August & September highlights

1. Well to be honest highlights were mainly holidays, the Olympics and the Labour Party Conference – OK, so one has to be a political nerd to call the latter a highlight but so be it! As for my holiday, well I won’t bore you with lots of holiday snaps but here are just two of Niagara Falls and a Canadian native!

2. As for the Olympics – in my August Newsletter, I reported on going down to Putney High Street to see the road race pass, but later in the same month, I also managed to get tickets for a few other events. Surprisingly, to me, my favourite event was the female weight-lifting – absolutely terrific, with plenty of crowd participation. I know one Egyptian lady would not have lifted the weight without the crowd willing her to succeed.

3. For those who know me you may be surprised that on August 18th I went to the Black Pride event at the Ministry of Sound! The Ministry is in Kennington and the event was a raucous, hot enjoyable event. OK, so I was hardly an average member of the audience but I was not as much out of the ordinary as I had expected, with plenty of other “mature” participants. Not, however, my cup of tea and I have too much respect for my ear-drums to have stayed long!

4. On 21st August a Council Committee decided to keep the in-house team in the bidding to run both Croydon’s and Wandsworth’s library services. The Council contract will include running the York Gardens Library. I know that many people, including in the Labour Party, do not think that it is that important to keep these services in-house, but I most certainly do so. I will be keeping fingers and toes crossed for the next stage of the bidding process, which will become public in November.

5. There have, of course, been two Planning Applications Committees since my last newsletter, one in August and the other in September, and perhaps unusually both had applications of interest, even if small to Latchmere. First of all was the Council’s own application to convert the health centre in Wheeler Court to six Council flats. Wheeler Court is the 4-storey block in Plough Road right next to the traffic lights at York Road. The second was another Council application to convert Dawes House, that is the small block right opposite the Grant Road exit from the station and next to the Nazarene Church, into accommodation for homeless families rather than leave them in the inhuman conditions of bed & breakfast accommodation. Two good and useful applications for affordable housing, both of which were passed.

6. On September 25th I had the Strategic Planning Committee and on 26th the Housing Committee – two busy evenings. The Planning Committee included the latest plans for the Thames Relief Tunnel, which will run alongside the Thames for 20 miles and is designed to prevent the occasional disastrous flooding, which causes serious river pollution and the deaths of millions of fish. One of the base stations for this work is likely to be the Falconbrook Pumping Station, pictured here behind the demolished remnants of York Gardens Adventure Playground. All three of your councillors recognise that this mammoth Tunnel is required but we will be fighting to ensure that there is as little disruption to the Gardens as possible, so, for example, construction traffic will be coming in on a new access direct from York Road and not through the estate and the Gardens. What with the threat to the Library and the closure of the playground, York Gardens has had more than its fair share of pressure in the last few months!

7. In September I also went to the Wandsworth Museum to see the exhibition of Painting Wandsworth. The museum has 300 water-colours of Wandsworth and the exhibition showed about 60 of the paintings. The paintings date back to the eighteenth century, though most are nineteenth century works, but for anyone with a passing interest in the history of Battersea, then do go. I know the Museum is slightly out of the way being in the old West Hill Library but it is only 5 minutes’ walk up the hill from the Southside shopping centre and well worth the walk. There are also lots of buses from Clapham Junction that stop almost outside it, e.g. 37, 337, 170. It also shares the building with the brilliant de Morgan exhibition, which as I have said before is a small but world class exhibit that highly recommend to everyone.

I include two of the paintings. The first, this early nineteenth century picture of the Prince’s Head in Latchmere, which used to stand on the corner of Falcon Road and Battersea Park Road (though neither called that at the time, of course). And the second is of the Arts Centre, then Battersea Town Hall, which judging by the car, the tram and the fashions must have been painted about 100 years ago – say 1910. Note the Shakespeare Theatre next door, which was unfortunately badly damaged in the war and demolished in 1954. It is now Foxtons, the estate agent!

My Programme for October

1.    There is a Council Meeting on 17th October and the Planning Applications Committee on the 18th October.

2.    There must be more but just back from the Labour Party Conference and  I do not seem yet to have got back into the full swing of Council business!

Did you know?

That Latchmere has a large, stately home or so says both our local and national press, when covering the strange Chinese murder trial of Gu Kailai. You may recall that this was the August trial of the Chinese politician’s wife found guilty of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood. Mr. Heywood, it was reported, had in his youth lived in Latchmere’s large stately home known as South Lodge.

Well, here is South Lodge (the red brick house), on the Latchmere Road right opposite the Leisure Centre. It is divided into 5 flats and pleasant enough I guess but a large, stately home? Just teaches one not to believe everything one reads in the press!

July highlights

1. On July 4th I went to a Labour Party fund raiser at the Fish in a Tie restaurant in Falcon Road, where the guest speaker was Andy Burnham, Labour’s Shadow Health Minister. As you know I don’t make this newsletter a party political broadcast – far too boring – but I must say that Andy was on great form. He was interested to see the new Clapham Junction Health Centre, as he came to open the centre with me when it was in a couple of mobile caravans in the nearby car park just before the last election. By the way, if you haven’t been there, can I recommend the Fish in a Tie as one of the best, at very reasonable prices, restaurants in our ward.

Another thing Andy saw was the newly re-opened entrance to Clapham Junction station. Some of you complained about the length of time the work took but I think everyone will agree that the new entrance (pictured here) is a terrific improvement on what was there previously.

2. Last month I commented that the British economy was now officially in what is known as a “double-dip recession”. Unfortunately with both Government and Council pursuing a crazy deflationary policy there seems little prospect of pulling out of it and indeed I have heard some talk about a “triple-dip recession.” The result in Latchmere was yet another rise of 10 in the ward’s official unemployment numbers, with 330 men and 230 women unemployed.

3. The Planning Applications Committee on 18th July had one application of real local interest and that was the one about the re-development of Clapham Junction’s Peabody Estate at the top of St. John’s Hill. Local residents were very actively opposed to the application, including as it does a 12 storey block and 527 residential units. Their opposition was partly based on the traffic implications on Eckstein, Comyn and Severus Roads, partly on the sheer scale of the application and partly on the size of the 12 storey block. One of the problems about the height of the tallest block is, for me, that it is not only that high but that it is at the top of the hill and will, therefore, dominate everything on the south side of the railway lines. I joined, with senior Tory councillor Maurice Heaster in opposing the application but I am afraid the very many local residents in the public gallery were disappointed.

4. On 19th July we had the Latchmere Report Back Meeting at York Gardens Library, There was a large audience and the normal range of questions about housing, pavements, street cleaning and refuse collection but what made it unusual was the decision by the pressure group London Citizens to make it a “protest” against the Council’s cuts policies. This meant that what is usually a time for the local councillors to be asked and answer questions about the local ward, became a quizzing of Tory Council Leader, Ravi Govindia.

5. I am afraid that I did not attend the Poyntz Road/Knowsley Road Triangle Party on 7th July. I am afraid I chickened out when the heavens opened and rained on what for me is the best street party in the Borough.

My Programme for August

1. Well, to be honest what with personal holidays and the Olympics – I went down to Putney High Street to see the road race pass, not the greatest picture but there it is! – it doesn’t add up to much at all, but I will be interested to see exactly what is going to happen to the Borough’s Library services. On 21st August a Council Committee will be considering the next stage in the “contracting out” of the Borough’s boundaries. Anyone who knows me will know what I think about contracting out core services like Libraries but I am rather afraid that it does not look good for our service, which I expect to be contracted out to some multi-national services provider.

2. I am not back from holiday until 11th September and so next month’s newsletter will not be in the first week of the month!

Did you know?

Last month I mentioned that the Falcons used to be Wandsworth Council’s Livingstone Estate and that Peregrine House used to be called  Burne-Jones Court, after the painter Edward Burne-Jones. Well to continue the parade, Griffon House, which of course was demolished to make way for the Imperial College student residencies was called Elgar Court.

Sir Edward William Elgar (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was, of course, the famous English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. His best known works are the Enigma Variations, and most notably the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, both regulars at the Promenade Concerts. And for those of you who have forgotten Pomp & Circumstance then here it is on U-Tube www.youtube.com/watch?v=moL4MkJ-aLk

One of the most notable features about Elgar, pictured right, was that he was one of the first “classical” composers to take modern recording methods seriously. In a period from 1914-1925 he made several recordings but when in 1925 the microphone was invented he started a recording of all his works and hence has a fair claim to be the first composer to have had all his works recorded in his own lifetime.

Why the Council named the Livingstone blocks after artists like Burne-Jones and Elgar (with more to come), will be the subject of a later Newsletter.

In May I wrote a BLOG called “The Punter is King” and in it I included the following two paragraphs:

“This is very apparent in the Wandsworth example of the Springfield Hospital development site. This large, undeveloped, NHS site has stood under-used for decades. The NHS, which of course needs the money, has put forward two perfectly acceptable development proposals, but they got their politics wrong. Their last application was submitted at a time when it got caught up in the 2010 General Election. Both major parties, for largely electoral reasons, took part in a vigorous anti-campaign and the Council, assisted by the fact that its Deputy Leader lived opposite the site, decided to reject the application.

The community, or rather the immediate neighbours, knew what it wanted and won the argument – the Council gave the punters their desires. But just what are the odds on a semi-privatised NHS, even more strapped for cash, and/or its developers coming back with a larger, much less neighbour friendly application – fair to middling I guess – and in the meantime we have had an extra few years of decay, fewer desperately needed homes and less money for the health service. So we have total victory for the punters in the short-term but arguably a loss for the wider community (the homeless and patients) and a probable long-term loss.”

Well, now the Secretary of State has taken the matter into his own hands and granted planning permisson and both the local Labour MP, Sadiq Khan, and the local Tory Council, Wandsworth Borough Council, have joined together in condemning the decision. But what actually is the result? The development is much as Wandsworth Council officers originally recommended, with very much the same conditions applied. As it happens the delay was not perhaps as great as I had feared and it is not the case that a worse scheme has been put forward by an even more cash-strapped NHS.

Does it merely prove that we are all Nimbies (from Nimby or Not In My Back Yard) and that big local planning issues cannot be left to local authorities – sad, if true.