by Tony Belton

The Western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” had a title that so appealed to Brian Barnes that he used it for his first and largest mural, which he painted on an insignificant but very long wall facing onto Battersea Bridge Road. The mural was recorded as being 276 feet long and 18 feet high. It was Brian’s signature mural and it was the only mural, as I remember it, that hit the front pages of The Sunday Times and The Observer and maybe even The Sunday Telegraph, when both wall and mural were demolished in 1977.

I was Wandsworth’s Chair of Planning at the time and appeared as a bit part, along with the Planning Director and several notorious local Tories, in what Brian considered to be the Ugly, and less effective part of the mural – the modern, chaotic present. The Bad was, of course, the magnificent depiction of the old, noxious, nineteenth-century industries being swept away by a massive broom. The Good is inevitably the new rosy future for Battersea, as he sees it: smiling mothers and children playing in a colourful park, adorned with daffodils.

Brian later called his art ‘realistic’ and ‘naturalistic’; he claimed to be influenced by Renaissance painters. Certainly, this great mural had similarities to Hieronymus Bosch’s interpretation of Heaven and Hell [The Garden of Earthly Delights, painted between 1490 and 1500]. Yet, whilst I have the impression that Bosch rather enjoyed painting the evils of hell and found heaven boring, Brian revelled in the bold, bright, colours and shapes of a rather simple heaven/future. He was, what I might call a Naïve Futurist.

The day the wall was demolished, the demolition crews started their work at 3.00am, so that when Brian arrived there was not much left. But he climbed on top of the remnants, where he screamed and hollered his protest, like a mother defending her child – it had, after all, been his baby for over a year of work. Traffic was held up for 13 hours that day.

Thankfully, there are other Barnes murals to be seen and admired. My favourite is called Battersea in Perspective and is in Dagnall Street on the wall of what used to be the Haberdashers’ Arms. It is a prime example of Brian’s vision of public murals. It is a very large and bold, colourful and political, historical and highly referenced, visual tour of Battersea. The nine portraits at the bottom of the picture (sorry about the car) are important Battersea MPs: John Burns, Sapurji Saklatvala, Caroline Ganley, Douglas Jay and Alf Dubs; other significant Battersea politicians John Archer and Charlotte Despard; plus aeronautical pioneers: Hilda Hewlett and A(lliott) V(erdon) Roe. Battersea Park and the Peace Pagoda make a bold focal point, bordered by Albert and Chelsea Bridges. The Power Station and the Carey Gardens estate, where Brian lived, also appear.

And in a reference to the Renaissance paintings, that Brian admired, we can see not only one of the early planes, built in some of Battersea’s railway arches and a hot air balloon;  but also the motif from an Iron Age shield, found in the Thames off Battersea Bridge in 1857 and now to be seen in the British Museum.

Photo and © Tony Belton; resized by Tomos Jones

There are other major Barnes murals in south London: all of them notable for their sheer size, colour, boldness, political content and community involvement. Some of the most notable are Brixton’s (Coldharbour Lane) Nuclear Dawn; Stockwell tube station’s War Memorial; and Battersea’s (Carey Gardens) A Brief History of Time and Thessaly Road’s A Day at the Seaside.

Brian Barnes constantly involved school kids, local people and local personalities in the design and execution of his murals. He lived for his art and I remember that he told me once of his plan to go to Bahia Blanca, a city on the east coast of Argentina, to an international festival of murals. The plan was that this otherwise undistinguished city would allocate one wall each to 50 international artists, invited to decorate the city. It was a wonderful plan, which anyone who knew Brian would know that he’d have loved. It would also have expanded his artistic experience and range. But, as so often, the problem was money. Neither Brian nor Bahia were rich and the artists had to be self-funded!

There was another side to Brian and that was his life as a political activist. In 1983 he became the inspirational genius behind the Battersea Power Station Action Group (BPAG). BPAG, he told me some 10 years ago, met weekly for over 30 years with Brian creating the agenda, writing the minutes and basically running the show – all that takes some doing. He was also a long-term executive member of the Doddington and Rollo Community Association (DRCA) and an active participant in many local campaigns and issues. He was frequently enthusiastically articulate about his very particular viewpoint. However, as the chair of several of these sessions, particularly at the DRCA, I’d have to say that Brian was not always very concerned with achieving consensus. The vehemence of his passion did not make for practical success in everyday politics, nor on occasions for civilised debate. But it made great street art.

RIP Brian Barnes, committed community activist and great muralist.

1. Living through, what is hopefully the nearest thing to the Plague we will ever know, is certainly an experience – even if, one we would have wished to miss. But it is almost unfathomably personal, depending upon family life, age, life situation, wealth, location, occupation, etc., etc. I am talking from one tiny segment of the population. The comfortably off, owner-occupying, socially established, mature population. Though, even here the range of reactions are massive. My partner, Penny is putting nose to the grindstone, churning out books – actually enjoying not going to the cinema or to the noisy restaurant. Me? I am kind of reducing risk factors to a degree; going out a bit but happy to have an excuse not to. Many of my peer group have hardly stuck their heads out of the door and yet others, within Government restrictions, are flying the world almost regardless of the climate crisis and COP26.

   ---

2. Lots of past generations, of course, have had their trials. My parents, for example, spent most of their twenties separated by war, and their parents, my grandparents, suffered the more deadly 1914-18 War AND the deadliest of modern pandemics, the 1918 so-called flu epidemic. My peer group appears to me to be uniquely lucky to have been born into Welfare State Britain and now, many of us, comfortably off as we enter a Climate Crisis through a Pandemic. And yet we can be so complacent and mean about it, when we should be generous and open about our good fortune. (One or two caveats, even for my generation: it is so important to be busy and, hopefully, not unhappily lonely).

   ---

3. November started with me being pinged and self-isolating, so I missed Wandsworth’s Civic Awards and a couple of social events. However, I was clear for a grand Labour Party event at the Park Plaza Hotel, Waterloo. I, and a dozen other Labour councillors, were the guests of Cllr Peter Carpenter at a celebration of Labour and its associated SME (Small and Medium-sized enterprises) members. SME business is not generally thought of us as a home base for Labour, which is more frequently associated with Trade Unions and large, smoke-stack or nationalised businesses. SME4Labour is however a vibrant new part of the Labour Party, very much inspired by first-generation Brits, who have made good. A high point of the evening was Leonie Cooper’s award as Greater London Member of the Year. Congratulations to Leonie, who as many of you will recall, was a Latchmere councillor before moving to Tooting in 2010.

   ---

4. On 11^th November, Penny and I flew to Copenhagen for the Annual Meeting of the Danish Eighteenth-Century History Society, where she was the keynote speaker. I wanted us to avoid air flights – if possible, but discovered that it was practically impossible. There used to be a ferry from Newcastle to Esbjerg on the Danish west coast, followed by a simple train ride to Copenhagen. But cheap airfares have undermined that ferry’s economic viability. And the only real alternative is a 36 hour trip by ferry to Rotterdam and a combination of rail journeys across Holland and Northern Germany and finally Denmark. How can we truly face up to the climate crisis when the Government not only continues to subsidise air travel, but actually increases its subsidies as Chancellor Sunak has just done to the detriment of rail and ferry services? Is this Government serious about anything?

   ---

5. On the 12^th we went for a long walk through central Copenhagen. It’s such a quiet, well-behaved city compared with noisy, rumbustious London. There are famous tourist spots like Nyhaven (Newhaven – pictured here), pedestrianised streets and thousands of cyclists. But the cyclists somehow belong to a different era from here in London. They are not Lycra-clad speedsters but sit-up-and-beg shoppers with shopping baskets. But before some of my cycle-loving colleagues get too envious of Denmark, I should point out that British pedestrians would never tolerate the inequities meted out to pedestrians in Copenhagen – no minimum width of pavements, no protection against parked cars or bikes, no control over obstructions. The pedestrian really is at the bottom of the pile.

   ---

6. The lecture and the guest appearance of the International President, Penny, went well and so, I must say, did the delightful socialising on both of our evenings there. On the 14^th before our return home, we went for a tour of the Fredericksburg Gardens, a Hyde Park equivalent attached to the Palace, pictured here. But the stars of the afternoon were in the elephant enclosure of the neighbouring zoo, which is clearly visible from the Gardens. We were entertained by two elephant teenagers, who were intent on pushing each other into a pond they shared with plenty of ducks, who sensibly kept their distance!

   ---

7. We returned home on the 14^th but what a hassle! On the way out, we had a saga of problems. And, as for returning, our efforts to complete the correct forms on strange computer keyboards, to satisfy the Covid inspectors and, and …… led us to conclude that foreign trips of less than at least two weeks are just off the agenda for the foreseeable… And, moreover, we got pinged again two days later, presumably because of someone we met/passed at Heathrow!

   ---

8. On the 15^th, the day before I went into self-isolation for a second time, I had a meeting of the Wandsworth Conservation Area Advisory Committee (WCAAC). I have mentioned this committee before but not discussed it much. It is a very worthy group of local amenity groups, who advise the Council on potential developments in Conservation Areas and who, unsurprisingly, usually have a conservative outlook on developments. On this occasion, the main discussion was about the proposed development of the All England Tennis Club into and over the area of what is now the Wimbledon Park Golf Club. Whilst that is of little direct interest to Battersea, I know many “Wimbledon” fans will be fascinated. In essence, the Championship is doubling in size; the qualifying tournament will be held on-site and not as now in Roehampton; it will provide many, many more practice courts (apparently compared to the other majors the lack of practice facilities is a “scandal”); it will also ease the obvious “wear and tear” pressures of playing on grass as opposed to hard courts. As a by-product, much of the current golf course will also become a genuine park rather than an effectively private open space. The proposals looked good, but, of course, the plans still need close scrutiny.

   ---

9. Once again self-isolation meant that I did not attend November’s Planning Applications Committee on the 23^rd, except in Zoom-mode. In every other respect, it was also like October’s PAC – there was nothing exciting on the agenda; it was mundane; it was ordinary; it was part of the bread-and-butter of local government and it was very well done with thought and care. I was again impressed by the quality of the councillors’ involvement and contribution.

   ---

10. Some months ago the Battersea Park Rotary Club invited me to talk at their weekly lunch-time meeting on 25^th My topic was “50 years of life as a councillor”. The lunch was at Wright’s, one of the new restaurants in the Battersea Power Station development. I thought the talk went quite well; the Rotarians said it did; but then they would, wouldn’t they? Here I am after the event with Rotarian President Senja Dedic.

    ---

11. Whilst I was there, I was struck by the sight of the Power Station. Since I was last there it has taken on the looks of a completely new building, in sparkling condition and almost ready for its new life as a town centre, full of shops, living and work. It was, as you can see, a brilliant day: bright and very cold and the Power Station looked at its best. I got into a discussion with two friends, who work there and who are very committed to its success. I suspect I irritated, or annoyed, them with my scepticism about the plan for what is being called “a new town centre”. Personally, as yet I find the development a tad sterile; it’s certainly acquiring some of the patina of success, but there isn’t any authentic urban life there. I hope that I am wrong but ..?

    ---

12. The 25^th was also the day of a by-election in Wandsworth’s Bedford ward. Congratulations to Labour’s Sheila Boswell, who won by one vote! I suspect that both Tory and Labour parties were almost equally surprised by the result. Labour was certainly. And presumably, the Tories were a bit sickened, having got so close. It will have done no harm as long as the obvious lessons are learnt, starting with the very clear one that the electorate is not quite as keen on turning out for what will seem to many as meaningless by-elections even if we, active practitioners, think they are important. On the following Sunday, 60-70 Labour stalwarts zoomed their collective frustrations and irritations in a solemn post mortem.

    ---

13. On the last day of the month, news broke that local artist and political campaigner, Brian Barnes had died. I first met Brian during the Battersea Society’s campaign “to save” Albert Bridge. It was under assault from modern traffic, which its nineteenth-century designers hadn’t anticipated. It was a story very familiar to modern Londoners in the form of similar arguments about Hammersmith Bridge. Demolition and reconstruction was, of course, the “rationalists’” answer but they had not allowed for campaigners, who commissioned the young, unknown Battersea artist, Brian Barnes, to design several beautiful posters in defence of the bridge. An agreed compromise was the largely unnoticed but successful buttress under the bridge’s central span. It has now been there for 50+ years.

    ---

14. Way back then, I was Chair of Planning and later the Opposition lead on planning, when his most famous mural was designed, created and demolished. The mural, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, was a massive 150 feet long, 18 feet high (45 metre by 5.50 metre) political statement of how he, and some others of us, would have liked Battersea to become. A great broom was sweeping away all the noxious industries of nineteenth-century Battersea and replacing them with smiling children and nice new homes. But, like medieval paintings of heaven and hell, Brian had much more fun painting the ‘bad’ than he did the ‘good’ – after all, one set of smiling children in a flower garden doesn’t cover much of 150 feet. I am proud to claim a small role in the artwork, as Brian included me and Wandsworth’s then Director of Planning, Mike Tapsell, on the mural, being tossed about in what was a figurative tide of rampant capitalism. Four Tory councillors, led by Chris Chope (now Sir Christopher Chope, the notorious right-wing Tory MP) also starred in the painting. Unfortunately, the demolition men gave it short shrift when building today’s Morgan’s Walk.

    ---

15. My favourite Barnes mural is called Battersea in Perspective and is in Dagnall Street on the wall of what used to be the Haberdashers’ Arms, now converted into flats. The mural is a visual tour of Battersea, from Roman jewellery found in the Thames to Battersea Park’s Peace Pagoda. It demands a detailed description, but, as this photo shows, it is also difficult to picture, whilst retaining the correct perspective.

    ---

16. There was another side to Brian and that was his life as a political activist. In the early 80’s he was the inspirational genius behind the Battersea Power Station Action Group (BPAG). BPAG, he told me some 10 years ago, met weekly for over 20 years with Brian creating the agenda, writing the minutes and basically running the show – that takes some doing. He was also a long-term executive member of the Doddington and Rollo Community Association (DRCA). I was chair of the DRCA for some years around the turn of the century and I can vouch for the fact that Brian was a very idiosyncratic, and not always easy, member of the association – at least from the chair’s perspective! RIP Brian Barnes, committed community activist and great muralist.

    ---

17. Finally, can I urge you all to get fully vaccinated – if not for yourself then for your friends and family, who deserve not to be infected by a disease that you might otherwise be carrying. To my mind, refusing to get vaccinated is not a display of sturdy individualism but rather an anti-social indulgence.

    ---

My Programme for December

1. Omicron looks likely to destroy much of my Christmas, and I am afraid maybe yours as well. I very much hope that I am wrong but the sudden appearance in late November of this new strain of Coronavirus, and the threat of other variants to come suggests to me that there must be more lockdowns to come.
2. That will leave me with a meeting of the North-East Surrey Crematorium Board on the 7^th December, a Labour Councillors’ Group on the 9^th, the Council Meeting on the 15^th and the Planning Applications Committee on the 16^th.
3. As for the festivities themselves: I have the usual round of potential parties, but how many happen, or I go to I am not sure. Only one has been cancelled so far!

   ---

Did you Know?

Last month I asked, whether you knew this local horse trough, which I had noticed the previous month. The answer is that it stands on Trinity Road, outside the County Arms.

And this month?

Many of you will know this building: Foxtons, large, modern office block on the corner of Theatre Street and Lavender Hill. But do you know what was there before being severely bomb-damaged in the 1940s and demolished in the 1950s? You might find a bardic clue in the address.

1. What a month! Two funerals, a death, a wedding and a “50 years as a councillor party” in the first fortnight; Council candidate selections amid confusion during the whole month; petrol queues and empty supermarket shelves at the end of the month; a new undergound station (or two) for all of us; a new baby for fellow Councillor Kate Stock; and entombment in a Sporle Court lift for me – and those are just the headlines! Oh, and a pro football games.
   

   ---

2. 3^rd September was the day of Kathy Tracey’s funeral. Kathy was a strong Tory councillor and therefore wicked – but actually not on every issue. She of course supported, what to me, were some fairly outrageous Tory policies, but, as boss of Wandsworth’s Children’s Services, she genuinely cared for “children looked after” (or “taken into care” in lay language). She was a passionate supporter of girls’ education and of sex education – perhaps particularly for boys! I well remember an epic battle she fought with some hard-right young Tory councillors on that particular issue. I suspect that she might well have become the Leader of the Council, if she had been a man. Here she is after the refurbishment of the Doddington Activity Centre. I certainly respected her.
   

   ---

3. On 4^th September, fellow councillor Annamarie Crichard invited me to join her and her husband, Steve, at Wimbledon AFC’s new Plough Lane stadium for the league match against Oxford United. I had been to the old Plough Lane stadium, with my parents, in the 80s – but what a difference. The new ground is very neat and well organised and there is clearly space for the expansion required if the club were to be promoted (unlikely this year but they were in the Premiership equivalent forty years ago). One startling difference between new and old was the playing surface. It was like playing on a carpet as opposed to the mud that used to pass for a football pitch in the 80s. As for the game itsrlf, Oxford United started well and took a 1-0 lead into the second half. But then the Dons came good and ran out 3-1 victors.
   

   ---

4. The 9^th September was the day picked for the Celebration of my 50 Years as a Wandsworth councillor. It seemed to go well; and I am delighted to record again my thanks to all who put so much effort into its organisation. And to those of my fellow councillors who funded the event (no Council-paid-for junketing here!). I greatly appreciated the engraved beer tankard presented to https://www.msn.com/en-gb/feed me by the Mayor and which I am holding close to my heart in this picture.

5. ---

6. And then on 10^th September I attended the Quaker funeral of an old friend, Ron Elam. Ron and I were “flat neighbours” in the 1960s and worked together in County Hall from then until the abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986. Away from County Hall, he became a very senior and experienced school governor, travelling the country inspecting and monitoring school governing bodies. Although a Labour Party member, he was frequently used by Tory Wandsworth Council to help and advise on the recovery of failing schools. The Quaker funeral service was very moving, very restrained and very comforting. In general, I’m not one for religious occasions and find some positively off-putting but I must say that the Quakers are in a different class! Plain speaking from the heart is hard to beat.
   

   ---

7. To complete the week, on the Saturday, Penny and I were off to the delightful village of Aynho in Northamptonshire for the wedding of one of my colleagues from University – Yes, you read that properly – one of my colleagues from college in the 60s. Mind you it was his third wedding and a very cheerful, happy day it was – lots of dancing, including by me!
   

   ---

8. The following day, Penny and I explored the village. It didn’t take long. It’s not very big but it is spectacular, with a magnificent seventeenth-century mansion (Aynho House), which is used for wedding parties, but not by our party. The most spectacular of the village sites is St. Michael’s Church. It was originally fourteenth-century, but it was destroyed by fire in 1723, except for the tower. Amazingly enough the church was rebuilt in the mid eighteenth-century to look like a country house of the period, but with the church tower standing rather incongruously at one end of it.
   

   ---

9. It really was a turbulent fortnight.
   

   ---

10. The Planning Applications Committee (PAC) on 16^th September included one fascinating decision regarding yet another massive application in Nine Elms. To be honest, I didn’t quite understand it as we were asked both to defer making a decision and to delegate it to the officers. That procedure was very strange and I don’t recall a similar case in all my years’ experience. After all, if there was no urgency, which a decision to defer seemed to imply, then logically there would be enough time to come back to the Committee for due consideration and therefore no need to delegate. It looked frankly odd to me and to most of my Labour colleagues, but the resolution was passed by the Tory majority. I will certainly keep my eyes open to see what follows from their decision!
    

    ---

11. One of the biggest events in Battersea in 2021 has to be the opening of the Battersea Park underground station. I didn’t go to the actual opening but I did travel from the station to the new Nine Elms station just a few days later. What is so noticeable is how clean, fresh and empty the station and the platforms are. It is a timid commuter’s delight but the impact on TfL’s finances is too dreadful to contemplate. Of course, the line needs to continue to Clapham Junction. That would transform the pattern of usage but the money just isn’t there (without government intervention), despite what some critics are claiming. As a result it does run the risk of becoming a massively under-used facility. One fascinating indicator of this is the lack of business at mid-day in the massive Sainsbury’s lower car park at Nine Elms and its usea as a training ground for these young in-line skaters!
    

    ---

12. If you are not interested in the minutiae of politics, you should skip this paragraph because much of the rest of September was taken up by Labour councillors and newcomers competing to be the party’s candidates in next May’s Borough election. The process has been delayed by Covid, and complicated by the ward and boundary changes. So, to take an obvious and personal example, the old Latchmere ward will cease to exist in May 2022 and its three councillors, Simon Hogg, Kate Stock and myself, are competing with two newcomers for the two Falconbrook councillor positions. By definition we cannot all win. It’s a tense time in Battersea Park, Falconbrook and Shaftesbury & Queenstown wards but we will know our candidates by 10^th October.
    

    ---

13. Meanwhile, life continues! On 19^th September, fellow Latchmere Councillor Kate Stock gave birth to a 10 lb 4 oz baby boy, named Jude. Congratulations to Kate and her husband, Tom. Kate doesn’t, by the way, believe in half measures. As well as coping with Jude, and his young sister Edie, and with ward reselections, she and Tom moved house on 30^th September and became very near neighbours of ours.
    

    ---

14. On September 23^rd Kambala Cares, one of the two main volunteer groups helping to cook, shop and care for the vulnerable during the Covid lockdown, organised a party for its volunteers. I went as did Cllr Hogg and, most significantly, Mayor Richard Field. The party organised by Chair Donna Barham was well deserved by the many volunteers and very enjoyable for all.
    

    ---

15. As a councillor, I make regular tours of Latchmere. On September 25^th, I visited a constituent in Sporle Court (pictured here), the old high-rise, giant of north Battersea before all these new higher developments. As it happened, my constituent lived on the 19^th I was alone in the lift, thank goodness, because as it started there was a great clunk, which worried me rather. The lift continued but, when it stopped, just inches short of the 19^th floor platform, the door would not open! Have you ever been trapped in a lift, regardless of which floor it was on? An interesting experience! It was a warm day, so the first thing I did was take off my vest. It was getting hot in there. A few years back I had a bad attack of claustrophobia when in a long dark tunnel. It is essential to keep calm. So, it wasn’t great to be told by Penny, when I rang through to her, “Don’t panic!” She sounded like a government minister on speed!
    

    ---

16. Actually the alarm system worked as it should and, after about 40 minutes, a team of 5 fire-fighters arrived and prised the doors open. Phew! I now have first hand experience of what many of our residents fear on a daily basis; and, whilst incidents like mine are not that frequent, minor lift malfunctions are. Is this the result of poor maintenance? Or a function of age and/or cheap original products. By the way I did visit my constituent!
    

    ---

17. Talking about not panicking, What do you think about the Government’s performance during the petrol crisis, during the food delivery crisis, during the never-ending Covid crisis? Perhaps there is no need to panic about petrol, food or Covid but there certainly seems to be good reason to panic about our government and its competence levels!
    

    ---

     

My Programme for October

1. Well, of course, Labour councillors in Battersea are pre-occupied with the tense, process of selecting candidates for the council election in May 2022. Thankfully the decision day is not now far off and then normal life can resume!
2. In terms of regular, scheduled meetings I have the full Council on 12^th October, and the Planning Applications Committee (PAC) on the 19^th.

Did you Know?

Last month I asked, “where I was in Latchmere ward when I took this picture of more than 100 solar panels?”

Plenty of you had an answer to this and many were nearly, but not quite, correct – such as the response that I was on the train pulling into Wandsworth Town station. The actual answer was on the 10^th floor of Oxborough House, which is the tallest of the new blocks on the “newish” development in Eltringham Street.

And this month a different teaser:

Which ward will be abolished next May and take with it the proud record of being the only ward in Wandsworth never, ever to have been anything other than represented by Labour councillors? And don’t say that is a difficult question!

1. I realise that, more than once, I have started my newsletter with the less-than-startling comment that the previous month had been quiet but, in this case, August really was a quiet month – as you perhaps would expect. But I did have a meeting on Friday, the thirteenth (not that I am superstitious), with the current developers, Balance Out Living, of the site on the corner of Culvert and Battersea Park Roads – the one surrounded by a blue hoarding, which forces pedestrians onto the road. I say the “current” developers, as the previous ones disappeared at some point after getting planning permission. Don’t ask me whether they were Covid-burnt or market-roasted but, one way or another, they have gone.
   

   ---

2. The new developers plan to build a “community living” space. Interestingly it will be the third planning application for such a development in Wandsworth, that I can recall over the last few years. Work on the other two, one near Earlsfield Station and the other in Chatfield Road, just off York Road, is quite advanced. The concept is to build blocks of living spaces, supported by a host of communal activities, such as workspaces, film and TV rooms, kitchens, and a cafe/restaurant. The end result would be like the best student apartment blocks but in a more luxurious style than that usually associated with students. The age range of the projected residents is wider than you might imagine (based on a couple of similar developments built in West London 10 years ago) though, of course, this kind of block is not very suitable for either families or the elderly.
   

   ---

3. A consultation leaflet was distributed to the immediate neighbourhood in the last week of August describing the proposed development. Here is a CGI (Computer Generated Image) of the original and this one is not very different. It is going as high as 13 storeys, which, in my opinion, is still far too high for this site; but, as the previous permission is still valid, there is nothing we can do about that. There is though the hope of work starting on the site soon and a promise that the school’s sports hall will be built as soon as permission is granted, which could be in October or November. So it is broadly good news for the school, its pupils and the residents of Dagnall Street, who have had to put up with a building site for far too many months, even if the development is still in my view too high and too large for this site.
   

   ---

4. On the 19^th August, I had the Planning Applications Committee (PAC) Only three of the applications were for sites in Battersea and two were of only very, very local interest, but the picture shows the third, a new 8 storey building, on Battersea Bridge Road, opposite the Union pub. It includes 24 residential units, of which 9 are, so-called, affordable units, above some offices and most interestingly a community/church hall on the ground floor. The development is part of a controversial re-generation of the Surrey Lane estate. By the way, on this occasion only 54 members of the public watched the PAC online but, interestingly, another 80 viewers tuned in later to the podcast, no doubt to catch up on what happened to applications of relevance to them. Interestingly enough, one of the local Tory councillors, and the Battersea Society, objected to the height of the building and thought it out-of-character. Is this an indicator of the “Tory worm turning” against Battersea’s incessant upward development?
   

   ---

5. Unfortunately the Committee was held on the same evening as the Battersea Society’s summer party at St. Mary’s church. I was sad to miss that party, as it is one of the nicest social events of the summer. My regret was compounded by the rain which forced Battersea Labour Party to abandon its Battersea Park picnic on 21^st August and re-locate it in the pub, the Magic Garden – pleasant enough but not the same as a picnic, nor as Covid secure!
   

   ---

6. On one of my ward walkabouts, I came across the 3 security men guarding the Battersea Methodist Chapel. At some time in August, some protestors occupied the chapel building with the intention, they claimed, to take it and turn it into a community resource. They had thought that they were occupying a “council property” and were quick enough to repent and leave when they discovered it was still a church property. Good for them BUT isn’t it worrying that they clearly did not think that council ownership was, in any sense, good for the community? The trust between publicly elected bodies and the public, so strong when I was a kid in the immediate post-war years, is today dangerously torn asunder.
   

   ---

7. I also came across this development site, which is the start of the Council’s building work on the new Northcote Library, right across the road from the current one. (For those who know it well, it is the site of the old Chatham Hall, scene in the past of jumble sales, political meetings, tenants associations and more recently of a day nursery). The old, much liked but totally inaccessible library building (you try it with a wheel-chair!) is likely to be replaced in 2023/24 by shop-fronts and housing in a style no doubt appropriate for Northcote Road.
   

   ---

8. On 30^th/31st August Penny and I visited family in Winchester……very pleasant, lousy weather, nothing special.
   

   ---

My Programme for September

1. September (and maybe October) will be occupied with the very intense, nervous process of selecting candidates for the council election in May 2022. The process is the first step towards the Council Election and is in some ways the biggest hurdle to overcome. If you get selected in a “safe Labour” ward, then you are halfway to being elected as a councillor in May. The same is, of course, also true for Tory candidates in “safe Tory” wards. But the problem is that, after the ward boundary changes and redistribution, no one quite knows which wards are safe. So, if your local councillors are a bit snappy and nervous, then forgive them – they are probably having a trying time in selection meetings!
2. In terms of regular, scheduled meetings I have the Conservation Advisory Committee on 2^nd September, the Crematorium Board on 7^th and the Planning Applications Committee (PAC) on the 16^th.
3. Meanwhile, on the 12^th September, we are going to the wedding party of an old college friend, who got married a year ago and has planned about three other Covid postponed parties. Tony (yes, another Tony) has given up waiting on an official end to Covid and has decided to go with the flow. The party is in the lovely little Northamptonshire town of Aynho.
4. The following week is the week of the Labour Party Conference, which of course is followed immediately afterwards by the Tory Conference – something tells me that there are going to be some hard battles during that fortnight!
   

   ---

Did you Know?

Last month I asked, “Which Olympians from this year’s Tokyo Olympiad either live in Battersea or were said on TV to have had family watching the event on TV in Battersea?” Quite clearly none of you were interested in that question as not one of you even attempted an answer. All I can say, is that one athlete, a member of the equestrian team and a silver medallist, name of Tom McEwen, was said by the TV commentator to have parents watching at home in Battersea.

And for this month can you tell me where I was in Latchmere ward when I took this picture of more than 100 solar panels?

PS. In the summer I gave an hour’s zoom talk to the Battersea Society, called Battersea, 1801-2021, the history of this London suburb. It went quite well – I am told, so I just wondered whether any readers would be interested in hearing a repeat. Let me know at tonybelton99@gmail.com and I will timetable a repeat zoom session.

1. Why is this newsletter so late in the month? Well, would you believe it? To keep well out of the way of breaking electoral law! The law says that anything, which could be construed as party political, and which is distributed in the build up to an election, MUST be counted as electoral expenditure and reported to the authorities. Now I wouldn’t actually go as far as to say that my newsletters are very party political but, unlike our Prime Minister, I am concerned about the legal niceties – hence the late publication of the newsletter. By the time you read this, of course, the election will be all over, which is why I am sending it now.
   

   ---

2. I woke up on 6^th April to the realisation that I am now 80 years old! I was not sure what I was going to do to mark the occasion. I had talked about parties for friends, family and politico friends, but that was before I realised how long Covid’s shadow was going to be. Actually, I did have a few phone calls and a number of Zoom parties with friends and family in various parts of London, Leamington, Winchester and Billericay. The big surprise, though, was a Zoom party organised for me by Labour colleagues in Battersea. I guess there were about 60 people there – a new and very, very pleasurable experience.
   

   ---

3. Some of you will know that I am trying to find energy and time (or is it enthusiasm and drive?), to write a book about politics in Wandsworth, since 1964. The text is currently some 65,000 words long but I am only halfway through. Whilst researching for it, I have interviewed one or two of the main players and on 8^th April I had a long chat with Martin Johnson, a Tory councillor for Northcote from 1974-2018. During his long career, Martin was the number one (either as Chair or Cabinet Member), at various times, in charge of Wandsworth’s council houses, planning and roads, amongst a host of other council services. As we spoke, I was reminded of the important role he played, at quite some personal cost, in stopping the march of the urban motorway through much of the Borough and especially through, around, under and over Clapham Junction. The London Motorway Box was a threat to inner London posed by government-based traffic engineers, which was defeated locally by the Labour Council in the 70s and by the Tories, actually mainly Martin, in the 80s. If the engineers had won, London would have been turned into a mega-Spaghetti Junction. Martin took a correct and bold stance but, because he had defied the party machine, and most particularly Mrs. Thatcher, he lost popularity with his party colleagues and was effectively ignored by his party, ever afterwards. The picture shows Martin on an occasion marking his 40 years as a councillor.
   

   ---

4. On 16^th April, I had lunch in a pub garden with three friends. In what other year would one record that as an event? My first pub lunch for over a year! Then I had a hair cut, like millions of us – an event to record! And a few days later I went for a “surge test” – lots of strange, new experiences in a strange.
   

   ---

5. I attended an XR (Extinction Rebellion) Wandsworth virtual meeting on 20^th There were 50 or 60 people there and the meeting started off with five opening speeches about traffic calming, trees and the Council’s record in planting and growing trees, disinvesting the Council’s pension fund from fossil fuel companies and targeting its investment strategy towards “green” companies. XR’s objective was (and is) to make half a dozen demands of the Council. Their tactics, stated quite publicly, included any obstruction of the Council short of violence. I was not the only councillor attending, as I counted half a dozen others from both Labour and Tory parties. I later discussed it with some councillors from each side and was struck by the fact that I was rather more sympathetic to XR and its demands than many other councillors.
   

   ---

6. The trouble is that some of XR’s demands were put in such intemperate terms that they were either impractical or border-line illegal and, in addition, a few of their assertions were inaccurate. Combined with the uncompromising tone of the demands, XR Wandsworth seemed more interested in bullying the Council into submission than in persuading the Council of the need to adopt totally “green” policies. I am afraid that the Council is more constrained by the law than is dreamed of in XR’s philosophy. The Council could not resolve, for example, to refuse any and all planning applications, which included the felling of trees at all – such a “pre-determination” would certainly result in refusals being reversed on appeal. The climate crisis is indeed a crisis but that doesn’t mean that XR have a monopoly of wisdom or the right policies, or that the Council can ignore political or legal realities. Acting together would provide faster and better solutions to what is a real crisis.
   

   ---

7. On 22^nd April, I had the Planning Applications Committee (PAC) and, if I said that the March PAC, was uneventful, then the April version made it seem positively momentous. The interest in individual planning applications was still sufficient, however, to inspire the virtual attendance by 52 people – it was very rare for pre-Covid, pre-online PAC ever to have an audience of 50.
   

   ---

8. However, much to the horror of some councillors and lobbyists, the Government has decided that, as from 6^th May, all meetings will have to take place – old-style. Personally, I don’t really believe that a diet of 100% online meetings is sustainable in the long-term. Our current online PAC works well enough, but I think that is because we know each other, and our relative strengths and weaknesses. Somehow, I doubt whether that would be the same with a new committee, a committee, which by definition would have a membership of strangers. But clearly some elements of the new online world will (or rather should) remain; having proved the viability of online committees. How can the Council in future deny the public the right to watch? How could the Council insist on the physical presence of a committee member, suffering from, say, flu when we all now know that an online presence would be perfectly possible? Wandsworth Council should lobby the Government and persuade the relevant Ministers that we cannot, or more properly should not, simply turn back the clock.
   

   ---

9. I gave a talk, called “A brief history of Battersea 1800-2021”, for the Battersea Society on 27^th It was done on Zoom and there was an audience of about 70 or 80. Judging by the audience response after the talk, it went quite well. I certainly enjoyed doing it, but it is a strange experience talking to an audience, when you can’t see anyone’s reactions. Are they rolling around laughing or amazed by one’s stupidity or one’s brilliance? Is it going well or are they bored? This picture, by the way, is called “A view in the lanes near Battersea Fields” and was painted by William Bielby in 1788. It was my opening slide and, as you can see, there have been quite a few changes since! The talk can be seen at :

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/1hU11leo8vLcJCqVY59Uzj_9UoaZfNerONujCY3Oe0C2rZ0-doQeXaJxzyO5KkWy.SCLbj_m6eNTo6WYP 

Access Passcode: #%L&&T7A

My Programme for May

1. Political activity in May will be dominated by the London Mayoral and London Assembly elections on May 6^th and inevitably everything that follows from those elections. This year, Sadiq Khan is the overwhelming favourite to continue as Mayor and the issue is just how are he and the Prime Minister going to get on working terms, because for the good of our city, they need to work together for the next three years.
2. On 11^th May I have a Wandsworth Conservation Area Advisory Committee.
3. The 13^th May is exactly 50 years after the first election, which I won as a councillor, then, believe it or not, for Northcote ward, which now, and then, was the safest Tory ward in Battersea! Just maybe that is something of an achievement. I know that there has never been any other councillor, who has “done” 50 years on Wandsworth Council, though I guess there might be one or two elsewhere in the country!
4. The Planning Applications Committee is on 25^th May and on the following day the Annual Meeting of the Council when we will be electing a new Mayor.
   

   ---

Did you Know: Last month I asked, “Where would you have had to go in 1886 to visit Battersea’s Little Hell?”

The answer was the area between Battersea Church Road and the Thames, which was the home of rapidly growing, very dirty, heavy industry such as Morgan Crucible’s and of many of its workers living in very squalid slum conditions, unimaginable today.

And for this month can you tell me:

The connection between the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge, shown here, and Battersea?