The Olympic rings on Tower Bridge
Not related to the torch or Tooting Common, but since this is my photo I can use it without incurring the wrath of the Olympic police

The council has published details of how to get tickets for the Olympic Torch relay event that Wandsworth is hosting on 23 July on Tooting Common.

The event will be (free) ticket only and the tickets will be issued on a first-come first-served basis at Battersea, Balham, Putney, Tooting or Wandsworth libraries between 7.30 and 8.30pm on Wednesday 11 July Monday 16 July. You will need some proof that you are a Wandsworth resident to get a ticket (such as a council tax bill).

Full details are available on the council’s website.

Undoubtedly many will be unhappy about the way tickets are issued. Unfortunately it is out of the council’s control. It seems ticketing was a late requirement by the Metropolitan Police, and the council have had to quickly find a way to ensure its allocation is distributed to Wandsworth residents in sufficient time.

If recent experience with things like the change in refuse collection days is anything to go by, we know that it’s impossible for the council to get the message to everyone (that was featured in Brightside, on the website and in council tax bills and still many said they knew nothing about the change), so if you know anyone who is thinking of, or might be interested in, attending the evening celebration please let them know about the ticketing scheme.

Updated 6 July: The arrangements for ticket distribution have been changed. The council’s website is clearly the definitive source for this information, and I will update this once I see that page has been refreshed and the new information put into the public domain.

Final update: The council have updated their page, and I’ve updated this accordingly.

Active Wandsworth are looking for volunteers for Get Active Day on 14 July at King George’s Park in Wandsworth.

Some of the roles they are looking for include (taken from the council’s Active Wandsworth volunteering PDF leaflet):

Festival Helpers – people to help set up and take down some of the equipment, tents, gazebos, generators, tables chairs etc.

Greeters – people stationed at the entry points to the Festival to record how many people are attending throughout the day. This role will be rotated through as many volunteers as possible and the signposter below rather being stationed in one spot for the whole day.

Signposter – There will be around 5000 people attending the Festival and many of them will want to know where things are or directions to a zone etc. We need as many volunteers as possible for this role.

Feedback Collectors – This role can be shared with the two roles above. We would like to know what people think of the Festival while we are there so we need as many volunteers as possible to ask and help those attending to complete a small feedback form so we can make improvements for future Festivals.

Photographer and Video/Filmmakers – we would like to record as many aspects of the Festival as we can either through photographs of by video to use to publicise future event. Again in this role we’d need a few volunteers to cover everything.

Volunteering would not be for the whole day, but one of two ‘shifts’ – from 8am until 1pm or 1pm until 7pm. If you are interested in volunteering contact Chris Austin at Wandsworth Leisure and Sports Services at active@wandsworth.gov.uk or telephone 020 8871 8154. For more information about the festival visit wandsworth.gov.uk/activewandsworth.

A rhetorical question. But feel free to add one word answers in the comments below.

But if you are interested, here’s my attempt at Storifying the meeting. Essentially I’ve interleaved my tweets from the meeting with the speeches on the two debates on early intervention and the Southside shopping centre.

Room 123, Wandsworth Town Hall
One of the centres of Wandsworth democracy, room 123.

Is this an annual report? I don’t think so really, not by any stretch of the imagination but last year I posted on my attendance rate at Wandsworth Council meetings. I’m not sure how useful it was, personally, I think rating councillors according to town hall meetings is a poor indication of their effectiveness: would I be better going to 100% and achieving nothing, or just 25% of meetings and getting something out of them?

However, I record the data and I rather like playing with numbers. So, a breakdown of my 2011–2012 council year.

I’m including only some of the meetings I attend, basically the ‘public’ meetings. These represent only a fraction of the meetings I attend, but they form those which are part of the formal decision-making process or those I am appointed as a council representajtive.

Overall

Overall I managed to attend 81% of meetings, missing nine out of 48. This is remarkably similar to last year, when I also managed an 81% attendance rate (missing eleven out of 58). The numerical decrease represents a change to a much less diverse portfolio, indeed, a number of the meetings at the beginning of the municipal year were ‘hang-overs’ from my old job. (One, the hate crime forum, still lingers, but more on that later.)

Council meetings

2011–2012: 89% attendance (eight out of nine meetings).
2010–2011: 90% attendance (nine out of ten meetings).

While these are at the top of the tree in the democratic process they are often rather stale affairs: at the end of the democratic process when most of the arguments have been had. Often I will not play any role in the meeting at all.

Executive

2011–2012: 75% attendance (six out of eight meetings).
2010–2011: 71% attendance (ten out of fourteen meetings).

I’m actually surprised this is that high. Executive meetings tend to be short, rubber-stamp meetings that are often timed in seconds; they are easy to miss.

Adult Care and Health OSC

2011–2012: 100% attendance (one meeting).
2010–2011: 100% attendance (six meetings).

Nothing like a 100% record. But very easy when there’s only one meeting. This is one of those hangover meetings that I attended while my old role was dismantled.

Environment, Culture and Community Safety OSC

2011–2012: 100% attendance (three meetings).
2010–2011: 100% attendance (seven meetings).

This is an odd meeting since only a tiny part of my current role sits within the OSC’s remit (and arguably also sits within another committee’s remit too). I only attend when relevant items are on the agenda which doesn’t happen that often.

Hate Crime Forum

2011–2012: 50% attendance (two out of four meetings).
2010–2011: 100% attendance (three meetings).

This is a lingering meeting from my old council role. I’ve retained the chairmanship of this while it – hopefully – moves to a self-sustaining community-led format. My poor attendance was down to bad luck, with a nasty chest infection and a bout of bad ’flu coinciding with the meetings.

Health and Wellbeing Board

2011–2012: 100% attendance (four meetings).
2010–2011: 100% attendance (two meetings).

Again, a hangover meeting which I attended while my role was dismantled and a suitable replacement council representative found and formally nominated to the membership.

Nine Elms Strategy Board

2011–2012: 80% attendance (four out of five meetings).
2010–2011: not a member.

A new meeting for this year. I missed one because it clashed with my holiday, which had already been booked before my appointment.

Shaftesbury Park Governors

2011–2012: 67% attendance (two out of three meetings).
2010–2011: 0% attendance (none out of three meetings)

I had a shocker with this last year, every meeting clashing with something else. My diary was a lot better this year, I missed one meeting because of a clash, but was able to attend the other two.

South West London NHS Joint Boards

2011–2012: 50% attendance (one out of two meetings).
2010–2011: 100% attendance (two meetings).

Another one of those hangovers. I gave apologies to a formal meeting that was merely convened to ratify the accounts.

Strategic Planning and Transportation OSC

2011–2012: 100% attendance (five meetings).
2010–2011: did not have a relevant portfolio.

This committee’s remit covers the lion’s share of my current role.

Wandsworth Employment and Skills Partnership

2011–2012: 100% attendance (four meetings).
2010–2011: not a member.

Another new meeting.

Wandsworth Local Strategic Partnership

2011–2012: 100% attendance (one meeting).
2010–2011: 75% attendance (three out of four meetings).

An easy 100%, only one meeting to attend! I am still formally a member of this (I think) although it has not met for some time and I suspect will either be wound up or have a much different role in the future.

Wandsworth Police Consultative Committee

2011–2012: 0% attendance (missed one meeting).
2010–2011: 60% attendance (three out of five meetings).

Given that I got a few 100%s from single meetings, it’s only fair I should get a zero somewhere. Another hangover meeting, related to my old portfolio. It clashed with another meeting.

And in conclusion…
Do you have any better idea of what I do as a councillor? Or whether I’m any good at it?I’m guessing no. But what would help you answer those questions?

SW11 Literary Festival launch
On duty: Jane at last year's SW11 Literary Festival launch

Much as I’m a fan of directly elected mayors, I recognise they have one weakness: they can never, ever, compete with the civic value of the traditional mayor.

Tonight sees the annual change of Wandsworth’s mayor from Jane Cooper to Adrian Knowles, and the council and local press will mark this with their retrospectives.

I’ve known Jane for a long time, almost from the day I moved to London when she was akin to a surrogate aunt looking out for a bewildered northerner while he tried to find his way in the big city. It was typical of Jane that when she found out I was helping with elections in Battersea and then trekking all the way to Brent (where I first lived in London) each night she immediately offered her spare room. Although that might have been a device to eke even more work out of me!

That welcoming nature and generosity of spirit – matched with an uncanny knack of getting people to do things – made her an exceptional mayor.

Over the past year I’ve been incredibly grateful to her for hosting new business receptions – where some of the many new businesses that have started in the borough can come together, meet each other and get to know some of the people in the council that can help them.

It is also worth highlighting her ‘pins’; they are a civic thank-you to those that give their own time to enrich their local community. Given to those who have undertaken some voluntary work within the borough, Jane has managed to recognise and thank 2,500 people who all help make Wandsworth the brighter borough. I’m sure Jane would be the first to admit that this only scratches the surface of the enormous amount of voluntary work in the borough and I hope that it’s an innovation that continues for many mayors to come.

Finally, I understand her year has been a record-breaker for the mayoral charities St George’s Hospital Charity and Age UK Wandsworth. Two charities that will have a lasting legacy of Jane’s great mayoral year.

Adrian will be a great mayor for 2012–13, and for the Olympic and Jubilee celebrations, but he certainly has a hard act to follow.

If you haven’t noticed (and I fear many haven’t) the council’s refuse collections are changing from next week.

The changes are a result of the council’s new collection contract. Many of the changes will not directly affect residents. Those that will include changing the collection method, so general waste and recycling can be taken together (meaning you won’t see the recycling linger after the rest has been collected), the return of garden waste collection (so you don’t have to either pay or take it to the tip yourself) and Putney residents will no longer be woken by a collection on a Saturday morning.

And that will result in the biggest change, since now the whole borough will be collected over five days (from Monday to Friday) instead of over six days (from Monday to Saturday).
Obviously it isn’t possible to lose Saturday collections in Putney without rejigging collections elsewhere, the effect is different from place to place but in Shaftesbury collection day changes from Thursday to Wednesday.

Extra resources are being put in place for the transition period, since there will inevitably be confusion to begin, but obviously the more people who get it right from the start the easier that transition will be: not least because many people rely on the ‘nudge’ of seeing their neighbours putting out rubbish to remind them to put out their own.

You can find out your new collection day on the council’s website.


View Grit bin locations in a larger map

Following last night’s snow-fall I thought it might be worth re-publishing the locations of grit-bins in the borough.

The Google map details where they all are (roughly, but they are big yellow things, so I’m confident it gives more than enough information for you to find them) but if you want more information you can find it in the council’s winter service plan (PDF).

A borough rarely evokes the civic pride it deserves; the areas you identify with rarely have coterminous borders with a local authority. Indeed, I’d probably say I’m from Battersea before I’d say I was from Wandsworth.

And while I can think of any number of points of pride I have when comparing Wandsworth and others boroughs, I suspect most only appeal to me as a local government anorak. When I try to think of comparisons or competitions that might have wider appeal I run out of ideas after the London Youth Games (we came second this year) and It’s a Knockout (I don’t know if there was ever a Wandsworth team, but did once notice that Sandwell, in the West Midlands, still display their 1978 Heat 4 winner’s plaque in their Mayoral offices).

However, we have hammered the rest of London in a Nike+ running challenge this year. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned running on the blog (although I sometimes do on Twitter, and until recently auto-tweeted my runs) but couldn’t help pointing this one out.

Technically, it’s not finished, so yes, someone could beat us. But just over a week to go, and look at that lead!

If you fancy helping to dole out a similar drubbing to the rest of London next year and use Nike+ then join the challenge.

(I publish this hoping we do cling on to the lead, since I’m not intending to post again until next year when the challenge is over. Have a great Christmas and new year.)

Help yourself: Grit bins have been placed in various locations around Wandsworth

Just like last year the council has place a number of grit bins around the borough, and I’ve updated the Google map I did of the locations.

Only two or three have moved (I didn’t keep a precise count of changes) so if you had a bin last year the chances are good it is back. And I added a further dozen or so locations to the map.


View Grit bin locations in a larger map

Two health-warnings.

  1. Wandsworth will still be gritting. Many (I think deliberately in some cases) think this means the council won’t grit pavements. The council will still be gritting as normal, however, this allows residents to look after themselves and their neighbours should they choose – it’s an extra, not a replacement.
  2. Any errors in the map are mine. I took the information from the council’s winter service plan (PDF). While in some cases I’ve been able to use my own local knowledge to make sure it’s accurate, I don’t know the whole borough well enough to do that. However, the grit bins are big yellow things, so this map should guide you close enough to see them.

[You can download the data I used to make this map (location, longitude and latitude) from my data page.


View Larger Map

Google Maps is now more accurate!

Having been raised many times by many different people like the SW11tch campaign and various people from the Streetlife Identity Taskforce the mapping used by Google now puts Clapham over, well, Clapham.

While this shouldn’t take any credit away from map providers like Bing or the community created Open Street Map who never got it wrong in the first place, Google Maps is by far the most used online mapping service and often came up as an excuse even when a business was almost in Wandsworth (not naming names, Sainsbury’s Clapham St John’s).

It’s a bit of an early Christmas present, and inspires me to keep chipping away at the remaining Clapham/Battersea offenders.