onionbagblog

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, another day, another blog post all about the complete failure of @lambeth_council to provide leisure facilities in the Rotten Borough.

If you’re (i) not from my little patch of South London, and / or (ii) not interested in swimming - apologies. It’s not everyday that your poxy excuse for a local council manages to close all three pools in the area, is it?

Is it?

Cripes.

The headline news, straight outta the mean streets of Lambeth today is:

Clap’ham Pool is closing on 15th January.

It’s nothing that we didn’t already know. The harsh reality of the confirmation date brings it closer to home how Labour run Lambeth Council has completely failed the electorate when it comes to leisure provision.

What hurts harder is that the South London swimming schmozzle is of a direct result of a Labour administration getting into bed with big business, and ending up being right, royally shagged up the a***.

As a painful re-cap:

St Reatham is closed because the building is falling down. Lambeth Council won’t pump any money into the pool because of the grand plans for the failed St Reatham hub. After pimping out the project to Tesco, the supermarket is now stalling

Four years behind schedule, and the poor people of SW16 are left not only without anywhere to swim, but also an ice rink that is officially held together by masking tape and no sign of a fancy new supermarket. Which is perhaps some reason to cheer.

Brixton is closing next month, despite the candyfloss claims that Lambeth Labour pin up boy @cllrstevereed (seriously) has been trying to spin out of the sorry situation. The £2m refurbishment of two years ago is money spunked up against the changing room walls. The builders are moving in and the swimmers are moving out.

There is the outside chance of a swim in SW9, but only between the hours of 7am - 9am, and then you have to suffer the indignity of putting on your Speedos upstairs in the gym, being frog marched down two flights of stairs in full public view, before you even reach the pool. The drip drop of the return journey doesn’t even bare thinking about.

And then we come to Clap’ham.

Cripes, Clap’ham.

Clap’ham isn’t falling down, but it is being bulldozed down. The beautiful 33m pool is being replaced by some hideous glass fronted 25m pool. November 2011 is the expected completion date for Future Clap’ham, a projec that has a shifting timeline that would confuse even space / time continuum Star Trek fans.

Keep Clap’ham Swimming was the election manifesto that won Labour the Clap’ham Town ward four years ago. The fear now is that the total incompetence and lack of accountability of Lambeth Labour will lead to Clap’ham not re-opening at all.

In fairness, Greenwich Leisure Limited, the pimped out leisure partner for the Rotten Borough, is attempting to soften the blow. The sweetener of a free month of membership in January has been offered to Swim London cardholders. The only problem here of course is that you need to find a pool that is actually open to swim in.

Didn’t quite think that one through eh fellas?

And what of the poor GLL shop floor staff? The receptionists at Clap’ham are patient (often a little too patient) and genuinely nice people. Much like the above chicken and egg free swimming situation, where exactly are they going to work, now all three pools are shut?

I did feel sorry for the rather nice GLL manager at Clap’ham as he made the effort to track me down after my swim on Tuesday afternoon.

“Are you OK with the new arrangements?” he asked.

“Not really,” I offered, aware that he is probably as p***ed off as I am in the way that Lambeth Council has washed it’s hands over the pimping out of leisure in the Rotten Borough.

The Clap’ham Customer Forum on 11th January should be a lively affair.

I walked past the GLL advertising board, boasting of free swimming for the under 16’s and over 65’s in the Rotten Borough. Even this irresistible advertising claim is now open to question. There’s no such thing as a free swim - not if you can’t find a pool to actually swim in.

And so that’s the state of Sport For All in the Rotten Borough of Lambeth. It’s all a load of bollocks, and bollocks to them all.

The failure of Councillor Lib Peck in her previous cabinet role of Member for Culture and Communities led to her landing the plum portfolio of Housing and Regeneration. The good councillor told Brixton Rec users in March 2007 that:

“Brixton WILL re-open in three months.”

Three months later and The Rec remained closed. A complete lack of user consultation led to a refurbishment that is so shoddy, the Rec is closing after less than three years and a £2m investment.

Fast forward to 2010, and in three months time, the Lambeth electorate will once again be deciding which politicians can be trusted to re-open the Rec. And Keep Clap’ham Swimming. Oh, and how about the Streatham Hub situation?

My leisure, other people’s pleasure…

Ha, ha, ha.

Happy New Year and best wishes from the Rotten Borough.

Um, hang on… Not quite.

An eventful Monday afternoon swim, once I had actually found a pool in Lambeth that remains open. With St Reatham long since lost to political apathy from @lambeth_council, and Brixton about to implement a bonkers swimming timetable to cover up for the cock up of a £2m ‘refit’ (yeah, right…) Clap’ham was on my SW4 radar.

Ah, but as regular readers will no doubt be aware, the Rotten Borough is about to close Clap’ham as well. Keep Clap’ham Swimming, was the manifesto slogan that Lambeth Labour relied upon to win the Clap’ham Town ward from the LibDems four years ago. Careful for what you wish for, and all that.

But it’s not all bad news. A new leisure centre is being built in Clap’ham (although all three claims in this joke of a splash page are chronically economical with the truth.)

It’s about two years behind time, and the budget has more holes that a Lambeth Labour election manifesto. But yeah, the old building along Clap’ham Manor Street should soon be reduced to rubble.

Pity then the poor fellow swimmer, queuing up in the under-staffed Clap’ham reception on Monday afternoon. It’s like the last days of the Roman Empire down in SW4, without the rampant sex and flowing red wine. The poor GLL staff are being shunted north and south within the Rotten Borough, trying to find a facility that actually still needs staffing.

“I’d like to renew my swimming membership,” came the request from the customer. New Year resolutions and all that - now should be the boom period for GLL. It’s this time of the year when the cosy relationship of pimping out leisure from Lambeth Council works in GLL’s favour.

“Oh, you don’t want to do that!” came the reply from the receptionist.”

“Really? REALLY?”

It seems that GLL staff are being advised not to issue new memberships. The pool is closing, and the poor customers will soon have nowhere to swim. Not wanting to have to issue costly refunds during the refit, Sport For All is a mantra that you won’t be hearing within the Rotten Borough in the run up to 2012.

Clarification eventually came, with the receptionist muttering some vague taddle about “we’re expecting to close sometime in the spring.”

We’ve heard all of this before of course - 2009, 2008 - same as it ever was.

So whilst Lambeth Council continues to find a ‘preferred business partner’ to help make up the shortfall in the leisure budget, swimmers are being turned away as the spring months approach.

Ah, beware the ides of March, and all that.

Election time looms in the Rotten Borough.

And so how very amusing - the Clap’ham Leisure Centre quarterly users forum drew in a crowd consisting of six blokes from Greenwich Leisure Limited / @lambeth_council, and um, one lone user / local nutter.

*sigh*

Yep, I felt an a*** as I walked into the empty surrounds of the upstairs room at Clap’ham Manor, and yes, I swear the look I received from the nice man from the Rotten Borough was one of ‘oh no, not him again.’

But if public service providers are going to put themselves up as being accountable, then you need to take the opportunity to hold them to account. Failing that then there’s always the opportunity for some free afternoon tea and biscuits, served up at SW4.

And so how to solve the problem of Clap’ham Leisure Centre? I feel another long *sighhhh* coming up…

The problem per se isn’t the structural building. It just needs some tender loving care. The Brockwell experience down at SE24 proves precisely what can be achieved within an old building, if the heritage is respected and looked after.

The problem isn’t really GLL either. Having taken up the lure of being pimped out by @lambeth_council, GLL is making the best of a one way situation. @lambeth_council gets to lose leisure from its management portfolio, and GLL take a slice of the profit. Eveyone’s happy, apart from the users.

Nope, the problem is with the continued delay of the building of a new leisure centre. As ever, it is the users who are left unsure about the future of swimming in South London.

Having asked for a progress report on the delay of Future Clap’ham (the past always catches up with you…) I’m still none the clearer as to why Clap’ham hasn’t got a shiny new facility, as promised by Labour led Lambeth Council as an election pledge. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention. It was rather awkward trying to covertly podcast on the fly, with six blokes eyeballing me as I fiddled around with the iPhone.

I was told however that Clap’ham would close “early in the new year.” I was told the same timescale twelve months ago, and so I wouldn’t pack away those Speedos just yet.

But if this is to be the new timetable for closure, then swimmers in Clap’ham are stuffed. I asked about alternative arrangements. Brixton was rolled out as the answer. The only problem here being that the Rec is also closing throughout January and February, to carry out improvements to the multi-million pound new changing rooms that were put in place less than three years ago.

Ah, how about St Reatham? Yer man from GLL chipped with the news that part of the St Reatham pool is also closed for repair.

Whoops.

There’s always the lovely lido of course, although not during the winter months (and also not on my GLL Swim London membership; I fear I gave the man from @lambeth_council an easy ride this time, breaking in tradition by not asking the question as to why two separate swimming membership schemes are in place in the Rotten Borough. The answer of course lies with politicians and money.)

The rest of the meeting was open, if not a little awkward. I found it rather tricky trying to pace my questions, waiting for @audioboo to upload a piece, keeping on hold my next question before I could start recording once again.

And so from Future Clap’ham, to scuba divers. Blimey. Blink and you’ll miss the answer.

Cleanliness was mentioned, but to be fair, I have found GLL to be rather good at keeping Clap’ham clean. Updates from the previous forum were read out, confirming that points made by other users (there are others?) had indeed been acted upon.

Which is all praise to GLL. It is great that GLL is held to account, and offers up representatives each quarter to more or less get a kicking. Leisure users are a passionate and vocal constituent. Well, apart from Thursday afternoon in Clap’ham. I can’t help thinking that the panel of six was safety in numbers. What were they really expecting from one lone bloke and his bloody @audioboo app?

So yeah, the comedy value of being the Spokesperson for his Swimming Generation is rather amusing. Future Clap’ham and the continual failure of @lambeth_council to implement an election pledge is not so comical.

As an addendum to the Great Lambeth Swimming Swindle, no surprises to see that swimming in the Rotten Borough is never straight forward.

Tempted by a £26 Swim London membership (which bizarrely includes use of the Hackney owned London Fields lido, but *not* the Lambeth owned Brockwell lido,) I decided to cancel my Lambeth GLL swimming membership, which also costs £26 a month. Sometimes I swim outside of Lambeth; with no price difference, the switch in membership package would seem to make sense.

I experienced a few admin teething problems as I asked the GLL man at Clap’ham reception to carry out the transaction. Seems that I can cancel my GLL Lambeth membership face to face, but I can only take out a Swim London membership online.

No worries. I filled in a form to cancel my old card at the desk at Clap’ham, and then cycled back to base to sign up for the new package online.

I wonder why I can’t carry out the new membership application offline, I pondered as I logged on to the GLL website and tried to navigate a menu system that was more like being trapped in Hampton Court maze.

A dozen or so clicks later and I found out why. The £26 a month membership also includes an ‘administration fee’ of £10, plus a ‘pro rata fee’ of £23.90. Both of these charges are hidden away, only revealed once you get towards the end of a tedious online application process.

So by my calculations, the as advertised £26 a month Swim London membership fee actually costs £28.82 a month, once the hidden costs are taken into account. This is something I have mentioned the man from GLL at Clap’ham via email. If he can’t be a***d to deal with me face to face, then the feeling is mutual.

And as for @lambeth_council and its continued pimping out of a public service? More fool them. If running a public swimming scheme is a licence to print money, then maybe the Council would have been better off by keeping the provision in house.

That Clap’ham Users Forum at the end of the month should be lively.

Opening up the many artistic studios found within Lambeth to the public, for one weekend each year, sounds like an idea that can only help to promote creativity within the borough. Instead, the artistic led venture has been hijacked by @lambeth_council for its own promotional purposes, leading to a division within the artistic community, not to mention a confused public.

I was looking forward to attending some of the events as part of Lambeth Open at the weekend. The original premise came from a collection of Lambeth artists, with the simple idea of showcasing their work by hosting an open studios weekend. The Lambeth Open name said it all.

But than along came Lambeth Council, ever keen to take the credit for the work and enthusiasm of others, and a rival Lambeth Wide Open scheme was set up. See what they have done there? Adding in the prefix of ‘wide’ isn’t the most artistic use of wordplay that you have ever come across, but then we are dealing with the artisitic talents of local politicians.

Such a comical approach to try and curry the artistic endorsement of the creative minds within the borough, sadly led to a not so amusing outcome. The Director of the rival Lambeth Council endorsed event also happens to be a landlord for some of the studios involved in the original idea. Artists were served eviction notices, unless they put their name behind the rival Lambeth Council sanctioned Lambeth Wide Open event.

But unlike Lambeth Council, the artists within the borough have principles. Twenty-six studios signed up for the independent event. Lambeth Council only managed to bully gain the creative support of six studios.

And as for the art viewing public in the borough? Well, we were left with a highly confusing situation, with two rival open studio events being staged, both scheduled for the same weekend of the year. If we were living in a different age, then the use of the word ‘loony’ may even warrant a mention with regards to Lambeth Council once more.

Such has been the anger of the Council led attempt to hijack the local artistic community, a motion has been laid down for debate at the Environment and Community Safety Scrutiny Sub-Committee on 26th November, 7pm, at Room 8 of Lambeth Town Hall:

“Why was £4,500.00 of public money spent on Lambeth Wide Open which only duplicated in part an existing, much larger artists-led event, Lambeth Open, which cost the rate payers nothing?”

It’s a fair question, and one that deserves an honest answer from the Council. The New Labour led Lambeth Council seeks to control everything within the borough. When this involves the infrastructure of education, health and housing, then yes, you want your locally elected officials to be democratically accountable. But art is part of the superstructure, a domain that any Council should steer well clear of. I’ve seen photos of my local councillors and believe me, they are far from artistic.

So anyway…

I put my backing behind the art community led Lambeth Open event at the weekend, taking some time to support my local collective of artist at the lovely Stockwell Studios.

Stockwell has a very proud history of artists within our area, and so it was no surprise that Stockwell Studios decided to stick with the original artist led initiative. The Studios are housed in the grounds of the old Annie McCall Maternity Hospital along Jeffreys Road. It’s a grand old building, with corridors and spaces that are just perfect for displaying art.

The artists working within promote the studios as a community art space. Rather than just being a private gallery in which to create personal art, the work carried out is very community focussed, with many local groups invited in to explore their own interpretations of art.

On Saturday afternoon I found line drawings, traditional watercolours and an artist with a fascination for painting chairs. But the prize find for me was the amazing Stockwell Studios Garden.

The large outdoor area has been given an artistic makeover. A pond and a community mural, as well as a grand old tree house, very similar to what I found At the Treehouse Galleries over the summer, all add to a natural feeling that you don’t find around the mean streets of Sunny Stockwell.

I sat and chatted with some of the artists as they explained their work, and what they hoped to achieve from the open weekend. Becoming involved in a political battle with Lambeth Council wasn’t one of these objectives. But then that’s Lambeth Council for you - attempting to politicise and seek gain on every aspect of the lives of local people, even when it involves the most personal and subjective areas such as creating art.

Never thought I would see Super Furry Animals headline an ice cream fest at Clap’ham Common. Band Don’t Give a F**** #

mrs obb and I use to think nothing of losing four days at a festival. This afternoon and four hours on Clap’ham Common seems too long #

Trying to work out when we last saw Super Furries and The Fannies (steady.) Glasto ‘95 seems like a good bet #

Reminding mrs obb that all of the Fannies records sound the same #

Standing in an ice cream queue, on Clap’ham Common, behind a rather tall goth. He’s going for the Chunky Monkey special #

Deciding to trim down to King of the Mountain figure can wait. There’s 22 free ice creams on offer to sample. Shame about the music #

Think the Fannies are about finished. We’ve had four new songs, all written in that cuddly & familiar stuck in ‘92 twangy style. Ice cream time #

Had two blokes walk past, both carrying six bottles of beer, both lost and both equally p*****. Sober girl carrying six ice creams is fine #

I use to camp outside beer tent at festivals. Currently taking up a strategic location outside the ice cream stall #

Ali G’s ice cream glove would come in handy, here on Clap’ham Common #

mrs obb just reminded me of SFA’s sonar tank that made cows vomit. Ben & Jerry branding all around Clap’ham Common is of… cows. Cool as F*** #

And here come the Super Furries. Type of band that passes you by for a decade, but still don’t disappoint. Techno opening #

Don’t think SFA’s Welsh tinged take on old school techno meets Krautrock is rocking the Friends of Clap’ham Common stall #

mrs obb just asked: “Are Ben and Jerry really headlining?” Sweet. SFA currently running Rings Around the World #

This is a lovely early evening set from Super Furries. Demons, Hello Sunshine, If You Don’t Want Me to Destroy You. Bonkers, bonkers band #

Parents covering up the saintly ears of the young children of Clap’ham, as Super Furries shake up the Common with *that* song #

Business ain’t good for the lone ice cream van parked outside Clap’ham Common #

Back from Clap’ham & Ben & Jerry. Really enjoyed Super Furries. Reassuring, yet rather disturbing band. Irony they now have Ice Hockey Hair #

Another midsummer, another Supernova Companies Tournament. Just like Glasto, the annual corporate korfball challenge always ends up with the overall consensus of ‘best year yet.’ This year was no exception.

It’s also around this time of year where I seem to make up endless excuses as to why I haven’t been running around the korfball court over the previous winter months. Aha - got you this time.

I’ve actually played a number of indoor matches this year. ‘Comeback’ would be a slightly strong word, but I did manage to pick up a Championship winning medal last Friday, as part of the triumphant Supernova thirds.

But anyway, back to the Banking boys and girls…

Each year we seem to be blessed with brilliant South London sunshine as our korfball club invites our corporate friends from The City down to SW4 for an evening spent underneath the big baskets. Months of planning and preparation are taken up by the tournament, but it really does all come down to the goodwill of the weather on the night.

Now in its tenth summer, the 2009 Companies Tournament once again attracted a high level of interest from within the Square Mile. It’s not as if they’ve got anything better to do right now, is it?

The event itself works on a number of levels. We get to introduce our sport to a wider audience, as well as raise money for our friends within the British korfball family. Corporate sponsorship from M & G kindly pays for the catering, and all money raised remains within the game.

Twenty-Four teams contested the Supernova Korfball Cup this summer. As well as the high flyers from the City, we were graced by the lovely Liberal Elite from The Guardian, and a team of the chattering classes from Westminster. It’s nice to know that korfball attracts a chin stroking philosophical crowd, as well as the corporate testosterone from within the City. And that was just the banking girls…

For a sport that was invented to try and breach the male / female sporting divide within Dutch schools, korfball works perfectly within a corporate environment. Everyone is of equal value, and a winning team genuinely does need to rely upon all players to achieve success. I’m sure there’s a metaphor buried away in there about the merits of banking bonuses.

The Royal Bank of Canada emerged as the 2009 champions, just as the sun was starting to set across Clap’ham Common. What is rewarding to see is that a number of players are now returning each summer, and the standard of the tournament is subsequently increasing.

Team tactics are starting to develop, and some of the play on show in SW4 on Tuesday evening would have given the Supernova championship winning third team a decent run out. Maybe that’s my excuse sorted for next season? Couldn’t play korfball, too many bankers in the team.

Too many jokes…

Many thanks to our friends from UBS, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan for kindly agreeing to take part in various podcasts over the course of the evening.

A huge backslapping for the many people within Supernova who also make the event possible each year. Carole Swan and Tamara Burnell both merit a special mention, and no doubt free drinks from each club member over the course of the summer.

Full flickr stream over here.

Welcome to Supernova Companies Tournament

Nicola Gordon, Chairperson Supernova Korfball Club

Kerry & Jane, UBS

Dave Bond, korfball referee supremo

Simon, Deutsche Bank

Carole and Mark, Organising Queen and her Sidekick

Stephanie, JP Morgan