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.

Another miserable Monday evening, another @lambeth_council cabinet meeting. I really should change the strap line for m’blog to: ‘Attending council meetings so that *proper* local media don’t have to.’ Or even ‘so that certain opposition parties in the Rotten Borough don’t have to.’

Blimey.

Battling for your attention on the agenda for Monday evening was the land match for Myatts Field North PFI (land swap with local NHS,) primary school expansion (all rather positive) and the Lambeth Sustainability Action Plan (chasing the Green vote.)

The Green agenda has got legs, especially so with only fourteen weeks until polling day. To be fair, @lambeth_council does recycling rather well, as I tweeted (oh yes) during cabinet.

Comedy however is not the strong point of @cllrstevereed.

But anyway…

The main business of the evening was the setting of housing rent for council tenants for the coming year. Talk about a political hot potato. Rent rises are the Spud U Like of Lambeth. Housing will ultimately decide which political party (or even parties – *get you*) will govern in Lambeth as from 7th May.

Our friends in the current Labour administration are all too aware of this. A 5% rent rise was recommended, only to be rather hurriedly downsized to a more voter friendly 3.1%, just as the polling registration cards are starting to come through the letterboxes. Strange, that.

The poor old LibDem opposition didn’t know what to make of the good news story. Maybe the good Councillor Lumsden did, it’s just that I didn’t really know what to make of what he was trying to make of the motion.

You’ve lowered rent rises! You scoundrels!

Yep, it’s a positive story, albeit a cynical one. I couldn’t but help look back to my calendar twelve months previous when the 14% rent rise went through, with a full year still left to run for the Labour party to be in power.

And so a reduction in rent money coming into the council coffers, and something has to give. Repairs? Ah, I see. That was the point that the good Councillor Lumsden was trying to make. The LibDems claimed that repairs wouldn’t be carried out on the crumbling council stock until sometime next summer. The accusation was that this was a temporary housing budget, bulldozed through, just in time for the election.

You don’t say!

Come early summer, and the good Councillor Lumsden and his Love Me I’m a Liberal Lot are rather concerned that they will inherit the £1.2m housing deficit that we have Labour to thank for.

I don’t think that Keith Hill, the outgoing Labour MP for Streatham will be too happy with his local Lambeth Labour colleagues either. In a direct parallel to Obama @ChukaUmunna getting rather peeved at how the local Labour party are damaging his chances come polling day, Keith Hill will be left to clear up the housing mess in a couple of months time.

Having trousered the old boys job of the head of Lambeth Living (pimped out council stock,) the Right Honourable Member for Streatham will now be left with a reduction in rent, and growing budgets to be met. Warnings of up to seventy job losses from the frontline of Lambeth Living staff have already been made.

I can’t but help think that Lambeth Living would do better in waving bye bye to the private consultants that currently take home £700 per HOUR. An invoice was produced at cabinet from a housing campaigner. The obscene amount was up for debate, but £700 per hour or per day (it was actually per hour) would surely make dear old Olive Morris light the touch paper from the beyond grave, to end the farce of the privatisation of housing in the Rotten Borough.

And what of the empty properties in Lambeth? A recent FOI request revealed that out of all the empty properties in the whole of London, one in five are within Lambeth. You can’t make a profit with your reduced rent rise on an empty property. Councillor Lib Peck, Cabinet Member for Housing and Regeneration, didn’t make any reference to the empty stock during her cabinet speech; likewise it wasn’t mentioned in the latest issue of Lambeth Life.

And that really was about yer lot. I appreciated a good catch up offline with the good @CllrMarkBennett come close of business. We talked about swimming, the Streatham Hub project and my white Y-fronts at Brixton Rec.

Blimey.

The good Councillor was brave and honest enough to state that he agreed with @ChukaUmunna’s analysis of the “unsatisfactory” handling of leisure in Lambeth. He confirmed that he should be at the meeting to discuss the way ahead for the Hub this Wednesday. So should you if you have any interest in swimming, ice-skating or even, um, supermarket shopping in SW16.

The Labour cabinet then gave the nod to @CllrMarkBennett to “attend business in room 101.”

Seriously.

What on earth do our elected representatives keep up there? A brand new Clap’ham pool? A state of the art Streatham Ice Rink? Or maybe just a stronger 3G signal than the one I was struggling with for two hours at cabinet?

It’s the final cabinet meeting for this administration next month. We’ll miss them when they’re gone. Won’t we?

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.

Rejoice! Hang the bunting outside Lambeth Town Hall! I’ve found the mythical fool’s gold here in La La Lambeth Land. Lucky me. Looks like the leisure “success story” than Labour Councillor Nigel Haselden was trying to spin out to me last week can be found right here on my doorstep.

Fresh off the printing press, and the latest issue of ‘information newssheet’ Lambeth Life leads with the good news story of a “12m long temporary pool” being loaned out to the disused Lilian Baylis old school site in Kennington.

Well slap me in the face with a wet pair of Speedos and force me to have a cold shower with the entire Labour led Lambeth cabinet.

Cripes.

I knew our good friends at @lambeth_council wouldn’t let us down. The good Councillor Haselden stressed that he was “alarmed at my observations” that the leisure policy in Lambeth has failed the electorate.

I thought I was being objective in my observations. Streatham and Clap’ham pools are both shut, and Brixton is the only place in the Rotten Borough where Lambeth residents can now swim (but only between 7-9am, and with no recognised changing room.)

But nope. Looks like the two-month loan of a Lego swimming pool in Lambeth is the success story I’ve been searching for. Councillor Haselden mocked the idea of a temporary pool after we had finished recording our podcast. Seems like his Labour colleague Rachel Heywood, Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities, hadn’t informed her colleague of the Kennington paddling pool.

Any swim is a good swim, but twelve metres is just poxy. A kick off from one side of the temporary structure and then you’ve touched down at the other end. With the local election looming, it’s this exact form of panic-driven policies that has come to be the legacy of the current administration.

Whatever next? Tents at Brockwell Park to cover up the £1m spunked up the wall to housing consultants during a six-month period last year? Something wicked this way comes. It’s called a ballot paper and so best make sure that temporary arrangements are in place, to see us through until May.

It is with apt timing that Lambeth Life has decided to share the leisure “success” story on the exact same day that the Audit Commission took the spineless decision to allow local authorities to continue to publish this blatant form of political propaganda.

A front-page picture led splash (aha!) in Lambeth Life, yet diddly squat mention of the closure of the three main pools in the Borough. I’m surprised that my Lambeth Life delivery boy doesn’t actually knock on the door wearing a big red rosette, grinning like a buffoon and asking to kiss a baby before leaving me with the latest Lambeth Labour endorsed literature.

Oh, and top marks for the use of kids swimming in the La La Lambeth Land Lego Pool for the picture. Once again it has been conveniently forgotten that the current administration pulled down the 25m pool at Stockwell Park High School, despite concerns from local Labour MP Kate Tally Hoey. It really is saying something if it takes the fragrant Tally Hoey to tick of an administration for cutting public services.

And so the good people of Lambeth are left with a temporary Lego pool in the Rotten Borough, and a local election looming. Leisure shouldn’t be a political hot potato; it should be something that any local authority supports and funds, aware of the wider benefits to the local community.

The electorate can see the privatisation of leisure in Lambeth by the Labour administration as evidence where priorities lay for the current party in power. Knee jerk policies as the election looms are always the sure sign of a party that is sinking. Even in a poxy 12m temporary Lego pool.

Pathetic.