Localism – the Big Lie – and Parliamentary Boundaries
I was having a week-end in the Peak District and stopped for the night at Leek. It is a small, attractive market town, but like many English market towns it seemed a bit dead in the evening. I got chatting to a guy in the pub, who turned out to be a guitarist and singer. I asked him about where he played and apart from the pubs he mentioned, in passing, the Town Hall, where he used to play. I asked him to show me the Town Hall and he pointed to a carpark on the other side of the road.
It got me to thinking about just why it is that, for two decades now, both Labour and Tory Governments have been talking up Localism and yet doing almost everything possible to destroy it. Both Governments have encouraged the growth of out-of-town shopping malls and giant hyper-markets and every time that Tesco announces 500 new jobs we all know that means the loss of many more corner shops and greengrocers. Both Governments have been equally keen on re-organising local government and every time they do, they destroy a little local pride.
On a few rare occasions local pride fights back – some will remember when Rutland fought successfully not to be abolished by Ted Heath’s Government. London, funnily enough for one of the most cosmoplitan of cities, is a particularly interesting example of local pride. Keep your eyes open next time you travel round. Just what has happened to Chelsea Town Hall? or Fulham Town Hall? or Bow Town Hall? or Peckham’s or Battersea’s?
The revision of parliamentary boundaries, due later this year, will provoke similar objections.
Council backs down from evicting rioter’s mother and sister
Today, 19 January, Wandsworth Council decided not to evict the mother and 8 year old sister of the rioter convicted last week (see my blog entry of 12 January). This marks a victory for sanity against the knee-jerk threats of eviction made by both David Cameron and the Council in August.
It is great news for the tenant and an enormous weight off her shoulders, following what Judge Darling had called the biggest tragedy of the many sentences he had imposed as a consequence of the riots. The Council was forced to recognise just how much the family was a pillar of the local community and to backdown from the gung-ho rhetoric used by the Tory party in last September’s Council Meeting.
From my point of view, opposing the evictions policy as self-defeating and deeply malicious, this family could not have been a better test case. As the judge said last week, the family are “Christian with both a capital and a small c” and an integral part of the community. There will be tougher cases coming forward, no doubt, where the convicted rioters will be more culpable than Daniel and the innocent other members of the family less vulnerable than a single mother and 8 year old. But that will not stop those other members of the family being as innocent as Maite.
I will try and defend them as much as I have done Maite.
PS This WBC decision followed an interview between tenant and local housing manager, where essentially the tenant was being interviewed for her general status as a tenant and very unsurprisingly the local housing manager could see nothing wrong with the tenant’s record as a tenant or any reason why the Council should evict her. The idea that the Council backdown was as a result of pressure from various outside fringe groups is simply farcical. Whether it was partly as a result of the pressure Labour councillors put on the Tories in Wandsworth, only senior officers and senior councillors can really say.
Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere January Newsletter (# 33)
Editorial
- Frankly this one is dated but I am putting it on the blog for the record!
- Just in case you wondered I have decided to skip the December Newsletter by the simple expedient of changing the naming convention. In the past I have called the Newsletter after the preceding month, but as from now I am naming it after the month at the beginning of which it appears. Hence this is the January and not the December Newsletter.
- I have until now had a Did You Know? section at the end of the Newsletter. That obviously becomes more and more difficult over time and so I am going to make that section more general, including Comment as well as Did You Know?.
December highlights
- On 5th December I attended a meeting at the Doddington & Rollo Association Hall, which had been called by “Wandsworth Against Cuts”. Speakers included Austin Mitchell and John McDonnell, both Labour MPs, and a tenant speaker from East London. The meeting was inspired by the Government cuts and their impact on local government services and by the Council’s response to the riots and specifically the threat to evict the families of rioters.
- Perhaps 50 people turned up, which is not bad for a public meeting nowadays but these protesters are never going to achieve their objectives if they ignore the Labour Party, the most powerful anti-Tory vote in Wandsworth, and for that matter most of the country. So whilst I have a lot of time for left-winger, John McDonnell, I cannot say quite the same about Austin Mitchell, who is, for me as they say, “all mouth and no trousers”. And really what is the point of having that kind of meeting without one single Labour councillor being invited to speak – we are the only real opposition to the Tories and having a protest without us is pointless. (OK, this is a bit of a beef from me because I have done more to publicise the ludicrous policy of evicting innocent mothers and children than anyone else and they didn’t even bother to ask me to speak – but so be it).
- The Council Meeting on 7th December was a curious affair. The Council is pursuing a programme of cuts, which meant a couple of million from education and £1 million from Social Services, but it was very difficult to work out what they meant as the Tories were indulging in salami slicing – a small slice off every item of the budget with a few backroom staff cut here and a few more cut there, enabling them to say that they were not cutting services. Services will, of course, be affected but perhaps not in very public ways – just delays in getting answers and slower telephone response rates – that sort of thing.
- The Tories chose to have the set-piece debate on the economy and its impact on the Nine Elms area, which seemed an odd choice given that the owners of Battersea Power Station went bankrupt in the same week. The other big debate centred on the Council’s decision to abolish Wandsworth’s Parks Police. The proposal is that the Met Police will take over the role and save the Council money. No doubt the debate will be on U-Tube at some point though I can’t find it yet. However, if you haven’t yet seen a Council debate let me give you the link to the speech I made in September against the Council’s policy to evict the families of convicted rioters. The link is:-
- The Planning Applications Committee on 15th December was a very low key affair. But on 19th December I attended a small exhibition at the Council about the Council’s plans for the future of Eltringham School. It was a “Drop-in” style of consultation and it was a bit difficult to assess the number of locals who attended or their general reaction to the plans, which are for a residential development. As a member of the Committee I will have to give my view on this in the next couple of months. Do let me know if you have any views on the matter.
- Did you see the Evening Standard, 14th December? On page 6 there was an article headed “Google puts Battersea on the map after six years of dodgy directions”, which majored on my part in getting Google to move the name “Clapham” from its position on Google maps above the Battersea Arts Centre (the old Battersea Town Hall) to its rightful place over Clapham High Street.
- For the details of the story see this website www.lovebattersea.org.uk. But let me correct the details. As the site says I am a joint-Chair of the organisation trying to get Battersea named “properly”, but the rather jokey quotes attributed to me by the ES actually belong to my good friend Philip Beddows, a maverick rather amusing ex-Tory councillor. Oh, and as for the organisation: it’s called SW11tch – play on SW11 and switch the name from Clapham to Battersea – get it!
- Philip’s grander fantasy is to get the station renamed Battersea Junction but somehow I think that is a trifle ambitious!
My Programme for January
- I have a meeting of the Finance & Corporate Resources Committee, the Council’s premier policy committee, on 25th January.
- The Battersea Park School Finance & Personnel Committees on 23rd.
- The Court Case against a Wandsworth tenant’s son continues to sentencing!
- The Planning Applications Committee on the 19th.
Did you know?
That my fellow councillor, Simon Hogg, has been encouraging me to write a blog. So I have taken him at his word and started one. I am not really sure that it is my style. I write long pieces, which are not the blog style. But my latest entry is about the appalling story from one Tory councillor and his views about Council tenants. Here is the link – let me know what you think! https://tonybelton.wordpress.com/
Yours sincerely
Tony Belton, Latchmere Labour Councillor
Left & right hand at odds in Government policy
At least in principle, one of Cameron’s best decisions is to continue with and develop Labour’s Troubled Families initiatives. Today, I heard Louise Casey, the Head of the Troubled Families Team in CLG, describing her work on the Family Intervention projects (FIPs) and very impressive she was too.
120,000 troubled families cost public services the best part of £9billion per year or about £75,000 per family per year. These particular families impose a work burden on the NHS, the criminal justice system, housing and education services and so on. Some families are said to be “clients” of more than 20 public agencies.
The cycle of deprivation, illiteracy, truancy, criminality and a range of other issues can easily be imagined. Casey, and Cameron, wants to break into this cycle of despair and make life better for these 120,000 families and their neighbours in particular and the rest of us in general.
How strange then that the very same Government is currently consulting on making it easier, and almost mandatory, for Councils to evict the families of the convicted. So one arm of Government is working hard to support troubled families, whilst another arm wishes to impose severe homelessness and stress on many of the same families.
I am not saying that all troubled families are in trouble with the law or that all in trouble with the law are troubled families but only a fool would not accept the likelihood of a very considerable overlap. I plead with the Government (and Wandsworth Council) to drop this punitive and self-defeating policy of evicting the innocent families of rioters – and other criminals.
Is it Clapham or Battersea?
A jokey addendum to the court case featured in my last blog is that the Crown described Curry’s as being in Clapham’s high street. Judge Darling, obviously a south Londoner, questionned this and the two of them did an elaborate dance of misunderstandings. Whilst the judge retired to consider his verdict I pointed out to the Crown prosecutor that Clapham High Road was the best part of a mile away and that Curry’s was actually in Battersea’s main, if not High, street.
When the Judge returned the prosecutor jumped up, apologised for his lack of knowledge of the geography of south London and asked for the record to be put straight. Judge Darling told him that was exactly what he had been trying to tell him but that his ignorance would be forgiven. In future I will have all those guilty of this heinous sin up in front of Judge Darling!
Justice for a rioter and his family?
I went to the Crown Court on 10 January to hear Daniel’s sentence – you will remember I was interested in his case following his involvement in the riots on August 8th in Clapham Junction. The headline is that he received 11 months, which Judge Darling said would mean that he would serve half that time in custody and the other half “free” on licence. The Judge also said that the 83 days he had been on conditional bail would be counted against the sentence leaving, according to my calculation, Daniel serving about a further 87 days in custody.
Judge Darling said in sentencing that this was the “most tragic” case he had come across in the whole riot aftermath. He accepted Daniel’s story about how he happened to be in Clapham Junction and that he arrived on the scene after Curry’s had been broken into. He acknowledged that Daniel was of good character (that is had no previous of any kind) indeed the Judge went on to say that Daniel was an exceptional young man with some level of educational achievement. Daniel was a Christian with both a capital and a lower case c, he said, working for the good of the community – the Judge said “an aid worker”, a helper, a doer with many good character references.
But in the aftermath of the riots despite all mitigation and against the PSR (Pre-Sentence Reports done by the Probation Service)recommendation, he, the Judge, had to take into account society’s concerns and fears about the events of August and that he had no choice but to impose some level of custodial sentence. (I should add that the Judge retired for 46 minutes to consider the sentence – he clearly did not do it lightly)
I have two comments: first that Wandsworth Council shows zero respect for the “family” if it pursues, as it intends to do, its policy of eviction with all the consequences that this will bring to bear on the mother and sister. I know the mother quite well and it is clear, and totally unsurprising, that she is under some considerable stress.
Secondly, that the establishment has got itself into a bit of a mess about sentencing in this situation. Whilst Daniel aged 18, with no previous record at all, got 11 months, a man aged 30, sentenced at the same time as Daniel with 11 previous convictions for 22 offences having served two separate terms of 6 and 7 years, got a custodial sentence of 20 months! I cannot believe that this variation of sentence 11:20 for these two men would have been the same in normal circumstances. The establishment has in my view put its fears before the cause of justice
Jobless Too Busy Shopping To Look For Work, Says Tory.
Yes, that was the headline over a story in the Evening Standard on 16 November 2011. What followed was a poisonous diatribe from Balham Councillor Paul Ellis. Look it up, if you can, on the ES website; I must admit I have not found the link!
But the article was so irresponsible that I intend to make the following speech at the 7 December Council Meeting.
“Marie Antoinette was tasteless enough to advise that French peasants should eat cake if they could not find enough bread. Jeremy Clarkson was vulgar enough to suggest that strikers should be taken out and shot in front of their families, but at least Antoinette was not the Minister for Wheat production and Clarkson not the Minister in charge of Industrial Relations.
Councillor Ellis was vulgar enough and tasteless enough to make the outrageous assertion that the Jobless in a Battersea estate were too busy shopping to look for work – and he is Chairman of the Housing Committee and responsible for tenant relationships. Louis XVI may have had some marital reasons for not chopping off Antoinette’s head and Cameron does not have any official role in terms of Clarkson’s employment at the BBC, but Wandsworth’s Leader does have the power and certainly has the grounds for guillotining his Chair of Housing.
Put to one side the comparison of an estate, which one I wonder, with the Oxford Street sales; forget the absurd generalisation about people in their 20s, 30s and 40s (his phrase – not mine), who after all have a 40% chance of being leaseholders rather than tenants and are probably employed rather than not – after all nowhere has unemployment rates higher than 50%; putting all that to one side he completely ignores the fact that this Council’s policies are to some extent based on the fact that some of our estates contain some of the most multi-deprived people in the UK.
Now I don’t want to make the same kind of ludicrous assertions about the residents of Balham, those whom Ellis represents, as he does about some unnamed estate but the grotesque assumption that in some ways more will be spent on Christmas on our estates than in the comfortable streets of Balham beggars belief. There is a class war starting in Wandsworth and it is the Tory party that is firing the first shots.
BOUNDARY COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE CURRENT BATTERSEA CONSTITUENCY
1 The Boundary Commission recommends:-
- moving Fairfield ward from Battersea into a new Putney constituency numbering 80,073 as of 1st December 2010;
- moving Balham and Northcote wards into a new Clapham Common constituency of 79,354 as of 1st December 2010;
- and making the remaining four wards of Latchmere, Queenstown, St. Mary’s Park and Shaftesbury the majority element of a Battersea and Vauxhall constituency of 78,199.
All three of these proposed constituencies are larger than the UK electoral quota of 76,641 and yet population growth in Wandsworth in particular and in south west London in general is expected to be one of the fastest growing in the country. It is therefore probable that all three proposed constituencies will be larger than the target maximum electorate of 80,473 by the time the new boundaries actually come into effect. These proposals, therefore, build an even greater instability and democratic unfairness into the system than is in any case inherent.
2 We have taken the Greater London Authority’s 2010 Round, Demographic Projections for the London Borough of Wandsworth, to illustrate this point. It shows that the Borough’s population is estimated to have grown by 11% between the years 2001 and 2011 and is expected to grow by a further 11% in the ten years 2011-2021. There are actually three projections, known as scenario one and scenario two and the Strategic Housing Availability Assessment (SHLAA). The following figures are largely based on the SHLAA figures, which are close to scenario one. The figures in scenario two have been excluded for these purposes, but it is worth noting that they predict an even greater rate of population growth for Wandsworth.
3 Two of the fastest growing ward populations, namely in Thamesfield and Southfields, are in the Putney constituency, which even on 2010 figures is only 400 people short of the maximum number. It is almost guaranteed to exceed it by May, 2015.
4 However, by far the largest growth rates in the period 2001-21 are expected in Queenstown ward with an estimated 96% growth rate and St. Mary’s Park with an estimated 50% growth rate. These two wards alone represent 30.9% of Wandsworth’s estimated population growth and both of them are proposed to be in the Battersea and Vauxhall constituency. By way of confirmation of these trends, they actually supplied 30.9% of the growth in the decade 2001/11 as well as being expected to provide 30.9% of the growth in the coming decade. The neighbouring wards in Lambeth, with which they are coupled in the proposals, are also likely to have high growth rates thanks to major developments in Vauxhall and Nine Elms.
5 Currently the proposed Battersea and Vauxhall constituency already has a population larger than the electoral quota although below the maximum allowed. Its growth rate is, however, so high that it will, like Putney, almost certainly exceed the maximum by May, 2015.
6 The five wards proposed to be moved into the Clapham Common constituency, that is Balham, Earlsfield, Nightingale, Northcote and Wandsworth Common, have much lower growth rates with an average of approximately 16% but they are all likely to be growing at a faster rate than the London and certainly the national average rate.
7 Ironically the slower growing wards of Bedford, Furzedown, Graveney and Tooting, averaging about 15.5% growth rates, are proposed to be moved into the new Streatham and Tooting constituency – the only one of the proposed “Wandsworth” constituencies with an estimated population smaller than the quota figure, 464 smaller to be precise.
8 In the interest of greater stability of boundaries and of fairer democratic representation we urge the Boundary Commissioners to reconsider the proposals on the basis that fast growing areas should, if anything, have proposed populations smaller than the average electoral quota and that slow growing or declining areas should have the larger populations.
9 Unless the Boundary Commission proposals are amended in this way, and given the narrow parameters that have been set, this would result in Shaftesbury ward and possibly even Latchmere ward being moved out of Battersea and Vauxhall by 2020. It is difficult to model what the ripple effect would be of that, but it might suggest that Balham ward would have to go into Streatham and Tooting, and Wimbledon Park into a Wimbledon seat. The effect is constant instability.
10 The Boundary Commission is required to respect natural geographic boundaries, but it has defined that in a fairly narrow sense without regard to the nature of place and geography. As a result the place of Battersea comes out of these proposals extremely badly. Despite the name, Battersea and Vauxhall, much of the traditional area of Battersea would under these proposals be in either Clapham Common or Putney constituency. The station, Clapham Junction, which is at the heart of Battersea, will be in Clapham Common and whilst the old Town Hall and the main library are in the proposed Battersea and Vauxhall constituency, they are only just so. Indeed the main shopping and commercial centre of Battersea is almost exactly where the three constituencies meet.
11 Given the current need for extra attention to this (at least in part) troubled town centre, it is inflammatory to divide the area so arbitrarily, taking no account of the unifying and centralising role of Clapham Junction station and town centre in the social and communal life of Battersea.
12 Moreover, the proposed new Clapham Common constituency has no coherent geographic centre, divided as it is into three almost equal parts by the large open spaces of Clapham and Wandsworth Commons.
13 Given the level of instability inherently built into the system and with three of the four proposed “Wandsworth” constituencies both larger than the electoral quota AND fast growing, a question must arise about the closeness of the links between the MP and his/her constituency. The probability is that at the next review, due for the 2020 election, several wards including probably Shaftesbury, Balham and Wimbledon Park will have to be moved from their constituencies as they would otherwise be too large. It must therefore be questionable whether the relevant electors will be able to expect a good service from their MP given the transient nature of the boundaries.
14 Because of the prescriptive nature of the legislation, it is likely that significant constituency boundary changes will be required at every review. Currently these are scheduled for every 5 yearly parliamentary elections. This can only result in unstable constituency boundaries which will be destabilising for electors. It is also worth noting that the local party organisations (of all parties) will be forced continually to form and then re-form, destabilising the bedrock of community politics. Boundary Changes should therefore revert to the customary 10 year cycle.
15 The current legislation mandates a reduction in constituencies from 650 to 600. We believe this is short sighted and ill-advised, especially with reference to inner city constituencies. They generate high demand for MP’s services and currently benefit from co-ordinated attention from MPs and local authorities, working within co-terminous boundaries.
16 An extra feature of the Wandsworth and Lambeth constituencies, which the Boundary Commission should take into account, is the considerable discrepancy between their electoral populations and the actual populations. This is largely accounted for by the very large numbers of European and other immigrants, who live in these parts of London, but who do not have the vote. This population often imposes a large workload on both the MP and local councillors.
17 Furthermore, whilst recognising that the Boundary Commission has not taken into account local authority boundaries, the results of this review are perverse. For many years, the Boundary Commission, local authorities, the Metropolitan Police Service and the NHS have been working towards co-terminosity. Clearly that has had many advantages, eliminating the duplication of roles and number of communication links to the extent that Wandsworth Council now has to deal with only three MPs, each of whom has to deal with only one local authority and one police division. If the current proposals proceed as proposed then Wandsworth will have to deal with four MPs, each of whom will have to deal with at least 2 local authorities and 2 police divisions.
18 With the proposed Battersea and Vauxhall constituency having 4 Wandsworth wards and 4 Lambeth wards, and the proposed Clapham Common constituency having 5 Wandsworth constituencies and 3 Lambeth wards it appears obvious that the boundaries could be drawn with far greater respect to local authority boundaries. That would respect both the historical and geographical expectations of the relevant population.
19 In conclusion we believe that the Commissioners proposals for Wandsworth are flawed. They should be revised taking into account:-
- the growth rates and trends in population estimates;
- greater concern and attention to historic as well as natural boundaries;
- the workload on MPs and the real population as well as the electoral suffrage;
- co-terminosity with other authority boundaries.
Tony Belton and Penelope Corfield on behalf of the Battersea Labour Party
31st October 2011.
November Newsletter
November highlights
1. On 1st November I spoke at the Boundary Commission Hearing, in the Town Hall. The Commission’s recommendations for the new Parliamentary boundaries are very extensive and involve massive changes across the country. As far as Battersea is concerned the plan is to divide it in half, with the railway lines as the approximate boundary, with the north joined to Vauxhall in a Battersea and Vauxhall constituency and the south, including Clapham Junction itself, being joined with parts of Tooting and Clapham in a new Clapham Common constituency.
This change is due to the need to revise boundaries across the country as some areas grow, in population terms, faster than others. The problem is largely caused by the Government’s insistence that no constituency should deviate from the norm by more than 5% – it used to be 10%. As it happens, the current Battersea constituency is more or less the right size but when you start changing boundaries right across the country then clearly there is a ripple effect. The result is just about “All Change”.
I opposed the changes for all kinds of reasons but the most important is that the planned growth in population in Nine Elms over the next few years will require the boundaries of Battersea to be changed again before the end of the decade. It is a recipe for constant change and constant confusion. It will weaken people’s identification with their constituency and will therefore, in the end, weaken deomocracy.
For those of you, who are really interested, my actual presentation to the Commission is also on this blog.
2. On the 10th November, I had dinner with Ken Livingstone at a fund raiser for the Putney Labour Party. This picture was taken a couple of years back.
3. On the evening of 1st November I attended the York Gardens Library re-launch. Clearly this was a grand occasion for some celebration, as the work of all those volunteers, who have done so much to save the library, came to fruition. The only really galling thing about the evening is that Tory M.P. Jane Ellison and Tory Cllr Jonathan Cook – the ones who had done most to put the library under pressure – got to have the pleasure of speaking and opening a library that owes almost nothing to them. Really galling for this Labour councillor, and for some of the activists involved in saving the library!
4. On the 3rd November I went to a debate in the Council Chamber on “How Green Wandsworth Council is” with new Transport Minister and Putney MP, Justine Greening, and Wandsworth’s Deputy Leader Jonathan Cook. It was largely about the Government’s new “Green Deal” initiative. Last month, I said that I was sceptical about the Tory party being green – I was not wrong!
The purpose of the “Green Deal” is, in effect, to persuade the energy companies to lend money to domestic customers, so that they can buy insulation and other energy conservation measures. In theory, the utility bills will then be reduced and the customer can re-pay the debt by continuing to pay the old level of bills until their debt is paid off.
It all sounded ok in theory, with repayment made through utility bills on the basis that, as the energy content of the bill declines, then the repayment content of it will increase until the loan has been paid off.
It sounds reasonable in theory but whilst it is clearly not the “Big Solution” that the Government seems to think it is, it also seems to me to have a myriad of problems. Who says a particular investment is going to pay off? Who guarantees the quality of the job done? Who picks up the bill if the energy bills do not come down significantly? How is this all going to be calculated in a period of energy inflation? As they say, the devil is in the detail and details are what this Government is notoriously bad at.
5. On November 5th, I joined Jane Ellison at the formal opening of the Mercy Foundation’s computer training facility at 64 Falcon Road. Jane and I were there to present certificates to “graduates” of their word processing and other courses. You couldn’t say that they were high level qualifications but the comments of some of the graduates were quite moving. One lady said that she was basically illiterate, and I mean illiterate and not computer illiterate, before she started the course but now, three months later, she had just made her first on-line grocery order. She was rightly thrilled – quite an achievement for the Foundation – I thought.
6. Later that day I went to the Fireworks Display in Battersea Park. Did you go? And if so what did you think? The chat where I was, was that it was not as good as in recent years. I took a couple of Japanese academics I know – and they certainly enjoyed it!
7. At the Finance and Corporate Resources Committee on the 16th there was a great deal of solid but largely bureaucratic content but there were two items of real interest to plenty of people in Latchmere and especially right down by Wandsworth Bridge. The first was the decision to declare the Eltringham School site surplus to requirements. The school is in Eltringham Street off Petergate and everyone will know it even if they think they don’t. It can be seen on the left as one approaches the Wandsworth Bridge round-about. It is in the Council’s books as an asset worth more than £10 million. I think at that kind of price we are going to get another very expensive block of flats with not many affordable homes!
The second item was about the Council’s acquisition of Putney Hospital for the purposes of creating another so-called Free School in the Borough, though on this occasion at primary level. I think there is little doubt that Wandsworth Borough Council wants to break up what it sees as the monopoly state schooling system.
8. The following evening the Planning Applications Committee had a record 350 page agenda! Bit of a sweat that was! But despite the size of the agenda, the only matter of any great interest to Latchmere was the application for what effectively will become half a dozen very expensive town houses on the site of the old Labour Exchange in Beechmore Road. If you do not remember it here it is on a wet November day in 2009, when I was canvassing for the then forthcoming Council elections.
9. I am the only Labour representative on the Heliport Consultative Committee, which was held on the 21st. The Heliport is so big and busy that it has, by legislation, a consultative committee just like all major airports in the country. It is, of course, the only heliport that large, but actually we don’t do a great deal other than monitor noise levels and try to keep the disturbance it causes to a minimum.
10. I went to the Battersea Police Ball on the 26th, which as ever was a hoot! Not a cheap evening out but, if you can afford it, I do recommend it at least once. It is so wonderfully naff, or do I mean camp? But it raises plenty of money for the Summer Play Scheme for the children of Battersea – so it’s all in a good cause.
11. I am afraid I couldn’t make the Wayford Street Residents association meeting on 24th November – apologies!
My Programme for December
1. A meeting on the Doddington Estate on 5th December about the Council’s cuts.
2. The Council Meeting on December 7th.
3. The continuing Court Case against a Wandsworth tenant’s son on 12th.
4. The Planning Applications Committee on the 15th.
5. And Christmas! Talking of which A Very Merry Xmas to you and yours!
Did you know?
This rather dashing picture is of Alliott Verdon Roe, the first Englishman to make a powered flight, and founder in 1910 of the AV Roe & Co. aircraft manufacturer (better known as Avro). I am writing about him as the last person pictured in the Haberdasher Arm’s Mural, of whom I have not yet written.
His connection with Battersea and Latchmere, apart from being in Barnes’ mural is rather tenuous. He used the stables at his brother’s house in West Hill to design and model planes including his ‘Bulls Eye’ duplex triplane, which was put into production in an arch beneath the nearby railway. (The Council has very recently, 28th October 2011, unveiled a plaque at the site of Roe’s first workshop in West Hill.)
He was the founding genius of the British aerospace industry, his planes being the first to take part in a bombing raid on German lines in the First World War. But by far his most famous aircraft, betraying his Lancashire origins, was the World War Two bomber, the Lancaster.
See http://www.londonmuralpreservationsociety.com/murals/battersea-perspective/ for Brian’s own description of his mural.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Belton
Latchmere Councillor
Beware the Big Society Trap
Wandsworth has invented a wonderful new trap for the unwary councillor – it’s called the Big Society Grants Fund.
Instead of making £1 million available to large organisations like the Citizens Advice Bureau, the Tory councillors have come up with a Big Society grant fund of £150,000. So far the average grant is only a few hundreds of pounds. They have been distributed to a range of local groups for a myriad of reasons, from helping an oap home to buy new TVs and PCs to assisting a club organise soccer for young people in the area north of Clapham Junction Station.
The really neat trick though is that instead of relying on established and perhaps slightly distant organisations such as the CAB, which have serviced their customers in a very traditional way, the Council has introduced a much cheaper version dependent upon patronage and friendship.
This new grant system makes the councillor, yes including me, feel important and well respected as we sign off relatively small sums of money – £5-700 say for a new TV system for an oaps sheltered home lounge. Now that is really nice but are Labour councillors right to think, as Tories obviously do, that these small very directed grants are any substitute for the big sums that once went to organisations like Cancer Support or Citizens’ Advice Bureaux?
Tony Belton
Tony Belton 