Tag Archive | News & chat about Latchmere

September was hectic; October was both quieter and yet more challenging! During years in politics, I have been “interviewed” at more than 40 selection meetings prior to standing for election. This kind of competition is not unique to politics; but it always means competing with close colleagues and friends. That is stressful and the track record shows I have a mixed record at it! For most of the rest of the month I went coughing and spluttering into voluntary self-isolation – and that is boring.
Saturday, 9^th October, was a tough day. I had two selection meetings; one successful and the other not. The first was in the new 2 member ward of Falconbrook, where my colleagues Kate Stock and Simon Hogg were triumphant. Congratulations to them and all the best for the real election next May. The second selection meeting that day was in the new Battersea Park ward, where I was successful along with my new colleagues Juliana Anaan and Maurice McLeod. I look forward to working, and hopefully winning, with them next May.

Wandsworth’s Council Meeting was held on the 13^th Sadly and inevitably, Covid 19 has put everything, including Council Meetings, into the shade. The pandemic, not to mention the climate crisis, has eclipsed the relatively minor issues of running the Council. However, it does remain important that we have a lively political forum, in which to debate how we run our society, when hopefully we can put Covid behind us. Meanwhile the Council Meeting was rather second tier!

On 14^th October, I went to my cousin’s funeral in Braintree, Essex. He and I were never very close, but immediately post-war, because he lived in Southend-on-Sea, my parents would send me off for a couple of weeks in the summer holidays from Tottenham to live with him, and my aunt and uncle. Penny and I made the 150 mile round journey (and stayed the night) to mark a family passing. It was good to see old family members again after so long. The “butter wouldn’t melt” picture is of David and me. David is the older of the two of us and the picture dates, I guess, from August, 1948.
After the funeral on the next day, 15^th October, Pen and I drove the short distance to Colchester, where amongst other things I got a penalty notice for driving into a bus-lane I frankly didn’t see – oh, well, the price of urban living! Why go to Colchester? To visit an old colleague and friend, Guy Wilson, who was elected as a Wandsworth councillor in 1968. The three of us were part of the 1971-78 Labour Council. We had a conversational ramble through the successes and disasters of that Council – and my word there were some great successes and one very large disaster, the implementation, or not, of the 1971 Housing Finance Act!The picture is of the three of us, Guy on the left, then Penny, and me, along with Margaret Morgan and Martin Linton, celebrating our 1971 victory at a recent 50 year celebration!

On reflection, the funeral, especially the wake, was a super-spreader event. I haven’t heard of any consequential Covid 19, but I have had a nasty cough ever since and so on 16^th October I put myself in self-isolation, despite a negative test – and self-isolation is very boring!

Self-isolation meant that I did not attend the October Planning Applications Committee, except in Zoom-mode. Although there was nothing very exciting on the agenda, I was impressed by the high quality of councillor involvement and contribution. It was mundane. It was ordinary. It was not going to save the world from environmental disaster; but it was part of the bread-and-butter of local government and it was very well done with thought and care.

On a quite different matter, one old friend of mine, who makes her living from graphic design, tells me that she likes my newsletters but hates the cross-page justification I have used in the first 3 paragraphs of this newsletter. She thinks it looks much better simply left-justified as in the last 5 paragraphs. Tell me, what is your view? What is the readers’ opinion?

My Programme for November

On the 4th November, I was going to be at the Civic Awards ceremony at the Town Hall with my colleague Juliana Annan – but I am afraid self-isolation continues to rule that out.
On the 7^th November, Battersea Labour Party is having a Jazz Night at Clapham’s Bread and Roses That is usually an enjoyable occasion and I hope to be there!
Some of you may remember that Penny was elected for a four-year term as President of the International Association for Eighteenth–Century Studies and we had plans for attending multiple international conferences. Of course, Covid has put a stop to all that. But now Denmark has taken the plunge and so from 10^th-14^th November we hope to be in Copenhagen – our first trip (holiday, well working holiday for her) in two years. No doubt many of you have not had a break either, so you will know how exciting that feels!
The November Planning Applications Committee is on 23^rd There will probably be a contentious planning application to convert the Clapham Common Bowling Green to a Pitch and Putt course, amongst other items – watch this space!
Battersea Park Rotary Club invited me give a talk about my 50 years as a councillor and, no doubt, about what has or has not changed during that time. I get lunch in return on 25^th I look forward to that but must think just a bit about what really has changed?

Did you Know?

Last month I asked, “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?”

That was so easy/boring/inconsequential (delete to taste) that none of you bothered to tell me that it is, of course, Latchmere, the only ward permanently represented by Labour!

And for this month’s puzzler:

I thought I knew my local horse troughs but last month I noticed this one, for the first time, despite passing it a 1,000 times. It is a slight cheat as it is very marginally outside Battersea’s boundaries. Do you know it? And can you point me to a similar trough that is very definitely in Battersea?

If it helps, Yes – they are pub seats in the background.

December 8, 2017

Councillor Tony Belton’s Battersea December, 2017, Newsletter (# 102)

1. 1. 1. On 1st November, my partner Penny hosted a book launch in the Speaker’s House, Westminster. The book, edited by Mary Clayton, is entitled A Portrait of Influence: Life and Letters of Arthur Onslow, the Great Speaker. Onslow was an eighteenth-century Speaker of the House of Commons, who set the standard for the role, which is why the book was launched in this very private part of the Palace of Westminster. The current Speaker, John Bercow, welcomed about 70 of us to his home – both graciously and humorously. Something tells me that he rather enjoys the being Speaker! Penny has written a brief review of the evening at https://blog.history.ac.uk/2017/12/report-of-ihrs-long-eighteenth-century-seminar-book-launch-in-the-speakers-house/
    2. The following day, I went to the CAW (Citizens Advice Bureau/Wandsworth) Annual General Meeting at Battersea Library. (Why the CAB has decided to re-brand itself as CAW when everyone in the country knows the CAB – beats me). It was a sombre occasion, because the Council has decided to cut its funding by 10%. What is more the cut is happening just as the Government’s disastrous Universal Credit Scheme is due to be rolled out in Wandsworth. Given experience across the country, this could make it a hard Xmas for too many Battersea residents. The Tory Northcote ward councillor, Peter Dawson, and I had a slight altercation over the Tory role in imposing this kind of cut on our services. He does a nasty job pretty well!
    3. Off to Battersea Park for the Fireworks on November 4^th – good show as always.
    4. On the 6th, I went to the Wandsworth Conservation Advisory Committee. This is a quiet committee devoted to maintaining the best of Wandsworth’s heritage – few political hassles, not many arguments, some might say rather dull. On this occasion we discussed the old Vestry School seen here on Battersea Rise. Some of you will not even have noticed this small building, which is now 151 years old (built in 1866), but it is sorely in need of restoration.
    5. It is part of Battersea history. Before state schools were created by the 1870 Education Act, most education was provided through the church, and Vestry schools like this one were commonplace. I was responsible for getting it listed about 20 years ago but neither St. Mark’s Church nor the diocese have done much to restore it. Now, I am pleased to say, the Council is talking about putting a Repairs Notice on the building. I realise that some churches with small congregations do not have much money for “nice” spending on old buildings but St. Mark’s must be one of the richest churches in suburban London – the Diocesan Board really should do something about its heritage!
    6. The next day, on 7^th November I went to City Hall to take part in WOW (Women of Wandsworth)’s Annual General Meeting in City Hall. It was really an excuse for a party and a first trip for most to the heart of London’s Government. The host was WOW boss, Senia Dedic. Here she is, with GLA member, and Council colleague of mine, Leonie Cooper, on the right, presenting prizes.
    7. On the 9^th we had the Thamesfield by-election. It was a brilliantly sunny day but fearsomely cold. I spent 7 hours of it standing and occasionally sitting outside two of the polling stations. Not the most fun-way of fighting an election but worse from my point of view, I am afraid, was the result. With the Tories winning the seat relatively comfortably.
    8. The very next day, I went on a visit – to the new Battersea Park underground station being built opposite the Duchess pub on Nine Elms Lane and right next to the Dogs’ Home. Many of you will have seen the hole in the ground either from the railway or the top deck of the 44 bus, but nothing quite prepares one for the scale of the whole thing when you are there. This picture shows the platform area with, in the distance, the tunnel disappearing towards Vauxhall; the orange shows high vis wearing workers. Being there that morning appealed to my little boy syndrome of wanting to get out the Meccano set and building a grand, iconic building – or in this case digging a massive tunnel in the heart of the city – fun!
    9. On 11^th November, I went to the second Providence House Fund Raising Dinner – at Providence House, Falcon Road. Every time I go there, which is probably not as often as I ought, I am struck by what a great job Robert Musgrave and his team do encouraging, educating and entertaining the young people of Battersea. We should be proud of and grateful to them.
    10. On the 12^th I went to the Remembrance Day service at St. Mary’s. As ever it was a moving occasion. Unusual features of the service were the rather complex hymns that we tried to sing. They were traditional English nineteenth-century hymns alright, but not the usual ones. Fortunately, we had St. Mary’s excellent choir leading us through the service, but sadly St. Mary’s very own Director of Music is, very shortly, off to do his stuff in the States.
    11. The Council’s Civic Awards presentation was on the 14^th November. I am pleased to say that on this occasion Senia Dedic, see paragraph 5 above, was presented with one of the awards. Senia has missed out on this award several times in the past. It is only right that she has now had the recognition for her work with WOW, building relationships across Battersea between black and white, young and old, female and male.
    12. The Community Services Committee on 15^th November featured a couple of items of general interest (and quite a few very boring ones too). Interesting ones were Battersea’s Jubilee Bridge and the rapid spread of charging points for electric cars. The Jubilee Bridge is planned to run alongside Cremorne Bridge, which is the rail bridge used by the Overground service between Clapham Junction and Imperial Wharf. It would be for cyclists and pedestrians only and would put a considerable number of Battersea residents within easy walking distance of Imperial Wharf station. The newly designed and completed skyscraper in Lombard Road was designed the south bank bridge structure in mind and there is also a considerable amount of money earmarked for the bridge. However, there is still a significant funding gap (£millions) and no immediate timetable for construction – so this plan is as yet a gleam in the eye.
    13. Meanwhile, the assumed rise of the electric car will call for massive changes to our roads – we will need millions of roadside charging points. The change in the next 30 years will be like that in the first half of the last century. In 1900, London had well over 50,000 horses on the roads – imagine shifting all that manure: and if you can’t imagine it, then take a look at http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/. Sixty years later horses were a sight in London and there were over a million cars.
    14. I know some of you are very sceptical about the benefits that this new change will bring but just imagine quieter, cleaner streets, fewer asthma sufferers and fewer deaths through air poisoning. There will be problems and one I can think of is the problem with having wires trailing all over the roads. I have been assured by the Town Hall that this will not be a problem. But you will not have been re-assured by this picture of tangled wiring on page 6 in a recent Guardian. I have demanded further reports from the officers on this issue, which I see as big problem with electric cars.
    15. On the 16th November, I went with 20 members of the Battersea Labour Party to see Labour of Love at the Noel Coward Theatre. It is a comedy, by James Graham, of life in the political world, during the period 1990-2017. It is definitely NOT just for Labour Party people but it is very political and enlivened for us, up in the gallery, by a comic and dismissive description of “Lah-di-Dah” Battersea. See my review at https://tonybelton.wordpress.com/
    16. On 17^th November I went with the grandchildren to see my brother-in-law in Southend-on-Sea. It was a beautiful cold, clear winter’s day. We went out on to the Pier, which I first knew many years ago when my parents would pack me off to spend summer holidays with my aunt and uncle, who lived there. I had a lovely day – I think the two kids did too!
    17. The November meeting of the Planning Applications Committee was on the 22^nd. In many ways it was fairly uneventful. One application was, however, a 10% variation to the very large development, about to go up across York Road from Hope Street. This will include 299 residential units, the College of Dance, some shopping and entertainment facilities. This plan confirms the massive changes taking place on and around the Lombard Road/York Road junction – more expensive private apartments and not many so-called affordable but still expensive flats.
    18. Marsha de Cordova, Battersea’s MP, and I hosted a Reception for new Battersea Labour Party members in the House of Commons on 23rd. It was attended by about 50 party members and a fun evening was had by all.
    19. I went to the Battersea Police Ball, along with 2,000 others, in Battersea Park on the 25^th. It was great fun with plenty of food, fun and fancy dresses. However, for my taste, there was not enough dancing – though I am not sure these days that I would trust my metallic knee for a long bout of dancing.
    20. You may recall that last month I took Falconbrook School Year 6 pupils on a history walk around the Falcon Road area. Well following that, on Tuesday, 28^th November, I was interviewed by Byron, Link and Freya, three of the students, as part of a film on the area being made by the pupils. The film is part of a written, narrated and photographed story of the Winstanley and York Road estates, which it is hoped will be launched in a world premier at Battersea Arts Centre in March, 2018.
    21. Finally, on 29^th November, I attended a Guardian “Live Events” at the Emmanuel Centre, SW1, entitled “Can Brexit be stopped?“ The session was chaired by the Guardian’s political editor　Anushka Asthana　and the panel members were Gina Miller, who initiated the court case against the government over whether or not Parliament should have a final vote over Brexit, Alastair Campbell, formerly Blair adviser and vocal remainer,　ex-Labour MP Gisela Stuart　and John Mann MP, both Labour Brexiters; pictured here (Mann had not yet arrived). Although I am very much a remainer, I thought that Mann was very impressive and Stuart frankly rather weak. It was difficult not to have a lot of respect for Miller but Campbell, love or loathe him, was clearly in a different class as a communicator.
    22. One slightly sobering event during the month was a phone call from the Met about my stolen bike, which you may remember I lost in September. Despite several photographs of one of the “villains”, with whom I was struggling and despite the police constable’s certainty that he knew who the young rascal actually was, the Crown Prosecution Service have decided not to take the case to court.

My Programme for December

On 1^st December, I went to Theatre 503, above the Latchmere pub. I went with a dozen friends to see Australia’s “best new play”, The Dark Room – see next month.
On Sunday 3^rd December, Battersea Labour Party was entertained by Junction Jazz.
On the Monday, 4^th December, I went to the Passenger Transport Liaison Group.
On the 6^th I have a meeting with a constituent to discuss her plans for enlivening and improving the Falcon Road/Battersea High Street link between Clapham Junction and Battersea Square.
And, in the evening, we have the last full Council Meeting of 2017.
On the morning of 7^th December, I am going on a tour of Christchurch school, whilst in the evening I could go to the Kambala Residents Association or the Police Special Neighbourhood Team at the George Shearing Centre but will in fact go to the Licensing Committee to ask it, on behalf of residents, to modify the opening hours of the Anchor pub, Hope Street.
On Saturday, 9^th December there is a party given by the Battersea Fields Tenants.
And on 14^th December, the Planning Applications Committee, and then on to Christmas and the New Year and on May 3^rd the Borough election

Do you know?

Last month I asked “Who or what were Fawcett, Coppock, Hicks, McDermott and Wolftencroft (which are names of roads on the Kambala Estate)? Can you answer just one or all five?

I am starting with Coppock Close and the answer is John Bridgeford Coppock, who was born in 1910, and died in 1981. He was a Lecturer and research chemist, who taught at Battersea Polytechnic from 1935-41. Perhaps he is an unlikely inspiration for the naming but not only is there an education connection with Fawcett (of whom more next month), but his death is just about the same year as the Kambala Estate was completed. The most detailed description of John Coppock that I can find comes from the American Journal of Public Health. I am no expert but this speaks wonders for the international regard for this little known Battersea-based scientist. See: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.72.8.782

July 10, 2017

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

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

My Programme for July

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

Opinion Piece

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

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

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

Do you know?

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

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

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

April 3, 2017

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

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

My Programme for April

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

Do you know?

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

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

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

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

December 6, 2016

Councillor Tony Belton’s North Battersea December, 2016, Newsletter (#91)

1. On 1^st November, I went to the Battersea Society’s organised debate at York Gardens Library on Affordable Housing. The speakers were Lord Bob Kerslake of the Peabody Trust and Councillor Paul Ellis, Wandsworth’s Tory Cabinet Member. It was well attended, but frankly I was a little disappointed. Lord Kerslake told us just how awful the housing situation is for those without their own, secure roof over their heads (he added statistical detail but we all know the “truth”) and both he and Councillor Ellis talked about what Peabody and the Council were doing to resolve the “crisis”. However, as one of the audience said, their contributions are woeful, relative to the scale of the problem. Something much bigger than their worthy but small schemes is needed now!

2. Then on 2^nd November, I was off to Wembley to see my team, Spurs, give an embarrassingly lame performance (0-1) against Germany’s Bayern Leverkusen. You may well ask – Spurs and you get elected in Battersea! My explanation is that I was a kid in Tottenham and that loyalty never dies! But I must say, I don’t really like Wembley, at least for watching soccer. It is so enormous that the players are specks of colour on a green handkerchief in the distance; it’s nothing like as atmospheric as White Hart Lane. I do so much hope that the new Lane is more like the old one than it is to Wembley.

3. Last month, I said I was going to have tea with William Mitchell, the sculptor who did the concrete sculptures on the Winstanley estate and on Badric Court. I did so in his Marylebone flat on 4^th November. He was eloquent about how he wanted to create artworks, which relate to the estate, and interestingly, where and how he did the work, which was mainly on site, using the materials that the construction guys were using at the time. I think his murals do work and interestingly they are and always have been remarkably free of graffiti. The pictures show him, looking sprightly at the age of 90 and another of his sculptures, which adorns that I had forgotten also adorn Totteridge House, Yelverton Road. Oh, and his wife made a great cup of tea.

4. On 8^th November I was at the Share Community Annual Awards in the Town Hall. What an amazing organisation Share Community is! It works with and trains people with disabilities, some quite severe and others less so. But almost all their “clients” have serious problems coping with everyday activities. I admire the staff’s dedication and perhaps most of all their loving patience. I know that I would probably lose my rag with some of the clients some or most of the time. I guess that it helps that the atmosphere in the “share community” is so warm and positive. Here are Wandsworth’s Mayor Richard Field, and Share Chief Executive, Annie McDowell, appreciating one of the musical numbers performed.

5. And on 9^th November, I was at the Council’s so-called Let’s Talk meeting at Bolingbroke School. These meetings were an interesting innovation in the 1990s and were designed to give Jo & Joanna Public a chance to meet and discuss with their local elected representatives. I was at the first one in 2001, in Roehampton. But now the meetings seem to have atrophied. At this one there were more councillors and officers than members of the public and all of the public who were there were “the usual suspects”, who the councillors all knew quite well. There needs to be a “re-think”!

6. The Queenstown ward by-election did take place on 10^th November and I spent much of my time driving, usually elderly or infirm people, to the polling stations. But the significant thing is that “our man”, Aydin Dikerdem, won by 574 votes, in what, for Queenstown, was a landslide. The last time a Labour candidate had a majority this big in that ward was 1974! Well done Aydin. Here is Aydin, with his agent Battersea resident Amy Merrigan.

7. I was at the Remembrance Day Service in Battersea Park on Remembrance Day itself. As is usually the case, by some strange quirk of the weather gods, the day was beautiful and bright. It was a good experience and led me into a peaceful moment of contemplation, not least about the futility and waste of the once so-called Great War. Fellow Councillor Simon Hogg is to be seen in the middle left deep in conversation with the military.

8. The fund-raising dinner in Providence House, on the Falcon Road, on 12^th November was a fun event, which made over £4,000 for the club. “Providence” is by far Latchmere’s largest youth club and deserves to be supported. Here is a picture of the Providence House farm on Dartmoor, where many of the club members get an opportunity to stay and “muck in” around the farm.

9. I took my grand-children to London Zoo on Sunday 13^th. Here we are plus three giraffes, courtesy of a tourist, like us. I am on the left then there’s Pen, Scarlett, Melissa, Jaimie and Jez.

10. I had an uneventful Conservation Area Advisory Committee on 14th November and 2 days later the Planning Applications Committee, which was dominated by discussion of the plan to install an artificial grass pitch in the southern part of Falcon Park. Wandsworth Council planners claimed that the new pitch would only take up 22% of the park, but that really is a case of proving anything with figures as at least another 18% of the park will become such fringe areas as to be almost unusable, resulting in about 40% of the whole, effectively being lost. I, of course, voted against this proposal but I am afraid that it went through by 5 Tory councillors’ votes to 3 Labour votes. In this illustration the pitch is olive green and the “usable” area of the park is in light green and it clearly shows the difficulty of fitting a rectangular quart into a banana shaped park.

11. Did you notice that from November 18^th the 319 Bus started a Night Service. On its route between Streatham Hill and Sloane Square station it runs right through the heart of North Battersea and also stops at Tooting Bec tube station. Running every 30 minutes it will be a boon to all night-owls.

12. One worrying prediction about the future is the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (AST)’s assessment of what is going to happen to school staffing and budgets by 2020, which is after all only just over 3 years away. Across the country school budgets are going to be cut by an average of £401 per pupil per primary school budget and yet locally Falconbrook is taking a £752 hit, Christ Church £840, Highview £810 and Westbridge a jaw-dropping £960 cut. It really does look as though this Government is looking after schools in the leafy parts of the country and making us, in the inner cities, pay. The total cut for Battersea schools is just over a whopping £4 million a year.

My Programme for December

1. On 1^st December, I have a meeting of Wandsworth’s Labour councillors. We have them every couple of months, which I don’t think is often enough, but it is our chance to get together and discuss how we are going to tackle the long-term Tory dominance of the Borough. As someone, who has not been able to solve that one for 40 years, I am of course the expert. But with Brexit to the east and Trump to the west, I don’t think that Labour positioning itself as simply a more caring, moderate version of Toryism is going to appeal any more, even if it ever did.

2. On Monday, 5^th December, I am standing in for Simon as the Labour Rep on the St. Mary Park “Let’s Talk” session at St. John Bosco College in St. Mary Park ward. It will be interesting to see just what the new school is like.

3. Then on Wednesday, 6^th December, we will have a full Council Meeting. I would no doubt be in mental anguish if, I were there having to listen to the nonsense emanating from Tory mouths (we, Labour councillors, are of course all geniuses), but actually I’ll be in physical anguish getting used to my new metal left knee, fitted that morning. And to be truthful I rather suspect that is my December but if things go really well then…….?

4. I will be back in the Town Hall for the Planning Applications Committee on the 14th December. The application for the corner site of Culvert and Battersea Park Roads is likely to be the major item of discussion. If you haven’t yet recorded your views, for or against, then now is the time to do so at https://planning1.wandsworth.gov.uk/Northgate/PlanningExplorer/GeneralSearch.aspx and look for application 2016/4188.

Do you know?

Last month I asked you, “Who was Hilda Hewlett, commemorated by a plaque on a Battersea house and one time resident of Park Mansions, Prince of Wales Drive? Was she the first woman:

a) Licensed pilot in the UK?

b) To run 100 yards in 13 seconds?

c) To star opposite Lambeth born star Charlie Chaplin?”

A couple of you got it right straight-away but not many knew. She was, of course, the first licensed female pilot in the UK. If I remember rightly it was in 1910 and she was actually only the 10^th licensed UK pilot at all. She went on to start her own Battersea aircraft factory, with many of her planes playing an important part in the First World War. Later, she retired to a peaceful life in New Zealand.

And so for this month’s mystery question!

On 28^th November, I received this remarkable picture from my friend Christine Eccles. It shows an historic event in Battersea, which certainly was unknown to me. There is a road sign to give a clue as to where it is and the clothing gives a pretty good indication of the period, but can anyone suggest anything more specific about the date and who is standing on the traditional soap box addressing the crowd?

November 3, 2016

Councillor Tony Belton’s North Battersea* November, 2016, Newsletter (#90)

* Note: Now covering North Battersea and not just Latchmere, because of popular demand (!), but the Newsletter will continue to be largely Latchmere based.
I didn’t get to the Katherine Low Settlement AGM on 5^th October as I had a meeting of Planning Committee members with the Chairs of the Wandsworth Design Panel. Given comments some of you make about planning in Wandsworth, I realise that you will be astonished to hear that we have a design panel – but we do! There was a helpful exchange of views but the architects, planners and design experts on the panels clearly have a more pro-development attitude than do many residents – development is, of course, the developers’ job. The end result is, I think, that the design panel finds you (and me, perhaps) and the public, a bit too conservative in our tastes; it’s as though they want to wake up in the morning and see an exciting new “concept” building outside their front window, whereas most of us want the view to look tomorrow pretty much as it does today.
The next day I went to a Reception given by the Covent Garden Market Authority. The Market is the site of one of the largest single developments in British history – I suspect as a single site it is even larger than the Power Station but maybe not. The planned amount of affordable housing included in it and, even more importantly, of “social rent” properties is lamentably low and some of us are for ever pushing for more and more of both. On this occasion, however, it was the Chair of the traders, who stole the show with a plea to safeguard the actual traders, who are of course the raison d’etre of the Market. Will his plea have any effect? I hope so, as a very high percentage of London hotel and restaurant food and nearly all the flowers that get into our shops come through the Market and its traders.
Appropriately at the Council Meeting on 12^th October one of the two main debates was about Nine Elms, the US Embassy, the developments and what the Tories like to call “Aspirations”. A central feature of the debate was the decision of Apple to move its UK headquarters into the Power Station.
But the Tories seem to think that “aspirations” equates to expensive housing developments and the presence of a Waitrose. They don’t give the impression of caring what is happening to much of the local Battersea community or to the housing aspirations of the many lower paid staff, who will service these developments.
And as for the Power Station itself! It certainly is looking a mess, but, perhaps more worryingly, given the size of the new blocks of flats around it, the only chance to see the Power Station itself, will be from the new flats, the Chelsea Embankment or from a plane flying into Heathrow! (see Aydin picture below)
The other debate at the Council Meeting was about the very worrying financial chaos that surrounds St. George’s Hospital. With more than half of NHS Trusts now facing financial difficulties, it must be the case that either all administrators in the NHS have all become incompetent overnight (which is unlikely) or this Government is starving them of funds – which is more likely as I, and recently members of the House of Commons Health Select Committee, suggest.
Monday 17^th was an interesting day. A few weeks earlier, I had been asked by email if I was prepared to take part in a Brains’ Trust circuit touring universities. It was all very vague as to what it was about and who it was for, but I volunteered 2 dates anyway. The 17^th was the first date, but when Monday arrived I had heard nothing and expected “it” not to happen – whatever it was. But when I looked at my email that morning there was a rail ticket to Norwich for that afternoon.
I got to Norwich at about 5 pm and discovered that the four of us (in the picture here) were there to be taken by taxi to speak at “The Great Debate, 2016” (#gtd2016), organised by the Afro-Caribbean students at East Anglia University. There were 50 people at the debate and my guess is that I was the only one over 30 years’ old. I was certainly the only white “Brit” there – there were a couple of Bulgarians. The debates were about “Getting a job”, Brexit and Black Lives Matter.
The students were very bright, mainly Londoners; the debate was lively, and very “respectful”. It was fascinating and gave me a slightly different perspective on these issues. For example, the students seemed much more materialist in terms of their career expectations than my generation of students had been; they were almost unanimously horrified by Brexit; and they were, not surprisingly, very much more “angry” about the recent spate of US police killings of black men than the average “Brit”. I think the average Brit is not really very conscious of how close many Caribbean Brits are to many black Americans, who may well have come from the same families back in Jamaica or elsewhere.
On the 19^th I had the Planning Applications Committee. There was only one application of really direct interest to Latchmere and that was for 105 Meyrick Road. The application was to demolish what used to be the Duke of Wellington pub and to replace it with a 10-storey block of flats. The application was refused, much to the pleasure of both current residents and some neighbours.
There were two more applications for large developments in the Nine Elms Lane area – one of them including 25% “affordable” housing, more than the average. “Affordable” housing is, of course, a bureaucratic invention and means a property affordable to the average person on £75,000 a year – which of course is not very average!
Rather more interesting perhaps was an application from Tesco to convert the Prince of Wales pub at 186 Battersea Bridge Road into a convenience store. We turned that down, against the planning officers’ recommendation, for two main reasons. First, we felt that there are completely inadequate facilities for loading and delivery from Tesco lorries at this tight corner site, and secondly, we thought that a Tesco at this corner, however popular it would be to some, would undermine local shopping in Battersea Park and Battersea Bridge Roads.
On the 20^th I went to the Council’s Heliport Consultative Committee. There was not a lot of general interest except that we were told the good news that the newer generation of choppers coming out in the next 10 years or so will be 30% less noisy than today’s models. Of much greater interest, however, was the announcement that the Government intends to press ahead with Heathrow’s Third Runway. Wandsworth Council is very much against this development and may, with other local authorities, take legal action to try and prevent it. One local MP, Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) has resigned and is forcing a by-election. Our MPs are against it, but actually in my many years as a Latchmere councillor I have only ever had a couple of complaints about aircraft noise. Please, let me know what you think. Why not just hit reply NOW and say “I am against the third runway” or “I think a third runway would be good for London”?
I spent 22^nd/23^rd weekend at my brother-in-law’s at Westcliff-on-Sea. So! I hear you say, but just take a look at this sunset over the Thames in late October – almost sunbathing weather at Southend.
I was invited to meet North Battersea residents’ associations on 25^th October at the Kambala club-room – pictured here, with Kambala Chair, Donna Barham. There were, maybe 20 tenants and leaseholders from the Kambala, York Road, the Doddington, Surrey Lane and other estates. They wanted to tell me their complaints about cleaning on estates – or the lack of it – and the Council’s inadequate response to resident complaints. I intend to take up their problems but the question is, “Will I get any effective response from the Council?” Watch this space for further developments.
Some of you have asked about the quince and my attempt to make quince jelly. I am afraid it never set! Still I have been using it as a sauce – goes well with pork.
And finally, on October 31^st guess what I saw on a Battersea house! And did I see it moving?

My Programme for November

On 1^st November, the Battersea Society has organised a debate at York Gardens Library on Affordable Housing. The speakers are Lord Bob Kerslake of the Peabody Trust and Councillor Paul Ellis, Wandsworth’s Tory Cabinet Member (that’s Wandsworth’s Cabinet and not the real Cabinet – how I dislike that pompous bit of nomenclature!) for Housing. I know Ellis, of course – he is a Wandsworth councillor, but funnily enough I also know Bob quite well as years ago we worked together at County Hall for the GLC (Greater London Council). I look forward to seeing them debating this important issue.
Winstanley Estate
You may remember that last month I featured William Mitchell, the sculptor who did the concrete sculptures on the Winstanley estate and on Badric Court. I said that his work will feature in the forthcoming Winstanley News. Well, I am going to visit him on 4^th November – that should be fascinating.
I intend to go to the Share Community Annual Awards on 8^th November and on 9^th November, I will be representing the Labour councillors at a public meeting being held at Bolingbroke School.
The Queenstown ward by-election will take place on 10^th November and so that will keep me busy, especially on the day. Our candidate, pictured here, is Aydin Dikerdem, a 26-year old, Battersea born and bred lad of Turkish extraction. The previous Labour councillor Sally-Ann Ephson had a majority of only 75 and so it will be a tough fight for Aydin holding off the Tory challenger, but if he wins I am sure he will add vigour and enthusiasm to the Labour group of councillors.
On 12^th November, I will be attending a fund raiser at Providence House, Falcon Road. Providence House is the most important youth club in Clapham Junction and the evening should be fun.
But perhaps not quite as much as taking my grand-children to London Zoo on Sunday 13^th.
On the 14^th I have the Conservation Area Advisory Committee and 2 days later the Planning Applications Committee. I suspect that the application at the corner of Culvert and Battersea Park Roads, which I featured last month and is pictured here, will not be considered. It is more likely to be in December or January. But please let me know what you think of this application – again hit “reply” and tell me what you think.
On the 26^th I have the so-called London Summit. It is when Mayor Sadiq Khan invites all London’s councillors to discuss his and others’ plans for the next couple of years. You may recall that Sadiq was my deputy as Labour Leader on Wandsworth Council for several years up to 2005. It will be great to hear his ideas for our city.

Do you know?

Last month I asked you, whether you knew the connection between Christ Church School, at the end of Este Road, and the nearby Shillington Old School Building? And can you name one of its early pupils? The answers are – the local parish started Christ Church school in about 1864. But the parish couldn’t maintain the school in competition with the new state school, the London Board School of Este Road. In 1883 that school moved into the Shillington Street site, now flats, and the Batten Street site reverted to being Christ Church – and that was the connection. As for the pupil, it was the later famous John Burns.

This month let me ask you, “Who was Hilda Hewlett, commemorated by a plaque on a Battersea house and one time resident of Park Mansions, Prince of Wales Drive? Was she the first woman:

a) Licensed pilot in the UK?

b) To run 100 yards in 13 seconds?

c) To star opposite Lambeth born star Charlie Chaplin?”

Councillor Tony Belton’s North Battersea, September, 2016, Newsletter (# 88)

1. OK, so I know it’s still August but I am off tomorrow and won’t be back until well into September and so here is a very short September Newsletter.

2. I wasn’t really complaining last month, just commenting, that I had received a criticism of the July newsletter, but I would like to thank you for the many very positive responses I got in reply to that criticism. In fact, as a number of you remarked on the scale of Wandsworth Council’s operations, it has given me lots of ideas for my future “Did you know” sections!

3. So what did happen in August? Well, I started, as promised, on August 2^nd by reviewing, with members of the Battersea Society, their suggested list of buildings of local historic and/or architectural significance. It was a magnificently eclectic list, ranging from stink pipes (built over Victorian sewers to allow the smell to escape – yes, there are a couple that I know of in Battersea) to Victorian post boxes, from splendid nineteenth-century houses to long sets of granite paving stones. We even decided to ask for the listing of four Winstanley murals – see “Did you know?” below.

4. I had my Council surgery

St. Mary’s RC school, Queenstown

in Battersea Reference Library on Saturday, 6^th August, and then on 10^th August I visited the new St. Mary’s R. C. Primary School in Lockington Road. The site is called Battersea Exchange as a reference to the connection between Battersea Park and Queenstown Road railway stations. It is developing fast, and will contain several hundred flats, as well as the school which will open for some classes this September. It should be noted that a few years ago, the school would have been built by the Council, using taxpayer money, but this school is built as a by-product of private development. Is that a good thing? Saves us all money but possibly only at the cost of allowing bigger, more profitable developments?

Pedalos on way home

5. On the 7^th I, and my partner, decided to go to Weymouth for a day trip from Clapham Junction. It was a great day, very sunny and warm, and a reminder of just how good it is to have CJ on our door-step and, therefore, every south coast resort within a couple of hours from home.

Wandle, Charlie Reed, Turf Project

6. On the 12^th I was persuaded to go to an exhibition on the River Wandle: A constant Amid Change Exhibition. It was organised by the Turf Centre, Croydon, which is a non-profit artist-run community project. Actually if you know as much about the River Wandle and its long industrial history as I do, then you would find it disappointing, but as East Croydon is only 10 minutes from CJ it was no great hardship. (The first Council I ever served on (1971-74) started the Wandle Walk alongside the river. It seemed a bit of a joke back then but now it really is a pedestrian and bicycle highway). It was a small exhibition of the paintings by local school teacher Charlie Reed and in themselves they were nice enough. This was my favourite.

7. I had the Planning Applications Committee on 15^th. It really was a nothing event with only 7 really minor applications, but the hot news, that has a big impact on

Hope Street Sports

Latchmere, is that the Hope Street Sports Centre has been saved for at least a couple more years. This happy reprieve is, perhaps, a completely unexpected result of the Brexit vote, because, instead of proceeding with a private development of luxury properties, just off Shuttleworth Road, the company concerned is selling its stake in the site to Wandsworth Council for council housing. The site will be used to re-house tenants and leaseholders from the Winstanley, during the regeneration.

8. I think that Simon Hogg, Wendy Speck and I can reasonably claim some credit for this outcome as ward councillors. We have kept constant pressure on the Wandsworth administration for a full one:one replacement of social housing being redeveloped on the estate and for the Hope Street Centre to be kept until an adequate replacement is provided as part of the Winstanley regeneration. This new site frees up space for the Council both to provide social housing and keep the Centre open.

9. Another piece of good news is that as well as starting night services on the Northern and Central lines of the underground as from 19^th August, Transport for London (TFL) announced an improvement of evening and week-end services for the 344, a bus route, which many of you use. The improvement is an increase in regularity with it becoming a one in 10 minute as opposed to 12-minute service; sounds really small but it is an 18% increase!

10. On the 18^th we had the by-election in Tooting ward. Labour’s candidate, Paul White, a close friend, won with a majority of 823, which represents a swing to Labour of over 8%. The turn-out of 20% was, of course, very low as it always was likely to be for an August by-election, but nevertheless it was a welcome victory.

11. On 19^th August, we are going to stay with Mary Jay, Douglas Jay’s widow, in Oxfordshire. Most readers will not know either Douglas or Mary, but Douglas was Battersea’s M.P. from 1946-1973 and a member of Harold Wilson’s Cabinet, 1964-67. Douglas was a doughty politician – he campaigned against the inner London motorway box and won (the Box would have obliterated much of modern Battersea, creating a Spaghetti Junction centred on the Latchmere) and against Britain’s entry into what was then the Common Market (and lost). I wonder what he would have said about the Referendum result. I know he would have been very dismissive about the Referendum so-called “debate”.

12. And on Monday, 23^rd, I am off for my three-week holiday to Florence and then the Croatian coast.

My Programme for September

1. I am at the Planning Applications Committee on the 14^th September.

2. And the Met Police’s Special Neighbourhood Team (SNT) meeting at the George Shearing centre on the15^th, although I must admit that recently I have missed the SNT rather more than I would have liked.

3. I have the Wandsworth Conservation Area Committee on the 19^th September. And on 20^th, the Community Services Committee.

4. Then on Saturday 24^th September I have the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool. I am not at all sure that I will be going to it, even though it can be great fun. This year though it will be much enlivened, for good or for ill, by the announcement of the result of our big Leadership Election between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith. What price a peaceful week after that?

Do you know?

Last month I asked which 150^th anniversary was being celebrated this year at the Este Road Fire Station. It was in fact the 150^th anniversary of the Metropolitan Fire Service. And the Este Road building was said to be a “cut-price” miniature of the Victoria Embankment’s London Fire Brigade Headquarters. Do you see the resemblance?

Winstanley Estate

I said in paragraph 3 above that we asked for the listing of four murals on the Winstanley estate. Here is one of them in Thomas Baines Road. Had you ever really stopped and looked at it? And can you tell me anything about them, such as the name of the sculptor?

August 2, 2016

Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere August, 2016, Newsletter (# 87)

I received one criticism of my last newsletter, which said that I spent too much time talking about planning applications and the elections of the last couple of months. My critic also said that I failed to cover some Council matters. I think a quick defence is due. Firstly I have always said that this blog is a diary, my diary, of being a councillor. I have never claimed to cover everything and nor could I. Perhaps not everyone realises that Wandsworth Council’s turnover is only just less than £1 billion, yes billion and not just a million a year; that its rental income alone amounts to more than £110 million; that the property assets of the Council (remember many thousands of council flats and houses, swimming pools, offices, etc.) are worth £2billions; and that, if the Council were measured in the same way as private companies, it would be about 160 in the Footsie 250.
Secondly, if an elected councillor didn’t mention elections in the two months when we had a Mayoral election, the Referendum and a Parliamentary by-election in the Borough, perhaps some would make criticisms – the other way. So to my critic, I note your comments and will try to take the spirit of them on board but I don’t totally agree!
I wrote last month of the flooding that affected Sendall Court and its neighbours Shaw and Clark Lawrence Courts. The floods messed up the lifts in the three blocks but Sendall Court’s lifts were out of action for the best part of a week and, what is worse, the staircase, which has no natural light, was in total darkness. So, I asked a Council Question (like Prime Minister’s Question Time but not quite!) at the Council Meeting on 20^th July and at last got an answer on 28^th July.
It was a bureaucratic answer, like one expects from insurance companies, https://democracy.wandsworth.gov.uk/documents/s44848/Council%20Questions%20and%20Answers%2020th%20July%202016%20final.pdf, Question 31, page 33/60), and not at all what the residents deserve. I will be putting the case throughout the summer. I will be arguing that those living on the 5^th to 10^th floor young or old, fit or not so fit, should get at least a £50 goodwill cut from their rent or service charges.
While I am writing about very, specific local issues, I would like to announce that I won an argument for a tenant living in one of the very rare private flats in the area bounded by the railway, Falcon, Plough and York Roads, and who has zero access to parking facilities – neither a residents’ nor a tenants’ nor a leaseholders’ parking permit. The Council have agreed that he should be able to buy a council parking permit to use in one of the very much under-used council carparks, such as the ones in Grant Road. There are a few other people similarly living with this problem, for example in St. Luke’s Court, Falcon Road or the flats at 105 Meyrick Road. I would be pleased to hear from any of you if you think you need the same facility.
Meanwhile on the 1^st July, my niece and her husband took me and t’other half to the Hammersmith Apollo to see Bill Bailey, the comedian. It was a very amusing and very cleverly crafted show and he is clearly brilliant at very shaggy dog stories. One I remember was about taking his extended family into the forested depths of Finland, about dog sleds and getting snowed in, about grandmas falling off sleds, and all in order to see the Northern Lights. It had all the elements of a good shaggy dog, with endless details before the punchline, which effectively was that it was total cloud cover that night in June in the depths of the Finnish forests. Instead, the best place to see the Northern Lights that night was Dagenham!
On Monday, 4^th July, I took High View School’s Council on a visit to meet the Mayor of Wandsworth and to see the Council Chamber. The Mayor, with some of the staff and me, gave a “lesson” about what your council does. I think the picture of the School Council standing round and behind the Mayor’s chair shows that they enjoyed the visit.
On the 5^th I had the Community Services Committee, where amongst the items for discussion were the extension/rejection of CPZ (controlled parking zones or meters) schemes in the Eltringham/Petergate and Holgate/Maysoule areas. There was agreement to introduce Saturday restrictions in Eltringham and Petergate but to refuse the petition for a CPZ in Holgate/Maysoule. The reasons are given in two Committee papers, which can be seen at https://democracy.wandsworth.gov.uk/documents/s44394/16-269%20Eltringham%20Road%20CPZ%202nd%20review.pdf and https://democracy.wandsworth.gov.uk/documents/s44398/16-270%20Holgate-outcome%20consultation-June2016%20v2.pdf. However, I think there may be scope to resolve the problems some Holgate residents have in much the same way as I referred to in Paragraph 5 above. So if you are interested then please contact me.
On the 9^th July, I went, as I do most years, to the Triangle (Poyntz, Knowles, Shellwood roads) Street party. It was as enjoyable as ever with the Mayor and the Fire Brigade putting in guest appearances. But I am afraid that there were fewer people there than usual. Maybe this was because it was a cool, July evening, of which there have been rather too many this summer!
I was lobbied during the month by residents wanting to know what might happen in Falcon Park. There is, as many will know, a plan for a new artificial pitch, but I was asked whether there was any chance of the artificial football pitch at the neighbouring Sacred Heart school site being expanded. I made enquiries at the Town Hall and got the kind of bureaucratic, negative response that I expected. It is too long to repeat here but, if you are interested, you can access both question and answer at https://democracy.wandsworth.gov.uk/documents/s44848/Council%20Questions%20and%20Answers%2020th%20July%202016%20final.pdf, Question 39, page 40/60.
I went to the Battersea Society’s annual summer party at St. Mary’s Church on the riverside on 14^th July and that too did not seem as well attended as usual. I wonder why? Could it be that this cool summer has dampened much enthusiasm.
I was in Battersea Park on Saturday, 16^th, and went to The Bandstand Party. I guess that a number of Latchmere residents might have been there – I certainly met a few old friends. It was, of course, centred on the old Victorian bandstand and featured jazz and country/folk music. The Park was looking great and lots of people were out there playing cricket, softball, rounders, soccer and other sports from all over the world. It’s always fun being in the Park on a nice day and, if the Bandstand Party becomes an annual event, then I recommend it.
On the 18^th I dropped in on Colette Morris, the Head of Christ Church Primary school, to learn about the school’s gardening expertise and their award for open air learning. Christ Church is the only urban school in the country to have this award. The school also has the benefit of being right next to Falcon Park, where they have a daily mile run for all. No obesity at Christ Church!
The Council Meeting on 20^th July was totally focused on the Referendum Result and the reaction to it of the Council and of councillors. We unanimously agreed a motion pledging to do our best to maintain the best possible community relations here in Wandsworth and to show solidarity with all current immigrant populations resident locally. It was generally a civilised and reasonable debate, but it still strikes me as odd that Tory councillors blamed the result, and hence the resignation of PM, Cameron, on Labour for not getting the “Remain” vote out. This despite the fact that of 19 Labour councillors probably 17 voted Remain and only 2 perhaps voted Brexit, whereas of the 41 Tory councillors at least a dozen were proud of their Brexit vote – a vote that in its Labour:Tory split seemed to be reflected across the country.
On the 21^st July I had the Planning Applications Committee (PAC), about which my critic will be delighted to hear I have nothing to say – there was nothing on the agenda, which would have much interested the neighbours let alone any casual reader!
On Saturday, 23^rd I rather sadly went to my first Hindu funeral. This, the public funeral, was on the tenth day after the death; the preferred dress for both men and women was white, although I noticed many of the younger men were wearing smart black suits; the standard food, a must I was told in Gujerat, was a comparatively mild, vegetarian curry. The private funeral, for relatives only, took place two days later on the twelfth and marks the release of the soul from the body, and the thirteenth day marks samskara (reincarnation). As I understood it, it is not fit and proper to mourn after that, since by now the soul will be re-incarnated in another form. So rest in peace, Mayuri (Mary) Kotecha, my neighbourhood friend.
Returning from the funeral, I dropped into the York Gardens Active party and the consultations in the Library about the estate regeneration. I must say that I was very disappointed about the consultation. It seemed far too vague to encourage almost any popular response. I left with a certain feeling of dis-satisfaction, which ironically was shared by the potential developers. The Council has to improve on that. My good humour was, however, restored by meeting this charming cool cat on the way out!
Finally, have you seen the story about the £65,000 funding for improvements to Latchmere Recreation Ground. I must confess that I know nothing much about this but it is announced in a July 31^st press release from Wandsworth Guardian and includes the following online address http://enablelc.org/parkssurvey. residents are encouraged to give their views in the very first week of August – and I recommend those of you, local to the Rec, to do so.

My Programme for August

1. I am helping to review Battersea Society’s suggested list of buildings of local historic and/or architectural significance on Tuesday, 2^nd August.

2. I have my Council surgery in Battersea Reference Library from 10 am on Saturday, 6^th August. Do come and see me if you have any particular concern.

3. I am at the Planning Applications Committee on the 15^th.

4. And have yet another by-election in Tooting ward on 18^th.

5. And then on 22^nd, I am off for a three-week holiday to Florence and then on to the Croatian coast.

Do you know?

Last month I asked which anniversary of Christ Church School was being celebrated at the recent Falcon Festival. It was, of course, as a few of you replied, the school’s 150^th anniversary.

At the same Festival we also celebrated a 150th anniversary at the Este Road Fire Station, but it was not the 150^th anniversary of that building so what was it that happened in 1866? And secondly the fire station is said to be a “cut-price” miniature of another fire station elsewhere. Do you know which?

July 6, 2016

Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere July, 2016, Newsletter (# 86)

1. What a month this has been! There was the Tooting By-election and many, many other events but I have to start with the Referendum. I guess we all know the national result, but you might not know that Wandsworth voted 118,463 to 39,421 or 75.4% to 24.6% in favour of “Remain”. This was the sixth strongest “Remain” region in the country. I understand that every part of Wandsworth, including Latchmere, voted Remain.

2. Since then, Cameron has resigned and Corbyn is under pressure; Boris is politically an extinct volcano and Gove very nearly so. The Tory Party is reeling; but what about the Labour Party? Personally, I think it almost impossible to assess that for a month or two. I do think that both parties should remember the old saying: “Act in haste, repent at leisure”. There are clearly signs of that already with the Tory favourites for the top job going from Johnson to Gove to May in the space of a week, whilst Labour MPs called on Corbyn to resign but with no alternative candidate to replace him – and no certainty that in any event any candidate could beat Corbyn amongst the Labour Party membership.

3. Personally, despite all the comments about the vote being final, I rather doubt that it will be. Voting for Brexit is one thing. Repeating that vote, after negotiations that do not produce any change to immigration and barely change trading conditions but do clearly presume the break-up of the United Kingdom is, I think, a little different – especially when the Brexit majority was so small.

4. But first I should say that if you are concerned about your own immediate position, then don’t be. Nothing is going to happen, in legal terms, about the UK’s relationship with Europe before 2018. No Europeans working here without British citizenship are going immediately to have to return to their country unless they wish to. However, if you do want to discuss your own position, do please email me and I will see how I can help. Equally, if you know anyone else who needs advice, please invite them to contact me.

5. Rather more locally, in June, I commented on the Mayoral and Greater London Elections and last month, on the 16^th, I was involved in the Tooting by-election. Most of the time I was in Tooting I was acting as chauffeur for the Labour candidate, Rosena Allin-Khan (pictured here with Mayor Sadiq Khan) – what you might call a cushy number! It was a pleasant experience driving her round, as opposed to the foot-slogging that I am more used to. It was particularly good for Labour as Rosena more than doubled the majority, and that on only slightly more than half the turn-out of last year’s General Election.

6. There were special circumstances. The Zac Goldsmith Mayoral campaign was, of course, uniquely bad – one wonders whether he will ever recover credibility; Sadiq Khan has had a fantastically successful first month as Mayor; Rosena was a very impressive candidate; her name was top of the ballot paper; her Tory opponent’s bottom on the paper; everything was right for her. Nevertheless this was the most successful election for Labour, in the Borough, since 1997. Interesting!

7. Meanwhile at the start of the month, I had a family week-end in Cirencester, and the following weekend on 12^th June, I led a Wandsworth Heritage Festival Walk from the Latchmere pub to Battersea Arts Centre. A dozen people turned up in the drizzle, but we had an enjoyable walk – the show must go on, as they say. And in the last week-end I went on another family walk at Beachy Head. In this fitful summer, I managed to get soaked twice and sunburnt once. As I said before, “what a month!”.

8. Getting back to Latchmere, the torrential rain on the 23^rd caused bad flooding. The Latchmere Road railway underpass, as seen in this picture by Ruth Dangerfield, was impassable and the lift shafts of Weybridge Point, Sendall, Clark Lawrence and Shaw Courts and a few others across the Borough were all flooded. This meant that the lifts were out of action, which is, of course, inconvenient, if it is for even one night but, in the case of Sendall Court, it was a week. I visited and called on many of the residents.

9. Walking up and down 10 flights of stairs is bad enough but, with electricity also out and no daylight available on the staircase and hallways, it was near to impossible for some people. This situation happens too often in Council blocks vulnerable to flooding and I will be pressing the Council to come up with some long-term solutions to a problem, which, given current climate forecasts, is only going to get worse. Meanwhile, I will argue a case for residents in Sendall Court receiving some kind of compensation.

10. On the 25^th June there was, as many of you will know, the inaugural Falcon Festival. The Festival, based mainly outside Providence House and down Este Road, was a great success but slightly spoilt by a very heavy storm around 4 pm. I was part of the Wandsworth Heritage stall, presenting photographs and telling the story of the development of Battersea Village, Battersea High Street and Falcon Road. My colleagues in this picture also ran a Labour Party stall, opposite the fire station in Este Road.

11. On 27^th I had the Planning Applications Committee (PAC). Again it had a relatively light agenda. The major application was one on Swandon Way, the main road from Wandsworth Bridge roundabout to the Wandsworth one-way system. Essentially it was an application for 320 residential units and a few shops to be built on the Homebase site. But it included a 17 storey block right behind Wandsworth Town Station. The Committee, unusually, rejected the scheme. There was one other application that concerned me personally: it was for a back extension and was submitted by my next-door neighbour! I, of course, could not take part and it passed, which mildly annoyed me – but that’s life!

12. Two days later, I had the Passenger Transport Group (PTLG), where I heard about the changes made to signage, either side of the Latchmere Road railway underpass. Residents will have noticed these improvements and some other small changes, which are aimed at stopping large vehicles getting trapped under the bridge. Let’s hope that after many years of lobbying from local residents, this will solve the problem.

13. There were a number of other matters reported to that Group, many of very local interest, but one that might interest many of you is that it is the intention to run an 8 trains an hour night time service on the Northern Line beginning before Xmas.

14. Given my complaint in May that Jane Ellison, Battersea’s M.P., had not stood out against the Government over the Alf Dubs motion re refugee children, I should say that Jane wrote to me. As I would expect from Jane, it was a long and considered reply, but, as she would expect, it did not wholly convince me. For example, she stated that “local authorities … are already doing an excellent job caring for the many unaccompanied asylum seeking children in the UK”. I am sure that many of us will have doubts about how excellent a job is being done, but I thank her for her reply.

15. Finally, and tragically, I must make mention of the murder of Matthew Kitandwe in Wayford Street on June 22^th. Knife and violent crime is a horrible blemish on our society and, in this case, has not only brought one young life to an awful end, but also ruined the lives of the two misguided young men currently under police suspicion. We must all support the Met Police’s Operation Sceptre against knife crime.

My Programme for July

1. On Monday, 4^th July, I am taking the school council from Highview School to the Town Hall to meet the Mayor and to discuss the work of the Council and its role in our community. Highview is not, of course, actually in Latchmere but many of its pupils live just down the road in the ward.

2. 5^th July, I have my first Community Services Committee. The Committee covers planning policies, parking and transport matters, parks, libraries and lots of other bits & pieces. This month it is going to consider whether to change and/or extend controlled parking schemes in Eltringham Street and Petergate, and in the Holgate Avenue/Maysoule Road area.

3. Then on the 6^th there is the Big Local Annual Meeting at York Gardens library, which I hope to get to.

4. On Saturday, 10^th, I will try to get to the Triangle Street party in Shellwood Road. This is one of the very best street parties in the Borough and I always look forward to meeting the residents of Poyntz, Shellwood and Knowsley Roads.

5. On the 14^th the Battersea Society is having its annual summer party at St. Mary’s Church.

6. The Council Meeting is on the 20^th and the Planning Applications Committee on the 21^st.

Do you know?

Last month I asked what this grand building was and where its replacement is? I had two correct answers, one of them from Wandsworth’s retiring Director of Finance. He writes, “the old Battersea Baptist Chapel, now located on Wye Street” and also one of our polling stations.

Do you know this school? Of course, you do, don’t you? But perhaps slightly more specifically do you know the year of its foundation and therefore the number anniversary which was celebrated at the Falcon Festival? (sorry about the picture but, with its surrounding wall, it is almost impossible to photograph!)

March 9, 2016

Councillor Tony Belton’s Latchmere March, 2016, Newsletter (# 82)

On February 2^nd, I was briefed on the plans for, what I called last month, the Tesco block on Falcon Road, though strictly speaking neither of the two planned retail units are definitely going to be Tescos – that is yet to be decided. The intention is to do a comprehensive re-development, between Khyber and Patience Roads, with retail on the ground floor and four storeys of residential units above. How many of these will be affordable (in the modern jargon definition of affordable) is up for negotiation. These indicative drawings of the development show the intention: it will have an adverse impact on 1-15 Patience Road and maybe on sunlight in 2-8 Patience Road. However, by the standards of some of the giant developments nearby this is unexceptional. OK, I hope you agree.
I went to the SNT Meeting, on 4^th February at the George Shearing Centre, in Este Road. SNT is police jargon for the police Special Neighbourhood Team and they have quarterly meetings with a number of local representatives of resident associations and tenant groups, where issues of ”Latchmere interest” are discussed. Unfortunately, because of clashes with other meetings, I often cannot get there. The police told us that there were 8 more crimes in January than there had been in January last year but that there had been a fall of 28 in December compared with the previous year. The good news is that on the whole the trend across the Borough has, for some years, been downwards.
One minor pleasure of being a councillor for many years is that occasionally someone, usually a student of politics or journalism, wants to come and write an essay based on your experiences. On 10th February, Andri, a Roehampton student of journalism came along to quiz me on the nature and significance of local politics – so that he could write a paper on the subject. It gives one a chance to indulge in the kind of self-centred ramblings that constituents would never put up with. Fun – and it ended far too soon! I hope that Andri’s essay got a good mark!
On 11^th February I had the first of two Education and Children’s Services Committees. Two important items were under discussion, namely the Schools Admissions system and Pupil Place Planning. However, as the transfer between primary and secondary schools seems to have happened quite smoothly this year there was not much to say on the admissions system except “steady as she goes”. Since the Committee met, the potential shortage of secondary school places across the country has been national news. It has been said that the country may have a shortfall of one million places in 5-10 years’ time. And certainly local authorities have protested about the absurdity created by the current Government, whereby local authorities are responsible for providing a sufficient number of school places but are not actually allowed to provide them directly. The academies, it is hoped, will just expand or contract appropriately but without being part of any planning system. The Tory party’s daft reliance on the market could be the cause of much heartache. However, here in Wandsworth we were re-assured that there would be sufficient secondary places even if there might be a tight squeeze in some years. But you may remember that last month I commented that the Chestnut Grove Academy is embarking on the demolition and redevelopment of the school – one Council paper says that there will be 88 extra places and another says there will be none! How we are meant to plan on that basis beggars belief!
There were also a number of cuts, as seems inevitable these days. One was the effective closure of the Alton Activity Centre for youngsters – regrettable as that is, it will have no impact on Latchmere. Perhaps more relevant is the closure of the Accredited Training and Assessment Centre (ATAC), which currently operates out of Battersea Park Road Library, with the loss of half a dozen trainer jobs. But although it is very local to Latchmere I don’t know much about ATAC, which perhaps says something about its significance, or lack of, in the community.
On the 18^th there was the Community Services Committee, of which I am not a member, but which I will mention because there were a number of issues of importance to Latchmere, namely the possibility of extending the parking control zones (cpz) in Eltringham/Petergate Road area and Wye Street and installing a zebra crossing in Ingrave Street near to Falconbrook School – a mixed bag! The recommendation to extend the parking zone hours in the Eltringham/Petergate area was deferred until June, thanks unfortunately to the intervention, as I understand it, of Tory St. Mary Park councillor Rory O’Broin. The extension of the cpz was agreed in Wye Street and the zebra crossing refused, even though the Committee agreed to “improve” the road signs about the school.
On the 22^nd we had the second of the two Education and Children’s Services Committees and this was a far more dramatic occasion. You may not have heard but in December Ofsted gave Wandsworth’s Children’s Services Department a damning report on services for disturbed and vulnerable children and services for young persons, which it said were either inadequate or in need of improvement. It is many years since Wandsworth last had such a stinging rebuke from central government and the Committee discussed how we should recover from this position and make the services as good as they should be. I must make it clear that these services serve a very small minority of Wandsworth’s children, so if you have kids in the school system here in the borough it almost certainly does NOT affect you or your kids. However, if they are in the Council’s care or severely disadvantaged in some way then it is just possible that you (and yours) are affected. If you are concerned that this may affect you, then please get in touch and I will see if I can help.
But in terms of making generic reforms we changed the staffing structure, introduced new management and monitoring procedures and worked out a longer term plan to make sure that the Department improves its practise. You may also have heard that I, in effect, moved a vote of no confidence in the Leader and the Executive member of the Council for Children’s Services. I knew, of course, that this was not going to be accepted by the majority (Tory) party and so in a sense it was “gesture politics”. However since at least one senior officer decided to resign, I think that the politicians in charge at the time should also take the rap – but here in Wandsworth, sadly, they did NOT.
The Planning Applications Committee was on February 24^thand what a busy night it was! First up we had the application for Formula E in Battersea Park I can see that this is going to be an annual occasion! This time the event is scheduled for early July and, as best I could understand it, it was for more of the Park to be closed to the public for slightly less time. There is no doubt that the event is both immensely popular with many and very unpopular with many others, some of whom are pictured demonstrating outside the Town Hall. My fear is that all the commercial operations that surround Grand Prix racing will slowly but surely take a greater and greater grasp in the Park and that with time the very nature of the Park will change. It is also significant, at least to me, that the date has been put back a couple of weeks into the very heart of summer – what a time to close great swathes of the Park. You will have guessed that I was against and I know many of you will have been for – but that’s the way it goes!
There were many other interesting potential developments, but not particularly near to or relevant to Latchmere. One example was the plan to demolish and reconstruct Cringle Dock in Nine Elms Lane. This was imaginative! Can you imagine one of London’s largest refuse transfer stations essentially being rebuilt under a canopy, on which 500 flats are to be built, with the refuse barges appearing out from under rather like a James Bond villain’s underground attack base. Is this really going to happen? Well the completion date is in 2030! Another mega-development was planned for Nine Elms Lane and there were many others and the Committee did not end until about 2 minutes past midnight!
On the 25^th my fellow Councillor Simon Hogg and I had another discussion with officers on the Winstanley regeneration programme, though as you know it largely affects the York Road estate and not Winstanley. It is difficult to report anything specific about that other than that work proceeds and that the Council hopes to start work relatively soon on Penge and Inkster Houses.
The Finance and Corporate Services Committee met on 25^th Again I am not a member but I thought it worth mentioning that it was decided to increase Council Tax by 3.9%, the maximum allowed by law without triggering a referendum. But to compensate for that increase, the London Mayor’s budget has now been reduced as the costs of the 2012 Olympics are dropping out of his budget, and so we will all see a reduction in our own tax bills.
In this newsletter, I have never ever referred to an internal Labour Party meeting, largely because I don’t think that they are of public interest but last Thursday, 25^th February, our meeting was an exception. We organised radical readings from a number of famous radicals from the past, from Gerard Winstanley to Charlotte Despard, from Labour’s first leader Keir Hardie to Clem Attlee, PM from 1945-51. The readings were inspirational and led by Prunella Scales and Timothy West. Here is Tim in full flow.
Finally I thought I should put in a picture of the Latchmere Recreation Ground. On 23rd October the messy tarmac was ripped up and the area re-seeded and landscaped. Some of this work had to be done twice because of the wet winter but the Town Hall hopes to open up the Recreation Ground in time for Easter. It will be a welcome extension of green space in Latchmere.

My Programme for March

I have a meeting in Portcullis House (that’s a twentieth century annex to the House of Commons next to old Scotland Yard) on 2^nd March, when a cross-party selection of London MPs and councillors will discuss the Government’s cuts to schools’ budgets, and later the same day a SERA think tank. SERA is the Labour Party’s green lobbying organisation and we will discuss our plans for the coming years.
There will be the regular Labour Group meeting: that is Wandsworth’s Labour councillors, on 3^rd.
There is an Education and Standards Group on 7^th
An old friend of mine, Anita Pollock, who was also the MEP (Member of the European Parliament for Wandsworth, 1989-99), is launching a book on Europe in Westminster – that should be pleasant.
The Council Meeting is on 9^th
On 10^th March there will be the opening of the Winstanley/York Road estate office in Pennethorne House, followed not long after by the opening of a new Citizens’ Advice Bureau at the main library on Lavender Hill.
I hope to be able to attend a Mayoral hustings with Zak Goldsmith face to face with Sadiq Khan and candidates no doubt from the Greens, Lib/Dems and UKIP.
The Planning Applications Committee is on 23^rd

Did you know?

You may remember that in January I went to the Design Awards Panel and challenged readers to guess, which of the designs received a commendation and why? Well, I must confess that I was a bit surprised because of those who responded most got it right!. And the winner was this very discreet extension (it’s the bit on the top!) to a residential block in Nightingale Lane. It is extremely quiet and under-stated. It adds 5 or 6 flats to the block and just walking by most people don’t even notice it. All the councillors and laymen supported it and all the professionals hated it.

The professional architects and designers wanted a building that “made a statement” or “expressed the architect’s personality” – perhaps rather like this glass roof extension, which was another of the entries. All very interesting but I think a little bit more important than that. Doesn’t it raise the question as to whether architects are in the business for their own gratification and not really very interested in whether their creations suit the surrounding environment?

Meanwhile for next month can anyone come up with a direct link between Latchmere and George Bernard Shaw or GBS? GBS was a very famous playwright of the first half of the twentieth century with plays such as Man and Superman, Major Barbara and many, many others. For those of you for whom the first half of the twentieth century is another world, then he will be best known for Pygmalion, the play at the heart of the musical My Fair Lady.

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Tony Belton

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