onionbagblog

* yeah yeah, I know…

And so after all the waiting, does the new Windrush Square in central Brixton live up to the high expectations?

Sort of.

It’s a definite improvement on the ill-conceived geographic placement of disparate public space that was in place previously. But it’s not perfect.

First of all, let’s deal with the dynamics of the geography. Brixton needs a recognised central area. We need somewhere to meet, to celebrate and to generally reclaim as a public piece of land in the heart of SW9.

The new pedestiranised area incorporates the Tate Gardens and the old Windrush Square. The hellish one way gyratory around St Matthews Church has been removed.

I have severe reservations however about the safety of cyclists as they progress either up or down Brixton Hill. The single cycling lane is going to cause problems when you try and make a turning, and have to cut across the traffic flow from either side.

The landscaping of the Square also leaves me somewhat under whelmed. It looks like a giant car park has been placed right in the heart of Brixton. The opportunity was here to make this a genuine green space. The old Tate Gardens area remains thankfully grassed over, but that’s about your lot.

The provision of extra bicycling racks outside the Tate Library is to be applauded. I remain unconvinced if this will eventually become a trusted area in which to leave a bicycle. The Ritzy is known locally as a hot spot for bike theft. Brixton Rec at least has some use as probably the safest places for Brixton bicyclists to padlock up.

The naming of the new space is perfect. With the (hopefully) soon to be opened Black Cultural Archives overlooking the area, Brixton has a positive identity to take us forward beyond the old stereotypes.

But for all the ‘empowering’ talk of regeneration that is so often found in council press releases, some things just won’t budge. One of these is the closed public toilet beneath ground.

The ornate railings give the area a sense of tradition and perspective. Having them closed off is a sad incitement for modern times. The council press release covers all bases, by rather blandly stating:

“…with potentially a new cafe and public toilets.”

Never rule anything in, never rule anything out. Especially ahead of the local elections.

And so that is the theory, what about the grand opening of this major public project? I couldn’t tell you to be honest. It was all really rather strange, with the staging of an elitist opening ceremony involving local politicians from which the public were kept away.

Friday’s official civic opening saw the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, doing the ribbon cutting thing along with @cllrstevereed, the Labour leader of @lambeth_council. My man on the ground with his press pass tells me that both politicians tried their best to forge a smile for the cameras.

But at least the weather Gods were smiling on Brixton. Rain for the ring-fenced civic service on Friday, sunshine for the people on Saturday. The public opening of Windrush Square promised:

“live music performances, dance demonstrations and family art workshops. There will also be stalls by Spacemakers, Brixton Village and the Brixton Pound. The event will conclude with a lantern-lit procession led by local school children and a magnificent Phoenix.”

It didn’t disappoint.

Let the real people that matter into the area, and then the fun can commence. The events were pitched perfectly for the day – a mixture of music and local community stalls.

Maybe the music was rather slightly too loud, which caused a few problems with the @audioboos below. No worries. The event was all about community celebration and participation, and not providing a padded sound studio for a lone local blogger.

I was pleased to see the lovely @dougald promoting @spacemkrs and #brixvill throughout the day. The presence of @spacemakrs working alongside locals in Granville Arcade Brixton Village has been nothing short of brilliant this year. Long may it continue in South London.

If Friday was all about the elected representatives doing their cordoned off bit for the community, then it was pleasing to see an as yet elected representative enjoying the occasion. @chukaumunna, the Labour PPC for Streatham, was once again a friendly face to see in SW9. He very kindly agreed for a catch up. Apologies for the bass heavy soundtrack, but I like to think yer man Chuka would probably approve.

The Friends of Brixton Market seemed to be the busiest stall on the day. The group is promoting the importance of local business for the local economy. A popularly held misconception (including by me) is that the whole of Brixton Market development is owned and managed by Lambeth Council.

Not so. Ben from the Friends group helpfully explains more below, including the very real threat of big business coming into our community and killing off the local economy. Westfield in SW9 is something we most definitely don’t want in Brixton.

And then finally I was most grateful to Suzy, one of the Brixton £ founders, for finding the time to have a chat. The B£ is booming, with many local shops now accepting it as the norm.

To my shame, I haven’t endorsed the B£ as much as I should. I don’t tend to shop in Brixton that often. Maybe this is the whole point of the local currency, to encourage people like me to make very real economic decisions that will be benefit the local people?

I cycled back to Sunny Stockwell late in the day, having found a real sense of community around Windrush Square. It was great to catch up with @brixtonalex, @brixtonblog and @andybroomfield. Sorry to have missed @langrabbie and @@lambethcpcg.

To be fair, @mayoroflambeth and @cllrstevereed (and others) returned on Saturday to mix with the public. I appreciated my chat with the leader of the council, and I thank him for being approachable. I left the good councillor pondering the question of how to find a central square for Sunny Stockwell.

The real success of Windrush Square won’t be judged until six months from now. What we need is one of those balmy Brixton summers. The whole area comes out to play in the heart of SW9. Seeing how the space can cope with this demand, and how the civic planning plays a part in influencing the social behaviour of locals will be the real test.

Will the street drinkers and blatant drug dealing be moved on? And if so, where to? It would be great to see the public toilets once again re-opened, and being used purely for the purpose for which they were originally designed.

Are we really a less civil society than some one hundred years ago when they were first built? Hopefully Windrush Square will play a part in helping to dispell this pessimism.

Ah, so this is the <irony>real</irony> reason that are friends from @lambeth_council are so busy closing leisure centres all around the Rotten Borough: to fleece customers for the joining fee each time they are forced to become a swimming refugee elsewhere.

You may remember how I was asked to pay a £10 hidden cost when I tried to transfer my GLL Lambeth membership to a wider Swim London membership. I could see that the leisure policy of Lambeth Labour was in meltdown, and for the same monthly £26 payment, I wanted other options.

A bit of behind the scenes work from the lovely GLL management, and my £10 online membership was refunded. Rightly so, seeing as though I had already paid to join (join what?) when I first purchased my GLL Lambeth membership.

Fast forward to this week, and for the first time since the privatisation of leisure in Lambeth, I was able to see the nice man from the GLL membership office during the daytime at Brixton Rec.

We were reassured at the Clap’ham Users Forum to signal the end of swimming in SW4 that all memberships would be automatically transferred over. I wasn’t too concerned at the time. My Swim London membership is valid at all GLL pools throughout London, and I had indeed used it up at Oasis and London Fields.

But then once I became a Clap’ham refugee, my card failed to swipe early each morning. It was a mild irritant at first, but then given the 7am opening time, the lovely smiling receptionist and I came to an agreement.

That agreement was to take up the issue in the membership office at The Rec. Seeing as though kicking out time for public swimming in SW9 is 9am, and the membership office isn’t open until 9:30, this wasn’t exactly practical.

Until half term week that is, where I took the opportunity to sort out my non-swipeable card.

“Your membership has expired,” said the GLL membership chap. “You’ll have to pay £10 to renew it.”

Eh? Where the chuffers did that one come from?

There was more…

“You’ll only be able to swim at Brixton.”

Overlooking the minor issue that there isn’t actually anywhere else in the Rotten Borough where I can swim right now, I would rather like the option of swimming up at Oasis or London Fields. My membership is called Swim London, not Swim Brixton (But Only Between the Hours of 7-9am.)

I was extremely confused, and so it seems was yer man from GLL. It turns out that my original Swim London membership was linked to Clap’ham Pool. For some unknown reason, the swimmers of SW4 were given the status to be able to swim anywhere. Maybe GLL knew what was coming all along with the Streatham and Clap’ham closures?

Highly unlikely. A more sensible analysis is simply the confusion that crept in at GLL, following the pimping out of leisure by our friends at @lambeth_council. No one is entirely sure right now which particular swimming packages exist, and exactly where and when you can use them.

It’s all about the swimming, isn’t it?

I can’t get angry with the lovely smiling GLL receptionist at 7am each morning (she really is rather lovely.) Likewise I can’t get angry with the other GLL staff on the ground at the Rec, who always stop and make a point of filling me in with the political pressures they are operating under. GLL management are also rather decent, and go out of their way to contact me over any woes I have with my membership.

The real reason for the complete meltdown of leisure in the Rotten Borough comes when the party in powers allows *anyone* but itself to take responsibility for leisure provision.

Tesco, the Cathedral Group, GLL – *anyone* but @lambeth_council itself. I think this is called a *shhh* cooperative form of local government.

Once again it took some online intervention from the lovely GLL management to resolve the issue. I have very kindly been given a free month of membership to make up for the inconvenience, which makes for all of the above moaning seem slightly over the top.

GLL is proving to be very decent at managing a near on impossible situation that it has inherited with the provision of leisure in Lambeth. Staff from the shop floor up to the management have made the most out of a very difficult situation.

To be fair, the Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities was also rather helpful in offering assistance (and apologies) online.

I was peeved though at being asked to pay a joining fee that I have already paid twice. Imagine if the 5,000 daily users at The Rec are also peeved? That’s a lot of political muscle to exercise out there.

And so what price on the privatisation of leisure by Labour led @lambeth_council? Apart from the inconvenience of the nearest GLL swimming pool that is open during the daytime being up in Camden, my calculations make it just under £177, 000 per annum..

I filed a Freedom of Information request a few weeks ago, asking how many Greenwich Leisure Limited memberships have been cancelled in Lambeth between 1st December 2009 and the 31st January 2010.

This timeframe corresponds with the closure of Streatham Leisure Centre at the end of November 2009, the closure of Clapham Leisure in mid-January 2010 and the reduced opening hours at Brixton Rec at the end of January 2010.

The £177, 000 figure is calculated by multiplying the £26 basic GLL monthly membership price with the 567 cancellations as stated in the FOI request. This gives a monthly figure of £14, 742. Multiply this figure by twelve, and you get the annual revenue loss of £176, 904.

The £177, 000 in lost revenue only relates to leisure users in Lambeth that had signed up to become GLL members. The figure doesn’t take into account the number of lost swimming sessions by pay as you go users, who also now have nowhere to swim in Lambeth.

The reduction of monthly cash flow becomes something of a convenient self-fulfilling prophecy for local politicians. Streatham was closed because it needed investment. With nowhere to swim in SW16, the users cancelled their memberships. The council is then left with a reduced money pot in which to justify making the necessary repairs.

The FOI request also states that 308 cancellations took place in the corresponding timeframe twelve months previous. I accept that this suggests that there may be a seasonal trend happening here. Losing 259 further members in a calendar year is still a pretty heavy loss in income.

A combined figure of 875 cancelled memberships over a two year period indicates that something is pretty rotten to the core in the way that leisure is currently managed in Lambeth.

It is interesting to view this £177, 000 shortfall in the context of the John Lewis cooperative style of government that Lambeth Labour proposed this week. GLL was name checked as a success story in this style of local governance.

The John Lewis model is a social experiment imposed on the people living in the Lambeth Petri dish direct response to the Tories up in Barnet and their Easy Jet two-tier system of local government:

“The Tories in Barnet have come up with a plan to offer no-frills public services along the lines of budget airlines like Ryan air. What that means is minimal or sub-standard services offered to most people with better services only available to people wealthy enough to pay more for them.

Looking at the options open to leisure users in Lambeth, and there is little to choose between the two main parties and their high street branding attempts to become electable.

Leisure is already run as a two-tier service in the Rotten Borough. If you want to swim, then you have to go down the private route of paying up to join Fitness First. The standard no thrills service offered by @lambeth_council is a closed Streatham Leisure Centre, a Clapham Leisure Centre that is in the hands of private capital and a bonkers opening timetable at Brixton Rec.

But it’s not all about costings – what about the health benefits of leisure? The real price for the privatisation of leisure by Labour led @lambeth_council is the reduction in exercise taken by local people at facilities in the borough. You can’t even begin to put a costing on this

Prologue – high hopes and plenty of political optimism ahead of a public meeting to try and resolve the Streatham Hub project. Steady the buffers, old boy. I think you know that there is unlikely to be a happy ending here…

And so how do you solve a problem like the Streatham Hub?

We may be screwed for leisure in La La Lambeth Land, but at least we can still have a laugh. The refusal of Tesco to attend a public meeting on Wednesday to explain why a new ice rink and leisure facility still hasn’t been built by the supermarket giant, was met with the time honoured tradition of placing a big bag of lard on the empty seat.

Not just any old big bag of lard either – this was the finest lard procured from the shelves of the newly opened Morrisons in SW16. I think that’s what you call a double political whammy for the absent business partner for Labour led @lambeth_council.

The headline news (pay attention @streathamguardian) is that the multi-national will decide in March if it can be bothered to continue with the whole project. A high-powered board meeting will deliver the judgement on the Little People of Lambeth. I hope they have some decent sarnies to eat during their pow wow.

And then…

The Man from Tesco, he say YES! …we can hold the supermarket to account and make sure it delivers what it promised almost a decade ago.

The Man from Tesco, he say No! …@lambeth_council we’re screwed. Our elected politicians will squirm out of the affair with continued claims of “commercial confidentiality,” before then going to erect a temporary gym at The Rookery on Streatham Common – SERIOUSLY.

You’ve heard of the Lambeth Lego Pool, but now a tent in the great outdoors with a few dumb bells (oh the irony) is actually being considered by @lambeth_council as a serious alternative, irrespective of Tesco continuing with the project.

The meeting was told that it would take “two to three years” to build the hub, and in the meantime, the tent / gym is a temporary option.

And what if Tesco walks away from SW16 after a wasted decade? No guarantees of a Plan B were given. Back to The Rookery it is then. The temporary becomes the future and a generation of lard arses, deprived of leisure in Lambeth, will eat their own weight in microwave chips. But not from Tesco. Obviously.

As the good @CllrMarkBennett tweeted in reflection after the meeting:

“I shall not be shopping @tescostores until they give Streatham what they promised – a new ice rink, pool and leisure centre.”

Cripes. It really was one of those seismic evenings. There was a sense that a turning point has been reached. The good folk of Streatham have long since lost all patience with the supermarket giant, and the issue now seems to have divided Labour in Lambeth.

@CllrMarkBennett wasn’t alone in breaking from the party line being spun so disastrously from the stage by Councillor Rachael Heywood and her cabinet colleague, Councillor Lib Peck. Nu Labour poster boy @ChukaUmunna later told me that he “doesn’t trust Tesco,” and that he “honestly doesn’t know” if @lambeth_council will be able to deliver on the Hub.

Blimey.

Time maybe for a bit of backtracking. With the Tesco owned Streatham Ice Rink being held together by a bit of gaffer tape, and the Leisure Centre next door not looking much better, @lambeth_council did the dirty with Tesco to build a brand new rink and leisure centre. In return, the multi-national gets to set up a rather large corner shop in SW16.

But this was all some seven years ago. By now and the Hub should be complete. Instead we have an ice rink that is unable to stage Redskins’ matches, and a leisure centre that has been shut because it is unsafe.

The public meeting on Tuesday evening called by the fine @streathamaction was supposed to be the opportunity for Tesco to come clean. You get an indication of the company’s commitment to Streatham by its absence on the night.

Instead we had the Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities, Councillor Heywood, and the Cabinet Member for Housing and Regeneration, Councillor Peck, left to squirm explain away on the stage almost a decade of mismanagement.

I’m not the greatest flag waver for the failed Nu Labour privatisation project in the Rotten Borough (you don’t say…) but even I felt pity for the local politicians that have been left to hang out to dry by the corporate beast with all the economic and political muscle.

Ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight, and all that?

This was an angry political floor, with its constituents made up of beefed up hockey players, muscle-toned swimmers and mischievous bloggers that really have nothing better to do on a wet Wednesday evening in South London.

Actually, that’s not true. My agenda concern is the lack of swimming in Lambeth. As a Clap’ham refugee I’ve been forced to dip my toe in the waters of Brixton. So have all the Streatham refugees, being bussed down Brixton Hill for the magical 7-9am only timeslot in SW9 each morning.

Apologies if I railroaded the start of the meeting with my Clap’ham interjections, but the good Councillor Heywood started off on the subject first.

Likewise with Councillor Lib Peck. It was a basic point of order, as she insisted that the Labour administration was in control of the timetable of closure in Clap’ham. Um, not true, my friend. If you had attended the User’s Forum to explain the closure of Clap’ham (actually if anyone from Lambeth Labour had attended the forum,) then you would have found out that the poor, sheepish folk at Greenwich Leisure Limited were told to shut up shop by the Cathedral Group on New Year’s Eve.

But anyway, I sat back, started a bit of @audiobooing and took in the debate.

@streathamaction did a fine job in trying to keep to the agenda of (i) leisure, (ii) ice rink and (iii) library (um, falling down as well.) But the passion and anger from the electorate on the floor made the meeting rather different to cabinet two nights previous (@cllrstevereed: “this is a cabinet meeting and you have no right to speak. Be silenced.”)

Too many political mistakes have been made in Streatham over the years. This has led to uncertainty in the different services provided by @lambeth_council, and consequently a confused agenda of different interest groups on the evening.

Questions were asked concerning what cost is involved to re-open Streatham leisure centre (“no costs have been carried out,”) does an ice rink still feature in the Hub plans (“probably” – major hooter HONK!!!! alert: this is a retraction from the previous cast-iron guarantee) and how can @lambeth_council hold Tesco to account?

There was no answer given to this question, likewise for a very articulate point raised by a young girl who must have been of primary school age:

“You said ten years ago that you would build a new ice rink. If we can’t believe you on that, what can we believe you on?”

Someone give that young girl an @audioboo account now. Fine work, madam.

The point was also made that Tesco is prepared to let the ice rink run down. The suggestion is that it will then be easy to close the old rink, and conveniently forget to build a new one. Even Streatham is experiencing gentrification, and the land is ripe for some poncey new flats.

The meeting then went slightly bonkers. There was some fine fighting talk calling for @lambeth_council to take back control of the project with a Compulsory Purchase Order. A public boycott of Tesco was suggested, which then somehow descended into a Shoplifters of the World Unite moment. Only in the Rotten Borough…

Representation from the Redskins was strong. One player spoke of how the rink is the “laughing stock” in hockey circles throughout the country. It’s a very real danger to both players and spectators.

Having already lost London’s only Elite Ice Hockey League team, the Racers, because of a dangerous rink, it would be shocking to also lose the proud name of the Redskins (point of order: I gave up watching the ‘Skins some years ago, partly to do with work commitments, partly because I really didn’t want to spend my Sunday evenings in a freezing old barn.)

“I’m not proud of the state of the rink,” interjected the good Councillor Heywood, before bumbling her line when heckled about when she last went there. “Um, oh, um, I think about four months ago.”

Which all leaves us back where we started some ten years ago. It’s difficult to judge who has been more culpable over the whole sorry Hub saga, @lambeth_council or Tesco?

Both organisations are intertwined with a total lack of credibility. The utter failure of the leisure policy by @lambeth_council is a direct consequence of Nu Labour being totally dependent on big business. We’ve seen it in Clap’ham with the Cathedral Group calling the shots, and now it seems that Tesco are about to show who really is in control in Streatham.

Ah, but events dear boy, events. Something wicked this way comes, and it’s called a ballot box.

As I remarked to @Chris4Streatham, the LibDem parliamentary candidate for Streatham in the @audioboo below, ultimately it is the good people of Streatham that may just be able to resolve the Hub farce; vote back in Lambeth Labour, and the cabinet is locked into some form of unexplainable commitment to sticking with big business to try and sort out Streatham.

Vote *elsewhere* and solutions are on offer to actually establish who is in control of Streatham – the democratically elected and accountable political party, or a multi-national big business that probably can’t even locate Lambeth on a map, let alone the mean streets of Streatham.

Yer man @ChukaUmunna was equally good company, and also very kindly agreed to an interview after I door stopped him. With preposterous expectations laid upon Chuka, leisure is clearly an incredibly prickly issue for him, come polling day.

Being aligned to the same political party that has closed the pool in his chosen constituency has led to some distance being put between the Labour parliamentary candidate, and the local party on the ground. Will the voters buy into it? Listen to yer man…

A final footnote – many thanks, as ever, to the server testing patience that is @markrock and @audioboo. The medium really is the message (well, apart from the other minor message of almost a decade of development being lost in SW16, thanks to a reliance and misguided belief in big business.)

The boos below are embedded in no particular order or priority. They are just a flavour of the feeling from the floor on the night.

Day 16 of the Privatisation of Leisure in the Rotten Borough, and are the new arrangements at Brixton Rec starting to bed down?

Are they b*****ks.

Swim London members were given assurances at the Users Forum to announce the closure of Clap’ham Pool that all GLL membership cards would be transferable. Simply swipe your card at Brixton, and Bob’s yer uncle.

But I haven’t got an uncle called Bob. I haven’t even got an Aunty called Robert, either.

If the 7 – 9am only swimming in SW9 wasn’t bad enough, we now have to suffer the daily embarrassment of being branded a Clap’ham refugee. I arrive bright and early (very early) in Brixton, full of anticipation of my barcode card being swiped.

“Could you try again, please, Sir?”

“Oh, let’s swipe it a little slower.”

“One more time, please, Sir. Sir? Sir…?“

The Brixton Rec smiling receptionists are doing their best under very trying circumstances. The closure both of Clap’ham and St Reatham pools by Labour led Lambeth Council, has led to all Lambeth swimmers now competing for a slot in the two hour time frame in SW9 each morning.

But how b***y difficult can it be to update the GLL records, and update my card, as promised at the Clap’ham Users Closure Forum? That’s the whole point of a Swim LONDON membership, surly? Your card is transferable across all GLL sites. I was certainly led to believe this when I was stung with the hidden costs during the generic online signing up process.

Tuesday morning saw a new twist to the farce of the early morning leisure failure. Three receptionists smiling away, and not a single customer. Cripes – a quick swipe or three and I should be in the pool before chucking out time at 9am.

But nope – I was asked instead to use the fast checkout machine at the side of the reception. I’ve every sympathy for the lovely GLL smiling ladies – the self-service machine is similar to the scab labour sets ups that are on the increase in supermarkets.

My Swim London card has yet to work on a single day since the Privatisation of Leisure by Lambeth Council, and so I was weary of the new approach.

“Don’t worry, Sir. It will be fine.”

And so I swiped, swiped, and swiped again. If at first you don’t succeed, bugger off back to bed and admit defeat. The free market has won, and you might as well turn into a lard arse, rather than try and use your local leisure facilities.

I continued of course, and asked once again for my details to be updated.

“How do we know who you are?”

I would have thought that you have got enough data on me already, seeing as though the direct debit still comes out of my bank account each month.

“Could Sir please try and resolve this membership issue at our Member’s Office?”

“Sure, what time does the office open?”

“9:30.”

Chucking out time at Brixton Rec is 9am. Swimming in a sea of fools.

If it’s the evening of the best football match of the season, then it must mean that I draw the short straw and cycle off for a Full Council Meeting at Lambeth Town Hall. An own goal, a possible red card and even the suggestion of a streaker – and that was just in the Council chamber.

Cripes.

You need the patience of a Saint to sit through all the twaddle and posturing that takes place within local government. The good @mayoroflambeth fortunately has this attribute. His charisma alone chaired the meeting. How else to make the voting of twenty-one motions at the close seem worth sitting through?

The main thrust midweek in Lambeth was a themed debate on the current state of Health Inequalities in Lambeth. A serious subject that requires serious debate and commentary. I think we just about got there.

Lambeth Primary Care Trust (it use to be called the NHS back in the day) was represented by its Chief Executive Kevin Barton and a selection of his colleagues. I bumped into one of the PCT representatives as I stalked a backroom corridor before the meeting.

“Do you know where the main chamber is?” I politely enquired.

“What on earth would you want to go in there for?,” came the reply.

Being quizzed by our democratically elected representatives from the Left Right and the further Right was obviously not on the radar for the fine PCT representative. I had her down as a closet Villa fan.

I soon settled with the rest of the Little People, looking down on the great den of democracy. Actually there was around a dozen or so of us in the public gallery. It wasn’t exactly standing room only down in the chamber either, with a number of empty seats from our fine upstanding councillors.

Down to business, and actually a half-decent debate. The Green Party’s Councillor Thackray made an important point about the provision for HIV prevention and care in Lambeth. Yer man Mr Barton gave the chamber a cold reality check with talk of “smarter, more imaginative ways to meet the expected deficit.” I think he was talking about allowing the free market into the Rotten Borough.

“Resources will be squeezed” over the next decade, with even talk of a “financial tsunami.” Blimey. I bet some knobber mentions the ‘elephant in the room’ next, I pondered, as I flicked around my iPhone for the latest football score.

“Can we talk about the elephant in the room?” enquired a Labour member. She wasn’t referring to leisure, either.

Ah, leisure in the Rotten Borough. My leisure, other people’s pleasure. Labour’s @cllr_robbins made the connection between increased leisure provision and preventative health care. He didn’t mention that his administration has just shut all three swimming pools in the Rotten Borough.

The Love Me I’m a Liberal lot took issue with some of the figures contained within the health report. One in five people in Lambeth live in Sunny Stockwell, apparently. Sunny side of the street, ‘n all that.

“Stockwell is a beautiful place,” observed the good Labour Councillor @imogenwalker. It most certainly is, but now is not the time to be complacent.

There was also the observation by Labour’s @CllrMarkBennett that residents in his St Reatham South ward live longer than the average national age. Woh. Way to go St Reatham South.

This is genuinely encouraging and positive news. I just can’t help but think that the blue rinse brigade down in SW16 are getting a little bored of Countdown, what with no leisure centre or library in their patch to help pass away the afternoon.

Exit stage left of our friends from Lambeth PCT, enter stage right Punch ‘n Judy. The second half of the session was put aside for Q & A’s. This is where the local politicians like to rehearse their skills at being the big boys as they plot their political careers towards Westminster.

Ambition is a wonderful trait. It needs to be focussed however, and not played out at the detriment for local people living in one of the most deprived boroughs in the country.

My plague on both houses moment came when it came down to a bloody Tory to defend leisure in Lambeth. Has it really come to this? A right wing Labour administration that is being made to look foolish by the party of privatisation?

What followed was an astonishing speech from Labour councillor Rachel Heywood, the Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities. It was a red rag moment that Wayne Rooney would have been proud of – if he could find a leisure centre in Lambeth that is still open, that is.

Councillor Heywood stated that she was “not embarrassed” about the abject failure of Lambeth Labour’s leisure policy. It was a very different approach from the good Councillor, compared to the touchy, feely ‘concern’ that was shown when I spoke with her about leisure from a user’s perspective, some forty-eight hours earlier.

A murmur of “Keep Clap’ham Swimming” came from the opposition benches. I wasn’t quite sure of Council chamber protocol, but I missed the moment to throw down from the public gallery my goggles in disgust.

Hey hoe. All was not lost. I was inspired by Labour councillor @QueenFlo, who praised the work of Space Makers and #brixvill down in SW9 over the past few weeks. Fellow Labour Councillor @jkazantzis confirmed that Space Makers have been invited back to Lambeth, with talk of St Reatham and Norwood benefiting from use of empty commercial space. They should have a field day in St Reatham.

Sticking with St Reatham and Labour’s Lib Peck, Cabinet Member for Housing and Regeneration, was asked by the LibDems about the failed St Reatham Hub project. Two very precise and very worthwhile questions were raised:

(i) Can the Councillor give assurances that all existing leisure facilities in Streatham will have a home once [if?] the hub project is complete, and

(ii) Can the Councillor confirm that St Reatham Ice Rink will remain open until a new facility is built?

Councillor Lib Peck answered the questions by hiding behind the lame protection of “commercial confidentiality.” Looks like Tesco’s has got Labour Lambeth right by the balls. Assuming there are any left, that is.

And that was just about yer lot. All that remained was the voting on twenty-one motions. Not everyone sat through the entire debate, but the boys seemed to know which buttons to press anyway.

Long live democracy. Only in the Rotten Borough.

I went in search of the “success story” of leisure in Lambeth today. I didn’t find any evidence of it at Brixton Rec. Instead I found unhappy users, who have been shunted from site to site, changing room to changing room, and all in the name of continued investment.

Twenty four hours after the good Councillor Nigel Haselden very kindly agreed to explain Lambeth Labour’s confused leisure policy, I still can’t quite see where the “success story” angle comes from.

I think (hope?) that I put across the user’s point of view in the previous podcast. Padlocking up swimming pools isn’t a sign of the success story that Lambeth Labour likes to portray.

Many thanks to the very kind users who I door-stepped in a very undignified manner as they were leaving the current shoebox that doubles up as a changing room. It was slightly awkward lurking around the locker room, especially so with children waiting to use the space.

I wanted to add a female perspective, but it felt just plain wrong to point my iPhone in the face of females as they were frog marched up the back stairs, still dripping wet en route to the roundabout way of finding the ladies’ changing room.

And so not the most successful of vox pops; which at least keeps in theme with the subject matter of the crazy claims that leisure in Lambeth is a success story.