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Not a very contentious application, I would say; Hell Pizza (I warn you, it’s a Flash based website and not pretty) have applied for a licence for their Lavender Hill store in Battersea (they seem to think it’s in Clapham, but never mind).

The application is for the sale of alcohol between 5.00pm and 10pm Monday to Wednesday, between 12 noon and 10pm Thursday and Sunday and between 12 noon and 11pm Friday and Saturday.

As I said, I cannot imagine it being a contentious application given its location, but if you are concerned representations can be made to the licensing section until 13 April, legally representations can only be considered by the licensing committee if they relate to the four licensing objectives:

  • The prevention of crime and disorder
  • The prevention of public nuisance
  • Public safety
  • The protection of children from harm

The council’s licensing pages provide more information.

If you wish to make an observation you can do so by writing to:
Head of Licensing
Licensing Section
London Borough of Wandsworth
PO Box 47095
London
SW18 9AQ

or by emailing licensing@wandsworth.gov.uk

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After writing about the selection of a Lib Dem candidate earlier this week I’ve since discovered that there’s also a Green candidate selected for Battersea, Guy Evans. Interestingly, he’s either so confident of victory (or possibly so confident of defeat) he’s heading off mid-campaign to take part in the gruelling Marathon des Sables. I can’t help but admire his dedication and determination – as an occasional runner I fantasise about a single marathon, but even then realise I’m nothing like fit or dedicated enough – to tackle the equivalent of 5½ in the Sahara takes some grit.

I wish him luck, but do have to question his commitment to the constituency and his campaign if he’s not even here for a good chunk of it.

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You can tell the election is close when the Lib Dems start selecting for their no-hope seats like Battersea – and finally they have selected their candidate: Layla Moran.

I’ll start off with the things I think are good about her:

  • She uses a Mac

But there are lots of things wrong with the Lib Dems. One of my main complaints is that they don’t really have a coherent national policy. Much of their success is down to the ability of their candidates to say on thing in one seat and something totally different in the seat next door – simply because they are trying to please the audience and have the comfort of knowing that because they will never form a government they will never see those inconsistencies tested nationally.

I once saw it close-up representing the Conservatives in a debate against Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates. After many questions the two main parties would state their opinion, but the Lib Dem would return the question to the audience, get a quick straw poll on their opinion and then follow up with the killer line “I’m glad that’s what you said, because it’s exactly what I passionately believe.”

But the Lib Dems are not really a force in Battersea or Wandsworth. Four years ago during the council elections I got two Lib Dem leaflets, both homemade by individual candidates (as I recall they broke election law by not containing the imprint), neither mentioning the other and both with the same message: “We know we won’t win the council, but it would be awfully nice if you gave me just one of your votes, just so there’s one of us there.” While I credit their commitment in doing their own thing it was indicative that the Lib Dems put no resource into Battersea.

In Battersea, just as in Wandsworth and the country as a whole the elections are about whether it’s the Conservatives or Labour party in charge on 7 May. I certainly hope that in both Wandsworth Town Hall and Downing Street it’s the Conservatives.

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I’ve been through several iterations of Power Station schemes, especially since 2006. Privately, when the current owners bought it, I was a lot more confident, since the previous owners seemed to only be interested in developing new plans, rather than doing anything with them.

Having seen various schemes come and go since 1998 (knowing that there were nearly 15 years of plans coming and going before that) I’ve developed a degree of scepticism about the site. But over the past week have been through a few presentations about Nine Elms and discussions about the Power Station site itself and I suddenly realised the current scheme has really started growing on me (my position on the council and as chairman of the Nine Elms Opportunity Board has left me pre-determined on this, so I can say it).

I think what made me realise was chatting with someone who had not seen it before about how the station was built in two halves, then straight after seeing one of the approach videos (you can see some on the Power Station’s front page) in which you approach to see just a glimpse of the Power Station (which made me think of it half-built) before the view suddenly and dramatically opens out.

What do you think?

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For those that like symbolism today is just 164 days until the (or a) likely date of the general election.

While Brown could wait until 3 June next year – and there have been rumours that 25 March might be the date – for a long time the main betting seems to have been on a combined poll with the local elections on 6 May 2010.

So why do I think the 164 days are significant?

Well, here in Battersea Labour’s Martin Linton has a majority of just 163 votes. In the incredibly unlikely event that the electorate in Battersea remained the same between 2005 and 2010 the Conservatives would need to find just one vote per day between now and the election to gain the seat from Labour. An easy task? I don’t know. It’s certainly not one that is taken for granted, and the weekend’s poll showing Labour “slashing” the Conservative lead shows exactly why the election isn’t a foregone conclusion.

The poll has certainly created jubilation among Labour supporters who now feel there is still a chance they can win next year. And in response a degree of denial from Conservatives. Personally, I’m sitting on the fence. I remember being one of the underdogs in 1997, 2001 and 2005. And I remember how tempting it is to jump on any poll that gives you hope.

I also remember how depressing it is when the next lot of polls all show that it was just a rogue.

But what the poll does show, however, is exactly how hard the battle will be for the Conservatives. If you pop over to the Electoral Calculus website you can play with percentages and see how they would play out. In this case the 6% lead to the Conservatives makes them the bigger party (with no overall majority) by just 18 seats with 296 MPs to Labour’s 278.

If we look at previous elections you can see that the electoral system is skewed in Labour’s favour. In the 2005 election Labour won just a 3% bigger share of the vote than the Conservatives, but this netted them 158 more MPs. In 2001 a 9% lead gained them 227 more MPs. And both elections produced substantial Labour majorities.

However if you go back to the last election the Conservatives won, in 1992, their 7.5% lead represented the most votes ever cast for a single party in the UK but garnered them just 65 more MPs than Labour and an overall majority of just 21 that had eroded to nothing by the time of the 1997 election.

I should be clear this isn’t a complaint about the electoral system, which I like and greatly prefer to any system of ‘proportional’ voting – but an observation current distribution of constituency boundaries means, overall, the electoral system heavily favours the Labour Party. And that means the Conservatives have an almighty task ahead of them. They need to lead by around 8% before they have an overall majority.

But while the overall figures may suggest a there’s a huge mountain to climb, that’s not the case in individual seats. In Battersea it might ‘only’ be 164 votes needed, but they will only be won with hard work on the ground. Exactly the same as all the other majorities that will be over-turned next year when each seat will makes its contribution to an historic election.

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It is time for people like me to start getting grumpy as Christmas begins despite being over a month away.

Last night saw the first of our Town Centres turn on its lights with local author Isabel Losada hitting the button at the Slug and Lettuce in Clapham Junction (with some rather bemused passers-by in the background).

I think she did a much better job than I did last year!

There are a number of switch-ons, of various sizes over the coming days and weeks.  One of the key reasons for the lights is to help promote our town centres, so if you are starting to think of your Christmas shopping why not see how much you can do locally?

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Having done nothing for months it was time to organise another tweet-up. I spent ages trying to find a good date (being a week-night that I could make that wasn’t too near Christmas) and failed.

Then, by happy coincidence, I noticed that the Clapham Junction Christmas lights were being turned on by Isabel Losada, a local author who happens to be on Twitter. This, I reckoned, made for an ideal date – since if I also turned there’d be at least two people at the tweet-up.

So the date and venue are set: 6:30pm onwards on 18 November in the Slug and Lettuce, St John’s Hill, Battersea (even though they seem to think they are in Clapham).

I imagine it will be a bit smaller than the last, mainly because of the short notice. It also won’t be sponsored (I’ve still not been paid for last time!).

But it will still be a good night out. Anyone is welcome, despite the SW11 focus and #Battertweet name, just RSVP at the twtvite.

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Wandsworth council chamber, Mayor's chair and crestI attended the Regeneration and Community Safety Overview and Scrutiny Committee as Executive Member last night. The meeting was largely focused on community safety matters, and was one of the longer ones for a while, perhaps because there were some interesting items on the agenda. You can see the full agenda on the council’s website. A few I’d pick out…

Fire Service presentation
When people think about ‘community safety’ they tend to immediately think of the police. Some will also think of the rôle the council plays. Relatively few, sadly, think of the work the Fire Service play. During my three years as executive member I’ve never ceased to be impressed at the energy and dedication the local fire service have brought to the partnership and it was great that the committee had the opportunity to hear and talk about it last night.

Battersea crime
This was the second report on the overall picture of crime by geographical area – a few months ago the committee had considered the Tooting area and makes for interesting reading. The distribution of crime is quite telling, but not that unsurprising, in its link to relative deprivation. Battersea also suffers as it appears to ‘import’ crime from Lambeth.

As I did with Tooting, I would recommend having a look through the report which gives a fairly full picture of the pattern of crime in Battersea. As before, Ordnance Survey copyright means I can’t reproduce the maps from it here.

Roehampton Regeneration
I’ve mentioned the decision to withdraw the regeneration scheme twice before on the blog. Last night saw the report that formally informed members. It generated a discussion for all the wrong reasons, with Labour saying that we shouldn’t have listened to Gordon Brown’s optimistic prognosis for the recession. Good to know that they are now disowning their leader in public meetings!

The fact is that I had always been bullish about the recession, and during internal discussions was invariably the most pessimistic participant. Despite that, I also knew that the recession was a temporary thing and would, eventually, end. But I never expected it to last 18 months (the longest on record). Nor did I imagine we would be the last industrial economy out of recession. And I certainly did not realise it would be so deep.

It was right that the council were ambitious for Roehampton, rather than giving up on it at the first sign of trouble (the Labour party’s line last night was that they supported regeneration, but we should have given up earlier), and a tragedy that circumstances outside the council’s control have put an end to it.

Safer Neighbourhood Team review
Finally, the committee decided to undertake a review of the way Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs) work in the borough, and particularly how they communicate with other agencies.

My personal experience of SNTs, both in Shaftesbury and across Wandsworth, has been positive. There are some dedicated officers doing some great work in their wards. However, this is often marred by poor communication between the panels and the council. And that’s not really a complaint, they are police officers rather than administrators or communication professionals. But it means that, for example, an SNT panel in the west of the borough might not be learning from an SNT panel in the east or the south. I think there’s potentially some very exciting work to be done in this area that will improve the way the council and the panels work with the SNTs and it will be interesting to see the outcomes.

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SW Literary Festival ProgrammeThe launch of the SW11 Literary Festival takes place tomorrow night, which made me think it’s probably a good time to highlight Battersea Poems again.

Taking the text directly from the literary festival programme:

Text in your poem and be part of creating a biography of SW11 written by you, the people who live, work and visit Battersea.

Start a text message with Battersea then a space, then your poem, in one text only, and send it to 07786 202 844.

Take the people, places, and history of Battersea as your inspiration, but your poem doesn’t have to be about SW11, so a poem inspired by Clapham Junction might be about a journey…

You can submit as many poems as you like. Your poem will be published instantly on: www.thumbprintcity.com/london/battersea

The best Battersea Poems will then be selected by a panel led by Apples and Snakes to be published in a printed anthology.

Sending a poem only costs the same as sending a normal text to your friend’s phone. You will not be signed up for anything, ever.

Competition closes 31/10/09

There are already some great poems on there. One of my favourites is:

Summer in battersea park
picnics and cricket
and two names in bark.

I’m going to pretend I know what I’m talking about and say I like it because it’s short and simple – and paints a vivid picture with the cricket match on the wider scale but the two names (which begs further questions, whose, when, why?) adding a little element of human detail.

I probably shouldn’t have identified it as a one I liked because I’m part of the panel… but I’ll try and balance things by saying that, of course, my fondness for the imagery is exactly balanced by my concern that the poem may be glamorising vandalism to a Battersea Park tree.

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I mentioned Battersea Poems in my weekly wrap-up last Friday and the service is now live.

It’s good to see there are a few poems on there already – you can read them (and hopefully be inspired to write your own) on the Thumbprint City website.

If you want to submit a poem you just have to text BATTERSEA followed by a space and then your poem to 07786 202844. It is a standard mobile number, so will cost you the same as any other text you send.

Battersea Poems runs until the end of October and the best poems will be included in an anthology published later this year.

Also published is the programme for the 2009 SW11 Literary Festival (which runs from 7 – 30 September). You can download the programme from the Clapham Junction town centre website.