteenth century Penge was, apparently, a detached hamlet of the parish of Battersea. He and I guess that the naming of Penge House comes from that connection – but I am not totally convinced!
Pennethorne House: William Pennethorne, was a principal architect and designer of amongst many other things Battersea and Victoria Parks, as originally conceived in the 1860s.
Scholey House: Might be named after the Lord Mayor of London (1812) who, I am told, was also the churchwarden in Battersea, but somehow I doubt it. Apart from anything else he was an East Londoner.

This month, I have a far easier question for those, who keep their eyes open, though I must admit I have lived here 50+ years and I had never noticed this house before. This is as it appears from the road, but its real front is on the right as seen in this picture. The building dates from the very early 1800s and it is in the heart of Battersea. Where is it?

PS I will not be able to produce my June Newsletter until after the General Election, thanks to laws about election expenditure, etc. So, my 97^th edition will be out about mid-June.

Promoted by Tony Belton on behalf of Marsha de Cordova at 177 Lavender Hill, SW11 5TE. Produced by Tony Belton at 99 Salcott Road, SW11 5DF

April 10, 2017

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Twelfth Night – a play by William Shakespeare

We went to see Twelfth Night at the National on Saturday. I think I saw the opening act in a drama competition once many years ago and Duke Orsino’s pathetic lament

If music be the food of love, play on,

give me excess of it; that surfeiting,

the appetite may sicken, and so die

at the start of the play had always appealed, for the poetry rather than the pathos. So, I was full of expectation.

The evening didn’t start too well. We got the train from Clapham Junction to Waterloo on a tight but sufficient timescale but then the train stopped 200 yards short of Queenstown Road. Someone was on the tracks – a terrible accident? a suicide? Everyone was patient, that is until we were told that it was a “fun” trespasser. We missed the first 15 minutes and Orsino’s lament. Who knows how many dates were missed; tickets wasted; lovers disappointed?

Two hours later, I rather wished I had missed more and not missed Dele Alli’s wonder goal (yet another) for Spurs against Watford on Match of the Day. What a terrible production!

The play is a complex one; toying with gender roles and cross casting; with love and infatuation; with reality and appearance. It has some very dated elements, not least the treatment of Malvolio/Malvolia. It has exquisite poetry. What it does not need is yet further sex changes to add to the disbelief (I still haven’t worked out whether one woman was playing what Shakespeare had intended to be a man or a woman, or indeed was a man doing the reverse). Nor does it need a fussy, fiddly stage setting, which was changing, admittedly cleverly but so what, every couple of minutes.

And why were Viola and her brother dressed as rather clean punks? Orsino and Olivia as business people? and many of the rest in assorted costumes through the ages? At least Viola and her brother were of the same ethnicity. I suppose the production would have been even more challenging if one had been black and the other white. The poetry, above all, needs clear, beautiful articulation not rather undistinguished method acting and overdone romping at every moment – not one sexual overtone, not one double entendre got away without the most unsubtle action replay.

Perhaps most of all, romantic comedies, no less than romantic tragedies, depend on the romance as much as the comedy. The tragedy of this production was that the comedy was flat and the romance simply incredible. There was no spark between Orsino and Viola/Sebastian nor between Olivia and Sebastian/Viola.

But maybe it was me, or rather us, as the performance got a standing ovation at the end, with plenty of hooting and hollering. But to my mind the director seemed either not to have confidence in Shakespeare’s play and its poetry or in a modern audience and its capacity to understand Shakespeare. Thank goodness for Iplayer and I did later get around to seeing Dele’s goal. Is that boy a genius?

April 3, 2017

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea April, 2017, Newsletter (# 95)

On the 1^st March, I visited Northcote Road Library and the associated Chatham Hall, both of which are threatened by demolition and replacement by a new library development including 17 flats and some retail. This promises to be a matter of some contention in the immediate neighbourhood, but many of the comments about over-development look distinctly exaggerated when comparisons are made with many recent developments along the river and north of the main line railway. Pictured here are the current library and the Alphabet Nursery, which operates in Chatham Hall.
On the 8^th March, we had the annual Council Tax setting meeting, confirming what I said last month, i.e. that we would be facing a 3.99% increase in 2017/18. But the Council Tax has in effect been nationalised and in 1971 Council committee meetings have been held in public, and both these changes have rather detracted from the dramatic value of this meeting. Imagine national budget day with absolutely everything known in advance – all that we would be left with would be synthetic anger and formulaic speeches about a decision already agreed and made public – well that’s this meeting!
I had the Wandsworth Conservation Advisory Committee on 14^th March and the Standards Committee on 16^th March. Both were fairly uneventful except that I raised the issue of whether there should be more stringent rules than currently about the ease with which senior officers could move from important positions in the Council to major private sector roles – most obviously from senior roles in the Planning Department into private developers – and the links between councillors and private developers and businesses. My comments were noted but not considered very seriously – yet!
I went to the Dorfman Theatre at the National on Friday, 17^th March, and saw a fascinating play – My Country, by the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. The play is centred around Referendum Day, 2016, and the confused state of the UK today. I reviewed it on my BLOG at https://tonybelton.wordpress.com/. Do please have a read.
On the following day, Saturday 18^th March, I went to the 50^th wedding anniversary of my old friends, Jeanne and Dave Rathbone. Apart from food and drink, chat and laughter, the centre point was an afternoon of poetry readings, funny, romantic, traditional and modern – very moving.
And then on the Sunday, I went on a pilgrimage for my last ever game at White Hart Lane, except that rumours have it that Spurs might not move out until the end of next season, in which case it might not be my last visit! My first trip there, when I lived just around the corner, was on 2^nd August, 1948, when I saw Sweden beat Austria 3-0 in the London Olympics quarter-final. Sweden beat Yugoslavia 3-1 in the final at Wembley. I was, I think, in the Boys Enclosure paying 6d for my entry, which is 2.5P in today’s language!
I don’t know how many of you have ever taken good action shots but last month’s game, which ended in a Spurs victory over Southampton 2-1, featured this Dele Alli penalty against Soton keeper Fraser Forster. It must be my best ever action shot – and done with a mobile phone! Can you see the ball, just by the goalie’s right hand?
On Monday, 20^th March, my partner, Penny Corfield gave a talk to the Putney Society on duelling. It featured the infamous duel of the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, against the radical MP, George Tierney, which took place on the border of Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common. Just think: this was at the height of the French Revolutionary Wars – what a scandal! It was a pleasant evening and her talk was much enjoyed.
The next day I visited some constituents in Frere Street, who had a complaint about a neighbouring development that the Council had allowed. I mustn’t shirk from responsibility because, when I say that the Council allowed it, it was in fact the November Planning Applications Committee (PAC) of which I was and am a member. Their main complaints were that they were not consulted and that the zinc extension does not fit well with the largely London stock brick environment of north Battersea. The developer, however, remarked that ‘The materials chosen reflect those materials that have been used extensively within the area and will enable the proposed development to blend seamlessly into the character of the local architecture’ Above is a view from their sitting room. Do you think they have just cause to complain or that the development blends seamlessly?
On the 23^rd we had the March PAC meeting. Although there were no major applications in Latchmere, there were some in neighbouring wards, which could have a significant impact on Latchmere. First of all, by re-arranging their operations at Cringle Dock and Feathers’ Wharf, Western Riverside Waste Authority (WRWA) hope to reduce the number of heavy goods vehicle movements by 1,760 a year. That means that they hope to get rid of five daily refuse van movements down busy York and Battersea Park Roads – a welcome development. Just to clarify, the WRWA is the body tasked by Parliament to get rid of all of Wandsworth’s tons of rubbish, plus Ken & Chelsea’s, Lambeth’s and Hammersmith & Fulham’s.
The second application was to provide 127 extra residential units at Plantation Wharf, partly by raising the height of Trade Tower by 6 storeys and partly by building several new blocks. Many of the current residents of Plantation Wharf are far from happy about the intensification of this development and it will certainly concern Latchmere residents that there seems to be no end to the building works taking place around York Road and Lombard Road.
Talking of developments in the ward, can I ask what you think of the new St. Peter’s Church and the associated block of flats in Plough Road (left) and the very tight development in Cabul Road (right)? Let me have your views.
On Friday, 24^th March, my partner and I flew to Jersey for the week-end. Neither of us had ever been to the Channel Islands, although I have intended to go for some time. As you can see from this picture, the weather was great and the scenery often idyllic. That only leaves the Scilly Isles, Lundy, the Orkneys and the Isle of Man to go, before I have done a pretty thorough sweep of the British Isles, including the Republic.
Finally, of course, on 29^th March Mrs. May wrote to EU President Donald Tusk and told him of UK’s intention to leave the Union. Battersea residents voted by a large majority to “remain” in the union but now we face the “leave” option! Will it mark the end of the UK as a United Kingdom? Will it be a glorious Independence Day as Farage and others claim? One thing is for certain: all those people who say that politics does not matter, and that everything is run by big business, will need another argument in future!
I express my view on Brexit at https://tonybelton.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/a-labour-party-remain-strategy-for-wandsworth-2018/. In particular, I think we should argue firmly for the freedoms of movement we now have between the peoples of the EU, whether Brits in Spain or Irish and French working here. Come on Jeremy – show a bit of leadership!

My Programme for April

On 5^th April, I will be at the Town Hall to meet the Barbados High Commissioner, who is going to present a gift, I know not what, to commemorate John Archer, pictured right and a Labour Councillor for Latchmere ward. Archer was of Bajan extraction, was a notable resident of 55 Brynmaer Road, where a plaque marks the spot, and in 1914 was elected as the first black man to be the Mayor of a major London authority – Battersea Borough Council.
There is the Passenger Transport Liaison Group on 24^th April and the Planning Applications Committee on 26^th April, but apart from that April looks like being a quiet month.

Do you know?

Last month, I asked about this bridge crossing the Thames from Battersea Park to the Chelsea Embankment: Do you remember this bridge? Did you ever cross it? Do you know where in Uganda it ended up? Do you know anything about it? Were there other back-up bridges elsewhere in London?

I am sad to say that I got no responses on that one, not even any expressions of interest. You clearly did not find it as fascinating as I did. But just stop and think: during the greatest crisis in our modern history, I guess Harold would have said in 1066 that William’s invasion was a bigger crisis, with the country strapped for money and resources, how we managed amongst everything else to put together such a fine looking and presumably effective bridge.

Well this month I have another question and from the same source (thank you Simon Hogg). Why are the York Road estate blocks, some soon to be demolished, named Inkster, Penge, Chesterton, Pennethorne, Holcroft and Scholey? I know the answer for the first four but not Holcroft and Scholey. Does anyone know all six?

Here, by the way, are Penge and Pennethorne Houses under development in about 1962?

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Tony Belton

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Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea November, 2017, Newsletter (# 101)

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Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea October, 2017, Newsletter (# 100)

Councillor Tony Belton’s North Battersea September, 2017, Newsletter (# 99)

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea August, 2017, Newsletter (# 98)

Councillor Tony Belton’s North Battersea July, 2017, Newsletter (# 97)

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea May, 2017,Newsletter (#96)

Twelfth Night – a play by William Shakespeare

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea April, 2017, Newsletter (# 95)

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