onionbagblog

And so it looks like the Vauxhall Stop Kev campaign has, um, stopped. You may remember how a coup d’Vauxhall (cripes) developed, with a squeaky clean (and recently newly elected) Lambeth councillor being behind the campaign to oust the man behind Kate Hoey MP.

@kevindcraig’s role as the Secretary of the Constituency Labour Party (CLP) was crucial here. Stop Kev, put in a right wing puppet, and then open the backdoor for the Nu Labour Poster Boy to take control of the constituency, come 2015.

Or at least that was the plan put in place by the squeaky clean (and recently newly elected) Lambeth councillor. It turns out that the local branches have finally found their balls after all.

The Nu Labour Attacks Dogs of War have failed to add the CLP to accompany the control that the right wing of @LambethLabour now has within Lambeth Town Hall. They don’t like it up ‘em here in the north end of the borough.

Vassall ward branch was out of the starting blocks first, backing not only @kevindcraig to remain as Secretary, but also coming out with some fighting talk in defence of the suspension of Councillor Kingsley Abrams, after the botched email hacking attempt from the right wing of the party.

The Vassal support was to be expected, following the dirty tricks campaign against an incredibly popular local politician from within the ward. What seems to have muzzled the Nu Labour Attacks Dogs of War however is opposition from around the other local branches to putting up the Poster Boy against Hoey.

Larkhall, Stockwell and even Clap’ham Town have all now nominated @kevindcraig to remain as Secretary, a direct kick in the shiny teeth of the squeaky clean (and recently newly elected) Lambeth councillor, now clambering somewhere near the bottom of the South London greasy pole.

The strength of support for the left of centre candidate even came from the most unlikely of sources, with @LambethLabour cabinet member, @cllr_robbins turning his back on the Stop Kev campaign. It was a similar situation over the ward boundary in Clap’ham Town, with Councillors Haselden and O’Malley both coming out in support of the left of centre @kevindcraig.

Stockwell showed some resistance, but still the branch members ignored the political careerists within, trying to prop up the Poster Boy. @richardangell proudly tweeted that he had “been elected Secretary of @LabourStockwell.” Well done that man. He certainly has experience of this role, having had a similar job at the Brixton Hill branch until he was defeated by the fine chap @brixtonalex to become the ward candidate.

With @Morganmc77 also putting some paste on the paintbrushes down in Sunny Stockwell ahead of the campaign for the Poster Boy, it was with some surprise that the Stockwell branch also backed @kevindcraig, and not the right wing puppet Paul Gadsby. Even a strong endorsement from Councillor Bigham failed to swing the Stockwell branch to the right.

So far it is only Ferndale that has been convinced that the Stop Kev campaign has any legs. Even the Nu Labour love in that is Prince’s ward doesn’t have the stomach (or ambition) to take on Hoey, deciding instead not to make any nomination.

The Oval and Bishop’s wards have yet to vote, but the sums simply don’t stack up for the squeaky clean (and recently newly elected) Lambeth councillor who has been trying to line up the Poster Boy for Parliament.

The botched Stop Kev campaign now looks like letting the fragrant Mss Hoey to carry on doing whatever it is that the fragrant Mss Hoey does around these parts for some time to come.

Hoey has a reception at the House of Commons later this week, to thank her supporters within Vauxhall who helped her return to Westminster once again. Invites have been sent out; posters haven’t been put up.

Another day, another @LambethLabour leisure pledge as polling time approaches. If it’s Tuesday, then it must be time to roll out the unworkable vote winner of:

“Free swimming for everyone.”

But yep - that’s exactly what @cllrstevereed has done in the latest rally call to keep the Red Flag (oh, stop it!) flying from the roof of Lambeth Town Hall:

“Our manifesto is full of positive ideas and commitments you can hold us to …a major expansion of sport and leisure facilities with four new pools and free swimming for everyone.”

I’m going to treat the four new pools pledge with the folly that such a false promise deserves. First of all, are we talking about “four new pools” per se, as the exact linguistic interpretation suggests?

Or are we talking about re-opening Streatham and Clap’ham - two pools that have been closed under the @LambethLabour watch - and then opening two further more pools?

Overlooking the blind faith in two new pools being built in West Norwood and Waterloo by the time local politicians start to get friendly with the Little People once again in four years time, then surly this leaves us with NO new pools being opened, but simply the closed two pools coming back into public use.

Moving on…

@AnnaJCowen will be rather pleased once polling day is over. It will mean that the letter from @janeinlondon / East Hampshire, that makes the exact same word for word pledge of “free swimming for everyone,” can be removed from its current place of beside the front door.

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the Oval #labourdoorstep team since the misleading letter was first posted. I want @janeinlondon / East Hampshire to look me in the eye (oooh…) and confirm that if I vote for her on May 6th (Oval, not East Hampshire,) then I will get free swimming at Brixton Rec come Friday morning. This is the implication of the twaddle that has been landing through the letterboxes in Lambeth.

I’ve already made enquiries with the very decent folk at Greenwich Leisure Limited about the management of “free swimming for everyone,” and the effect that it will have on the pimped out John Lewis style provider.

“Know nothing about it, mate,” has been the answer coming out of my man from GLL.

“Ah, but would your current contract with @lambeth_council be able to support the pledge to provide free swimming for everyone,” I asked?

“Um, Probably not. Money aside, there’s not exactly a lot of pools open in Lambeth right now,” continued the very nice man from GLL.

And so it’s a chicken and egg / free swimming and four new pools scenario in the Rotten Borough. Which came first? Free swimming or the four new pools?

Or perhaps *shhh* neither?

Nah…

That would just be *too* politically clever from our friends @LambethLabour.

This is a piss take, right?

“One of the key campaign issues in Lambeth has been the regeneration of the borough and the future of our pools and other leisure facilities. Many local residents will be heading to the ballot box on May 6th with memories of LibDem inaction as they watched Streatham Leisure Centre crumble without any secure plans to replace it and will recall their attempts to sell Brixton Rec and Clapham swimming pool to property developers when they ran the council with Tory support.”

The re-writing of the leisure agenda in the past four years by our friends from @LambethLabour is almost on par with the dodgy data that has cropped up over in the Herne Hill election leaflets.

To use Nu Labour language, the complete meltdown of leisure in Lambeth is hardly a case of fixing the ceiling whilst the sun was shining. If that were so, the closure of Streatham Leisure Centre last year would never have happened. The roof fell in on the good people of SW16 - quite literally.

Clap’ham Pool meanwhile *has* been sold to a property developer, but not under the @LambethLibDems watch, but by the right wing @LambethLabour cabinet.

It is hypocrisy of the highest order to claim otherwise, when you consider that it was the Cathedral Group that closed Clap’ham with only two weeks notice on New Year’s Eve, having finally secured the funds to build private property on council owned land.

The twaddle continues with a quote from @cllrstevereed, stating:

“A vote for them [LibDems] threatens this hard-won progress as their infuriating idleness saw leisure facilities languish when they were in charge.”

*speechless*

Sort of…

Streatham closed, Clap’ham closed and Brixton barely open since January. I note that the manifesto pledge of: “free swimming for every resident” is now no longer repeated in the @LambethLabour leisure literature.

No worries - if we wake up with a red flag flying over Lambeth Town Hall towards the end of next week, I’ll be first in the queue at the Rec, clutching the @LambethLabour manifesto and demanding my free dip in the kiddie piss pool.

Perhaps the only positive side to come out of the whole Streatham Hub fiasco has been @LambethLabour’s ability to unite the local community. Sustainable Streatham, Streatham Society, Streatham Festival, Friends of Streatham Common, the Open Spaces Society, and Streatham Action - all have joined forces to fight the plan to place the temporary ice rink slap bang in the middle of Streatham Common.

The Streatham and Clap’ham projects may have progressed in recent weeks (funny that…) but let it not be forgotten that it is private capital that is now propping up leisure under @LambethLabour.

Pimping out your key community assets to big business, and then dressing it up as a cooperative council, seems like a one-way relationship to me. No public consultation (as promised) and no right of reply from the elected officials, should the free market throw a wobbler once again.

Hey hoe - sling out a press release and simply re-write leisure history within the Rotten Borough.

Shameless.

Yeah, yeah, the continual promise of “jam tomorrow” as Lambeth leisure slides ever deeper into a complete meltdown…

After the frustration of finding out that our friends from @LambethLabour have missed the second deadline regarding the re-re-opening of Brixton Rec, I was cheered when the lovely Joseph from Greenwich Leisure Limited invited me in for a backstage tour of the new changing facilities at SW9.

The March 15th “absolute guarantee” from the Labour cabinet might have been missed, but from what I have seen from behind the polythene sheet of mystery at the Rec, the wait will just about have been worth it.

An army of builders is working behind the scenes at the Rec. Joseph and I could barely walk around the building site, such was the frantic activity-taking place. On time and on budget, ‘n all that…

First off, it’s worth emphasising that the new Rec is indeed new. This is no bodget and scarper makeover, as was the case back in the summer of 2007 with the £2.7m hash job.

All that remains from the old Rec changing rooms is the roof and the pillars. Oh, and the wooden benches, which have now been re-cycled and re-varnished, to be transformed into a hanging space for clothes - a nice touch.

The area has been completely re-tiled, with new cubicles, showers and toilets put in place. Plus a ‘vanity space’ - blimey. This is basically a workstation with mirrors and hair dryers. There is something similar down @BrockwellLido.

The difference at the Rec is that the vanity area is a mixed space. I’m not sure which of the sexes is the more vain, but I don’t anticipate that I’ll be spending longer than ten seconds in front of the mirrors each morning.

Once past the vanity space, and the basic premise for the new changing facilities at the Rec is still the ladies to the right, gents to the left as you walk in. This became slightly difficult to visualise, given that burly builders currently take up both Arthur and Martha areas.

It was around this part of the tour that I became slightly lost. Having never been behind the scenes in the female changing rooms, I can’t comment on what has changed. The gents however have lost some of the original floor space. The showers at the top end remain (completely re-tiled) but the space down the centre has now been given over to a family changing area.

You could probably fit a dozen of the current temporary changing areas into the new gents, so space isn’t really an issue. Providing a private area where Dads can take young daughters to get changed has to be a good thing.

I asked my fine guide it there was any possibility of taking photos. He was very diplomatic, but I think his job is worth more than meeting the whims of a lone blogger.

Likewise I pressed for an opening date. Given that two dates have already been missed, it is no surprise that the good man from GLL was slightly cagey.

“You may just miss us, if the Lido opens on May 6th,” he jested.

Mid-May looks like the next deadline that has been set for the delayed job.

And so hopefully out of yet another Lambeth leisure cock up could eventually come a positive news story. The old changing area was a disgrace, the victim of many years of under-investment and funding from consecutive political administrations.

Meanwhile, I’m hearing encouraging news coming out of Brockwell Lido about plans for a winter swimming club. It may be the wrong time of the year to be discussing this, but if the plans fall into place, the lovely lido may not close at all come the end of this season.

Having first been asked to register for a possible interest in winter swimming at the lido during the BLU AGM back in October, the sums have now been costed, and a model based on the superb South London Swimming Club down at Tooting Bec have been put in place.

There is a meeting at the lido on the evening of April 22nd. The working model is based on the more swimmers that sign up, the cheaper the cost will be. It may not be possible to swim all winter down at Brockwell this year, as Fusion has plans to paint the pool at some stage.

Still - with finally, finally a new changing area at Brixton Rec almost complete, a winter swimming club at Brockwell, and the first bricks being removed and re-built at Clap’ham, leisure in Lambeth *may* just have turned the corner in what has been an incredibly trying winter.

My caution concerning Tesco in SW16 is another question entirely…

It’s certainly easier to pull down a swimming pool than it is to agree to build a new one. Here’s hoping that the vigour in bulldozing the old pool at Clap’ham Manor Street can be met with the same zeal, once construction work commences on Future Clap’ham.

I shall miss Clap’ham Manor. There remains some unique character about the old building, even it its last death throws. It’s breaks my heart to look back at images of the lovely old pool.

Here be the old reception area, the scene on my 7am smiles (and slight flirtations) with the lovely GLL receptionist staff. If you find a fiver lost underneath all the rubble, um, it’s mine.

Judging by the speed of the destruction, it can’t be long until the main pool is plundered next. Here’s hoping they haven’t forgotten to pull the plug.

Another quarter, another Clap’ham Brixton Users Forum. With Streatham and Clap’ham both closed, the Users Forum at the Rec has now become *the* Users Forum for all leisure users in Lambeth.

Apt timing as well, what with the “absolute guarantees” from the Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities that Brixton Rec would re-open on March 15th.

*cough*

It was another one of those afternoons where I was left twiddling my thumbs with the lovely folk from Greenwich Leisure Limited. I feel rather sorry for the GLL guys. They are operating Streatham Clap’ham Brixton under incredibly trying circumstances. Political interference from our friends at Labour led @lambeth_council gets in the way of any hopes of health and fitness.

Apathy breads apathy. Or maybe the appearance of one lone blogger was once again evidence that the electorate is “happy with the performance of Labour in Lambeth,” as the good Councillor Toren Smith suggested at the recent full council meeting.

It wasn’t the absence of other users that I found annoying. With the pool closed, you can’t expect users to make a special trip, just to find out… why the pool is closed.

It would have been decent of some elected and democratically accountable local politicians to have been present, to explain the further delay. Instead it was tea and biscuits for the GLL boys and me.

Job’s a good ‘un.

And so anyway - back to Brixton…

The headline news coming out of the Rec is that @lambeth_council GLL “can’t commit to a re-opening date” in SW9. That’s the on the record response. Off the record, and the latest Lambeth Cultural Services Briefing, a document that is circulated to selected Councillors, states:

The contractor and architect have revised the work programme to extend the completion date to 16 April. We have looked at what possibilities exist to reduce this including extended shifts and overnight shift work patterns, but while it may be possible to reduce the completion date by a few days, it cannot be guaranteed and the costs may be prohibitive.

The clear advice of the architect is that given the nature to the work to be undertaken we should not seek to reduce this revised timetable. We will of course continue monitor this on a day-by-day basis.

I was told by the nice folk at GLL that the reason for the Rec refurbishment delay is because of “unforeseen circumstances” in the drainage system in the old changing rooms.

Fair point. What is more illuminating however is that the selected Councillors who are privilege to the Lambeth Cultural Services Briefing were told more specifically:

A number of failures in the work previously undertaken during earlier refurbishment were discovered including the lack of mastic and screws to joints in excess water gulleys, the absence of drains for the gulleys and lack of appropriate waterproofing.

Blimey.

A £2.7m election manifesto chest beating refurbishment back in 2007, and then it comes back to bite you on the bum come ballot box time.

We’ve all heard of bodget and scarper builders, but you have to be consistently crap at your job to go and balls up a £2.7m public money spend.

And so with Brixton put on the back burner until mid-April (ish,) attention at the Users Forum turned towards Clap’ham and Streatham. The old site at SW4 is still being cleared ahead of the bulldozers. Two years behind schedule, but at least the woefully titled Future Clap’ham is now happening.

And then we come to Streatham…

The nice GLL folk were unable to add any further details other than those confirmed at the Hub meet last month. This is a crucial week for the Hub. Tesco is deciding if it wants to continue working with @lambeth_council and controlling the leisure investment in SW16.

I have high optimism ahead of the Tesco board meeting taking place on Wednesday. The Lambeth Cultural Services Briefing backs this up, stating:

Following recent high level negotiations, Tesco are now in the final stages of agreeing with their board the scheme that is acceptable to Lambeth. This includes a new supermarket, sport centre, swimming pool, new ice rink, housing and a transport infrastructure.

It is unclear from this statement if this is a genuine insight into finally some positive news coming out of Lambeth involving leisure, or just the usual posturing from the politicians who have been caught with their pants down when trying to tackle Streatham Hub.

I hope it is the former.

I *seriously* hope it is the former.

After the Tesco board meet on 17th March, @lambeth_council will probably provide an update at cabinet on 22nd March. This is an open, public meeting, but with limited speaking rights.

In the meantime, the document confirms:

We are looking at the possibility of temporary facilities being put in place.

Bench presses at The Rookery on Streatham Common remain an option. Put that date in your diary for the Rookery Users Forum sometime on… [never speculate on timetables when it comes to leisure in Lambeth.]

GLL really are very, very nice people though.

“What guarantees can you give users that Brixton Rec will re-open on schedule?” was the question I put to the good Councillor Rachel Heywood, the Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities at Labour led @lambeth_council back in January.

“Absolute guarantees,” replied Councillor Heywood. “Brixton Rec WILL re-open on 15th March.”

Hurrah!

A quick check of the date this morning shortly after the final swim of the day at 9am, and whaddya know - it’s only 15th March and Brixton Rec is *still* undergoing refurbishment.

Never trust a Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities. Lambeth Council have past form on this. Councillor Heywood’s predecessor, Councillor Lib Peck declared:

“Brixton Rec WILL re-open on 1st July!”

That was back in March 2007 following another refurbishment. The Rec didn’t re-open on the given date, and users had to suffer a couple of more months of sub-standard changing rooms.

No worries - the good Councillor Peck now has a fancy brass plaque with her name on at the reception at the Rec. I’m still not quite sure exactly why.

Yeah, it’s all rather comical this Lambeth leisure time shifting. On time and on budget, and other blah blah blah corporate twaddle etc, but there is a very real issue at stake here for the long suffering swimmers in Lambeth.

Future Clap’ham should by now have delivered a brand new pool to the good people of SW4. Building work is about to start.

Streatham Hub is hanging on a board decision being made by the top level of Tesco boardroom management later this month. They may be good at selling baked beans, but I don’t think that leisure in Lambeth is the number one priority of the corporate supermarket chain.

The justification by @lambeth_council in closing Brixton at the same time as Clap’ham and Streatham was that government funding for the project “had to be spent by 15th March.” I do hope our friends at the council managed to get the cash upfront.

Meanwhile, confirmation comes today that the lovely @BrockwellLido is scheduled for a 3rd May opening this summer. By which time, the newly refurbished Brixton Rec might even be open.

Blimey.

“What guarantees can you give users that the new Clap’ham pool will open on schedule?” was the question I put to the good Councillor Nigel Haselden, Deputy Cabinet Member for Sustainability at @lambeth_council back in January.

I think my blog post for two years hence has just written itself.