It's a public sector party round Tesco's house

It's been well documented. In a planning meeting earlier this month, Lambeth Council did what it does best, held a consultation and then brought through exactly the measures it wanted to in the first place. After everyone objected. Tiny bit of background: Streatham has ice rink and swimming pool, Tesco buys ice rink and swimming pool promising brand new replacements, Tesco lets swimming pool collapse, Tesco decides Streatham doesn’t need ice rink for 3 years, Lambeth and Tesco pat themselves on back for a job jolly well done.

Have a listen to this excellent podcast of the meeting by Mark Oxley on Streatham Pulse. Yes, it’s 53 minutes. But at least it aint seven hours.

Sounds like a lot of anger and emotion in that room. It really brings home what a complete sham this whole sorry situation is. Lambeth and Tesco should be ashamed of themselves. But Lambeth should be ashamed more, because they exist to serve the residents of the borough, and Tesco - well they are a supermarket who exist to provide good returns to their shareholders.

Although I have only lived in Streatham for a relatively short while, I felt the anger of the people at the meeting while listening to this podcast. Because whichever way you look at it, it is a complete joke that people can be made such a mockery of, those same people who fought so hard to get the Section 106 in the first place. That same Section 106 that has been amended, seemingly against the will of pretty much everybody.

If you can amend a Section 106 so easily, then may I ask, what is the bloody point. Personally, I'm in the 'get on and build it' camp. I would have taken a temporary ice rink on the common. Because you don't need to be the wildest conspiracy theorist in the west to realise that there is a teeny weeny little chance that Tesco might just not build the hub after the rink in Brixton has been built. But not before they've raised our rink to the ground. After all, whatever reassurances and guarantees are in place, we've seen how easy it is to amend these 'guarantees'. Which are, to be completely honest, total bollocks.

I'm holding some hope that this will happen. But Lambeth have no spine, and you may have noticed, no cash. Tesco have no spine, but they have got loads of cash. Guess who will win this battle. For a clue, go check out Streatham swimming pool some time.

To finish off, I would like to voice a little bit of resent at the 'it's not good for Brixton’ crowd, who can be heard heckling Sally Prentice after her somewhat controversial ‘bring on more Starbucks’ speech. There are lots of reasons why these amendments should be opposed. There are lots of reasons why Sally Prentice is a twat. But please don’t play the ‘It’s not good for Brixton’ card. Brixton, you have done rather well out of Lambeth over the past few years. Streatham hasn’t. I feel bad for your car park. But quite honestly, we need more than a car park. We need some love.