It might seem a bit out of date, since students got their results last summer, but the breakdown of schools and boroughs have just been published and it’s pleasing reading for Wandsworth.
The council’s website has all the details (this press release contains the school by school results and you can get the national picture from the Department for Schools, Children and Families) so I won’t repeat them, but there is one key fact I think worth highlighting – Wandsworth’s results are now ahead of the national average. For an inner London borough this is a significant achievement.
66.2% of Wandsworth students now get the benchmark 5 A*-C GCSE grades – this compares to 65.3% in the country as a whole. As an indicator of the improvement Wandsworth was 8% behind the national average in 2001.
This doesn’t mean we should be complacent, there is still room for improvement in many schools, but it is a cause for celebration and congratulation of the borough’s teachers and students.
The closure of Balham’s Marks and Spencer has left a lot of local residents puzzled about why M&S have decided to axe what is seemingly a busy and successful store.
And I’m puzzled too.
We all know that the country is effectively in recession. We know that businesses will be feeling the pinch. But, as a whole, Balham has shown itself to be very resilient.
For a start, it’s a great location. There are around 21,000 residents within half a mile of the town centre and it has great transport links, with an underground station and an overground station scheduled for improvements.
It’s also benefited from significant investment. The council’s Town Centre Improvement Scheme has leveraged nearly £600,000 of private sector investment in the Town Centre and in the past 4 years 60 businesses have upgraded their premises or moved into or within the town centre.
What’s more Balham has been bucking the trend: footfall counters show an increase of 6% between December 2007 and December 2008, at a time that a national fall of 8% is being reported! And there is significant anecdotal evidence that food sales for consumption at home are increasing as people eat out less as a result of recession. If your main business if food sales, Balham would seem the place to be.
It is bizarre that M&S are leaving an area that a retailer, and a food retailer to boot, would surely be desperate to be in. The council will be putting all these points to M&S to try and dissuade them from following through on their closure.
My HD is down to 4.29GB free space & my iMac is crawling. I remember when I had a 20MB HD (& 25MHz processor) and thought I was lucky. #
I’m ashamed to admit that ‘Come Dine With Me’ is on my TV – but I need to ask the question… exactly what is the point of Abi Titmuss? #
And tonight I shall be mostly engaging the community. #
More meetings about the community safety strategic assessment this morning. Am very coffee dependent today. #
On my way to meet @ingridk to apologise profusely for being late and then have a chat about social media, and local government stuff. in reply to ingridk#
Does anyone know of any *UK* crime-mapping sites that map by location like my attempts, e.g. http://is.gd/g7mO rather than averages? #
Wow, this is my 200th tweet! So, something profound. Um, yeah, right… 200. Don’t suppose anyone can answer no. 199? http://is.gd/g7My#
Heading to Balham for some belated New Year drinks with the Town Centre Partnership. #
It’s Friday, a great day for fish and chips. Unfortunately, judging by the queue, half of Battersea have had exactly the same idea. #
Is it possible to get a hangover from coffee? I have the symptoms, but didn’t drink last night – I did have way too much coffee though. #
How cow. Grimsby won. 1-0 against Wycombe. How on earth did that happen? #
I curse the manufacturer of my crappy modem router. #
I can’t workout if ‘Total Wipeout’ is a symbol of all that’s wrong with British broadcasting, or actually quite entertaining. #
Just had the first & second Heathrow arrivals of the day – & its only just gone 4.30! What was I saying the other day? http://bit.ly/14aEF#
I wish I’d stayed off Twitter today – then I would never have found out about Tony Hart dying. #
I’m paying Sky a small fortune each month and there is absolutely nothing on worth watching. Thank God for YouTube, which is, um, free. #
I was thinking of publishing casework maps, e.g., http://is.gd/gmAh a good idea for engagement & transparency… or politically ‘brave’? #
Many of the issues that needed addressing in the council and police’s communication have been resolved, but a few kinks still need ironing out before the crime briefings can resume.
In the meantime, you can view the Met’s crime mapping – but to save you time the latest figures for Wandsworth on there are November 2008. Crime for the borough is ‘average’. Crime for each of the 20 wards is ‘average’. And if you zoom into what the Met call sub-wards, you’ll find that for all but five crime is ‘average’ – the five that are not average are basically in town centres around transport hubs: Two sub-wards Clapham Junction and one each in Balham, Putney and Tooting. They are all above average.
I briefly cover why I think the Met’s crime mapping is far from ideal as part of my first crime mapping post.
The Mayor of London is about to invest £6 million into some of London’s parks: but which parks will be decided by a public vote.
In the best tradition of reality competitions, 47 parks across London have been shortlisted and the ten with the most votes will receive some of the funding for improvements.
Two of the shortlisted parks are in Wandsworth, so please considering voting for one of them. It can be done by text or online.
The two parks are:
King George’s Park (Wandsworth)
You can vote for King George’s by:
texting PARKS SW18 3HS to 62967
using the voting form on Help a London Park.
Latchmere Recreation Ground (Battersea)
You can vote for Latchmere by:
texting PARKS SW11 5AD to 62967
using the voting form on Help a London Park.
Texts will cost 10p, in addition to any charge you pay to your network and voting ends on 30 January. You can find out more details from Wandsworth council’s parks vote page or the GLA’s Help a London Park.
So the government have given the go-ahead to the 3rd runway, not good news for those in the north of the borough who will face more disturbance as a result.
Now, I must confess that I have changed my opinion on this. Up until a few years ago I really couldn’t understand the fuss about Heathrow. I had chosen to live in London, and one of the things you accept about living in a big city is the noise, but over the years I’ve come to realise that not only is the Heathrow flightpath having a huge effect, but that it has slowly become worse and worse.
Damn those early morning arrivals at Heathrow – I want another hour asleep!
Although written at 6.14am, it followed a couple of hours of the incessant drone of engines, approaching then fading, then realising that the fading engine noise is actually the next plane. (That this followed a sleepless night with an unsettled baby just compounded my frustration.)
It is a difficult subject to tackle, and I’m aware of the risk of seeming to be a NIMBY politician, but the government is railroading a decision without consideration of the alternatives.
We could expand existing airports. My council colleague, Nick Cuff, has written a thoughtful article – ‘There are alternatives to expanding Heathrow’ – on the ConservativeHome website detailing some of the smaller airports in the south-east that already have expansion plans and could accommodate increased air-traffic.
We could invest in high-speed rail. The 2M Group, of which Wandsworth Council is a member, published a report on how a high speed rail network could connect the UK to many European cities in under four hours (good when you consider the time wasted at airports in addition to flight times)
Or we could take the radical option of building an airport that is actually designed to be a good modern airport, rather than one that has evolved since the 1930s. Apparently, one of the reasons the car-parking is so far from the terminals is that originally it was assumed passengers would be chaffeur driven and wouldn’t need to park nearby.
Boris Johnson has suggested that the best solution would be a new airport in the Thames Estuary (with most flights over water and therefore not causing the disruption we currently suffer), that could be designed to meet the demands of modern air-travel and modern passengers. Sadly, it seems no-one in the government has his foresight.
Many may find it odd that this blog doesn’t contain a single mention of the Clapham Junction planning application, often referred to as the ‘twin towers’. How can a councillor whose ward is right next to the area concerned not say a word about one of the biggest planning applications Wandsworth (and even London) has seen?
The simple answer is that I can’t say a word about it. Nada, nothing, zilch.
However, since I have had several emails about the scheme, I thought it might be worth setting out rules on this, since they don’t just affect me, but affect all councillors. I must stress that nothing here should be interpreted as offering any opinion, either positive or negative, on the Clapham Junction planning application – nor, indeed, on any other application, past, present or future.
The application process
A common question is ‘how can the council even consider this application?’ The answer is that we have to consider every valid planning application and does not mean it is being viewed favourably or unfavourably. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the council has received a valid application.
This applies regardless of the size, so if you wanted to extend your house and made a proper application it has to go through the full consideration process. If someone wants to build some towers, it has to go through the full consideration process.
A ‘tall buildings’ policy?
The council does not have a blanket tall buildings policy, instead the council considers what is appropriate for each area. There are some very good reasons for this.
First, appropriate height is going to be different from area to area. A tall office block might not look out of place on Upper Richmond Road, which already has several office buildings. It would look downright unsightly in an area of two-storey houses.
Second, setting an arbitrary limit would probably just encourage developers to build to that limit. If we set a height of 12 storeys I suspect pretty much every application would be 12 storeys as developers strive to maximise profits.
And you can’t say anything because…?
The reason councillors cannot comment on applications is something called ‘pre-determination’. If I were to express a view, it could be said that I had already made up my mind without regard to the merits or otherwise of an application. This would leave any decision open to legal challenge.
Instead, councillors have to demonstrate they approached the decision with an open mind and considered the application and representations fairly. This is especially the case with a major planning application that might end up being discussed at a full council meeting.
Personally, I think the rules on pre-determination are a nonsense, since it effectively bars elected representatives from representing their residents in cases like this. However, since they do exist I feel my role as a councillor is best served by retaining my right to vote than by commenting before the decision process has fully begun.
Trees do a lot to make our streets look greener and more pleasant, unfortunately, like all living things they don’t last forever and sometimes the council has to remove them.
Trees in the following eight locations in the ward will be removed shortly (with the reason for removal):
Brassey Square – opposite number 17 (root rotting fungus) Elsley Road – outside 14 (tree is dead), outside 76 (extensive decay) Eversleigh Road – outside 203 (tree is leaning into, and obstructing, the road) Grayshott Road – outside 109 (tree is 60% dead) Holden Street – outside 62 (root rotting fungus), outside 46 (dead sapling) Sabine Road – outside 122 (root rotting fungus) Town Hall Road – outside 1 (tree is 60% dead)
Where possible a replacement sapling will be planted in the next planing season – unfortunately that isn’t until November.
Last night I attended a meeting of the St John’s Hill traders to discuss the use of A-boards on the street outside their shops. It is fair to say that the council’s enforcement of this had put a few backs up, not just there, but also on my own ward on Lavender Hill.
As with so many things, it is a balancing act, the council has to consider the needs of residents, some of whom may have accessibility issues and need to have clear pavements as well as the needs of businesses who want to advertise their businesses to the passing trade. I would throw in a third consideration, that allowing businesses to display outside their store actually enhances the look of the street.
And of course what’s right for St John’s Hill is not necessary right for the rest of the borough. We have a real problem in Tooting, especially places like Upper Tooting Road where pedestrians are forced to compete for narrow pavement with overflowing shop displays and illegal traders.
However, the compromise that council officers are proposing seems sensible and workable, allowing shops to use and enhance the pavement while also ensuring a minimum clearance so pedestrians can use the street without having to weave around obstacles. The basic plan allows displays directly outside the shop, and requires a minimum 2 metres clearance on the pavement – so the narrow pavements of Tooting won’t be overcrowded and the wide streets of Lavender Hill and St John’s Hill won’t be barren.
Obviously nothing’s perfect, and this will have be reviewed once in place to make sure there are no anomalies, but the response of the St John’s Hill traders was uniformly positive, and hopefully everyone will be happy with the outcome.
The new enforcement protocol will come into force next month after going through the council’s Planning and Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Executive.
There is going to be another gap until I can start publishing crime maps again.
The crime briefings that are used to produce the maps are created from data given to the council’s Community Safety Division by the police. The Community Safety Division ‘sanitises’ the data to ensure that personal information does not get into the public domain. It is important that victims are not identified in them.
Both the council and the police take the security of the data very seriously, and while there has not been a problem with the process they’ve decided to halt until a secure communication channel can be set-up. Work is in progress on this, and will be completed within the next week or two.
In the meantime you can have a look at the Met’s crime maps. I think these are still far from perfect (you can read why in a previous post) and it’s highly likely all you’ll discover is that crime is ‘average’ – but they are better than nothing.
The closure of Balham’s Marks and Spencer has left a lot of local residents puzzled about why M&S have decided to axe what is seemingly a busy and successful store.
