There was I, perusing my @loveclapham Twitter account when ding-dong in comes this doozy of a link detailing the winners and losers of the Vegetable Figure competition at the Lambeth Country Show 2009. It’s always a brilliant event (the overall show too…) with hilarious consequences. LoveClapham’s personal favourite is the above Cauli-Sheep. It’s got such a nice smile. Check out the other entries including a King Edward Potato of Pop, Michael Jackson carving by the West End Whingers. The Mayor and Mayoress of Lambeth are fast becoming the area’s most amazing personalities. If you don’t believe me, check out the Mayor of Lambeth’s photo and video report from the show. If you’ve ever seen a Mayor that can rival the ‘on miniature train shot’, we dare you to get in touch.

Local Twitterer (is that a proper noun yet?) Jason Cobb caught up with our on and offline social networking Mayor of Lambeth for an interview that you can listen to in the rest of this post. We’ve noticed the Mayor, Christopher Wellbelove, has been using the likes of Twitter and Facebook to full effect, encouraging more and more people to interact with Lambeth Council in loads of different ways. It’s a refreshing change that we hope spreads throughout other local authorities.

Listen to Jason’s interview below, you’ll learn how to address a Mayor properly (something LoveClapham didn’t do when we interviewed him – slapped wrists for us). This comes in the same week that Mr Mayor has been in the local press for befriending California’s Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, on Twitter.

If you’ve read Part 1 of our interview with Christopher Wellbelove, Mayor of Lambeth and councillor to the Clapham Town Ward, you’ll be familiar with his background. In part 2 he explains the importance of young people’s voices being heard, upcoming plans for Clapham and things he enjoys in his spare time.

Particularly for younger people that may not initially be interested – why should they stay up-to-date with what you and the local council are doing?

What would you like on Clapham High Street?

Lots of young people like going to pubs, and there are a lot of people meeting with the council who don’t like the fact – and Clapham’s a good example – that there are so many pubs on the High Street. If younger people don’t start talking to their councillors, all the councillors will hear are the people complaining about the nightlife in Clapham. That will be putting pressure on to try and reduce it.

For instance, at the moment there is a call for a saturation zone on the High Street which would mean that no new bars would be able to open. Younger people don’t get involved in that conversation, the council only hear one point of view. Licensing committees very often have somebody come to the council trying to extend a licence. It might be somewhere a younger person likes to go out a bit later to, and all the committee will have at that meeting are people who are against that. I think that’s a good, concrete example of the importance of sharing your point of view. Whilst I do not advocate more venues on the high street, and have supported those who have objected to them, I do think that those on all sides of the argument should have their views heard.

It’s also about where money is spent. The council has a billion pound budget and goes out constantly to consult on where it’s spent, for instance with the leisure centre. If visitors to your website aren’t going to councils, aren’t going to those consultation events, they won’t shape services that they are going to want to use.

Regarding the Mayoralty it doesn’t really matter what I’m actually doing, what matters for people is that they can discover the huge number of groups that exist and it may be that they’re actually interested in some of their activities.

When I lived in Brixton I found out that there are friendly alms houses for women over fifty just down the road. I had no idea that was there, it was just on my doorstep! I hope through my website and blogging that people will find out about the different groups that can be right on your doorstep.

If people want a say, or want to be heard – what’s the best way of contacting people?

The Lambeth Council website has lots of information and useful contact details

One of the best ways of contacting your councillor, particularly if you’ve got a view, is through surgeries that all councillors from all parties hold. Either that or you can email them or write to them. It’s in their interest to listen to you.

I remember before I was councillor the only time I ever contacted someone was when I had a problem. But it can be “Hi, I’m writing to you because I want you to know that I feel this about Clapham High Street”, “I want to have more of this kind of shop on the High Street”.

A councillor can’t force a company to come in, but at least what we’re hearing is that viewpoint so that again, when other people come to us and say “we only want these types of shop on the High Street,” we have the other view too. For instance, I very often get that people don’t want the chains on the High Street, but I have had one person write to me and say they wished there were more chains because it means they wouldn’t have to go into Clapham Junction.

That’s probably our friend Marcos… Lambeth’s just launched the Check the Label Campaign. How important is it to address the perception of younger people in and around Clapham.

Of course, I’m going to say it’s really important but again from my own experience of living on estates, both estates have large numbers of youths hanging around the entrances. Even for me, walking past them, it makes you feel a bit nervous, but actually when you meet these young people and chat to them they’re some of the nicest kids around. If only people would give them more to do so they don’t just have to hang around.

Christopher Wellbelove and Jack Wallington, editor of Love Clapham

It’s a challenge though because a lot of these views are embedded and what we’re competing with at the council is the TV news. I go along to events to see singing, dancing – hugely talented and some of the politest people on Earth. I’ve said this at a rally once: if only the TV stations would come down to see this, but of course good news isn’t always news. This is where I think websites like yours can actually combat that.

I met SE1 too, who I think has a journalist background and if anything, he’s reporting local news quicker. You can see how the dynamics of reporting is going to change.

Are there any exciting plans for Clapham? 

New provision for leisure, because in Clapham it’s desperately needed but everyone has different views. As a councillor, it’s not easy representing everyone’s views because you have a split on what people want. 

It’s also important to make it affordable because not everyone can afford the gyms on the High Street. We went to a leisure centre in Swiss Cottage and saw the beautiful new building and equipment and we thought, people of Clapham deserve that. Once development is done, hopefully that will help the shops in that part of Clapham too. When the Council moved out of the High Street, that took a lot of money out of the local economy and that part is screaming out for new development.

Exciting ideas exist for improving Clapham Old Town

Old Town has promising little cafes and boutiques opening up and it’s good that some of them are local. One of the most exciting things is to do with the area by the bus station, people are looking to move the busses elsewhere and maybe using that as a market square whereas at the moment it’s quite an ugly area and waiting for a bus there is fairly scary because you wonder where you should stand. Those sorts of developments are exciting.

I would say, what we do need to make sure of on the High Street is that it’s not just about the night time. It must be balanced because at the moment it’s a bit too much of a sway in one direction which is excluding people in the local area. Although I do like going out for a drink, I won’t deny that! Transport links are also important and it’s a shame we won’t get the tram into Brixton. The Underground too, we need to increase capacity. As a commuter I really don’t like having to go four stops in the other direction to get onto a train.

I’m glad you feel our pain! Outside of work when you aren’t wearing your Mayoral hat (or we should say chains) what do you enjoy doing?

 

We said the Love Clapham Eurovision party wouldn't be the only one in Clapham!

One of the challenges of being elected and becoming Mayor is maintaining friendships so this weekend I had my friends over for my Eurovision party. It was great catching up with them and I kept apologising that I can’t always be there but I don’t want to lose those friendships. I enjoy those friendships because we don’t discuss politics and it’s important to maintain that balance in your life.

I’m absolutely mad about technology, which I guess must be quite obvious. I’ve done site development and I worked for BT Global Services doing search engine optimisation and social media marketing so that’s my background. Going out for a drink, eating, cinema – like everyone else, I love Clapham for the variety of restaurants, it’s brilliant. I’m a regular at Fantasia, a brilliant café.

You mentioned Eurovision, we were going to ask how you felt about the Eurovision result, Jade did us proud. Social media you obviously love because you’ve made it a big part of your job. Obama made the likes of Twitter popular in politics, but how are you finding it with your political career?

 

Christopher Wellbelove has been instrumental in giving Lambeth Council a voice in social media

It’s the fact that it opens up conversations with people whom you wouldn’t ordinarily engage. There’s Jason Cobb, he’s engaged with me a couple of times on Twitter which has to be a first. He was complaining about the noise coming from an event, I passed that onto one of the organisers during a meeting here and mentioned it. From that point of view more people know my name but more importantly I am able to engage. 

I do wonder how to cope if it becomes too popular. On Twitter, with 200 followers, it’s probably only about 50 people reading the posts. If it became really popular it might be something that the Major’s Office of the future might have to deal with. For instance, emails that come into the Major go to the Major’s Office because I wouldn’t be able to cope with the volume. It will be interesting how that changes in the future. 

Time is also a factor. I do all of the uploading of photos and writing the blog. Recently I got mobile broadband so that I could get in the car and plug it in on the way to an event so that if I’m not doing my day job, I’m also uploading from the car. When you think about it in the future, again it needs to be a function that the council does.

Whether it’s doing anything for my political career… I still don’t really understand the use of ‘political career’, ‘councillor’ or ‘Major’ in terms of a career. I never felt like I needed to be Major in say four years, because I have a day job it’s not my one and only focus but I do love being a councillor. One thing I love about being Mayor is seeing more of the borough, such as recent visits to Waterloo, Southbank and down to Crystal Palace.

Thanks to Christopher Wellbelove for such a frank and informative discussion. Hopefully Love Clapham readers will find it as inspiring as we did!

• Mayor of Lambeth on Twitter – follow for regular updates and photos
• Lambeth Council – visit the website for lots of useful info and links

This week Love Clapham met with Christopher Wellbelove, recently elected as the Mayor of Lambeth and councillor for the Clapham Town Ward since 2006. It was an enlightening and hugely enjoyable discussion about local projects, Twittering for Lambeth and Eurovision – finger on the pulse? More than you’d imagine.

It may have been the end of the day for most people, but the day was only beginning for the Mayor of Lambeth, Christopher Wellbelove, when I met him on Monday at the Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton. That’s not to say he’d had the day off, by day he still has to perform his duties as a councillor for the Clapham Town Ward. He’s an incredibly busy man, yet he managed to squeeze in the below interview to help explain his role in more detail.

Councils, elections, politics – ignore all of that. If there’s one thing I’ve gained from meeting Christopher Wellbelove, it’s not to allow terminology like “politics” from preventing your involvement in the local area and community. Whether it’s his instantly welcoming personality, energy or love of using the internet to communicate, there’s something refreshing and catching about Christopher Wellbelove’s enthusiasm for local community and yes, his love of Clapham.

For people who may not know much about politics or councils, can you explain your role as Major of Lambeth?

 

Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton

I actually have two roles, primarily I’m a Clapham Town councillor, for which I was elected in 2006. I was elected as deputy Major last year, who stands in for the mayor, and then this year I have become Mayor of Lambeth, primarily a civic role. People get very confused because you have the Mayor of London who has administrative power in a similar way to royalty.

As a local Mayor you have the ultimate signature but you do whatever the administration tells you they want to do. You actually sign over most of your power to the administration. One of the primary things is chairing the full local council, which is quite daunting, and there are eight or nine full council meetings a year.

In Lambeth we rotate the chair between the political parties because in my year as Mayor I’m not allowed to take political positions on things as I need to be able to chair the meeting totally non-partisan. Other things I’ll do include going to openings of events. Any organisation can contact me the through the website if they have an event or certificate, for example later today I’m presenting certificates to people.

If royalty were to come to the borough it’s also my job to go along with the chief lieutenant and greet the member of the royal family, or if there are any dignitaries that come from other countries or other cities it would be my job to meet them. 

Traditionally, every London borough has a Mayor, and with quite a few events in the other boroughs it’s a good way of reaching out and sharing experiences while also being a promoter of Lambeth.

How did you first become involved in politics leading to your role as Mayor?

I’ve always been an arm chair politician I guess. I don’t really like the word politician, but I’ve always been a bit of a campaigner and my friends are thankful that I got elected because it’s quietened me down quite a lot!

I lived on Heather Close estate by Wandsworth Road and I was on their tenants and residents association. I got it into my head “why do I need to go through a councillor to get things fixed, why don’t I try to get elected?” I only joined the Labour party in 2004 and then decided to stand – you first need your Ward’s Labour party members to select you as a candidate – and I was elected in 2006. That was quite interesting because while everywhere else the votes were swinging conservative, Clapham Town went from being Conservative to all Labour.

Tim Sargeant, Mayor of Lambeth 2003 - 2004

Tim Sargeant, who sadly died, I met before becoming a councillor and I was very cynical because he was talking about how wonderful it was to be Mayor and I was thinking, “what’s the point? You can’t vote on things, you can’t campaign for your party during that year,” and it was his enthusiasm for the role that made me think “hang on, that’s something that I could do”.

I used to live across the road in Brixton and I never knew there was a Mayor of Lambeth. I began to feel that there were lots of people like me, that unless you’re involved with the council, you’d have absolutely no idea. Because I know about technology, I thought what a brilliant opportunity to one become Mayor and two promote the job of the Major and all of the organisations that I visit through the internet.

It seems that Christopher Wellbelove’s time on his local estate’s resident association has served him well…

 

One of Clapham's estates

Since becoming a councillor my main focus has been on housing issues, that’s one of the things that is helped by me living on an estate – I’ve moved from Heather Close and now live on Notre Dame estate – in the heart of Clapham. It’s good to have someone that lives on an estate in the council so that when people say things about estates I can actually speak about them.

I sit on a couple of boards and I remember being on one board that was doing some research and they were saying that they weren’t going to go onto the estates because they wouldn’t be safe. I was able to stand up and say “look, that’s absolutely ridiculous, some streets are less safe than an estate.” It’s about beating that prejudice.

Are you enjoying it so far?

It’s funny, the last Mayor was very patient with me because I was almost pulling the chains off of her because I couldn’t wait to start! I joked that after my year I’d be locking myself in the Mayor’s parlour.

It’s great, it’s tiring. I work fulltime and then I have this too. For instance I have meetings now, then there are presentations and then I go home to catch-up on work. Since I’ve been Major I’ve had a mouth infection a really bad back, both times on quite heavy pain killers and in the car I’d be thinking, I’m actually really exhausted. Then I’d get out the car and smile because people look forward to you coming so you have to forget your issues and just get on with it. But seriously, I absolutely adore it!

What’s at the top of your in tray?

One of the lucky things about it being a non-partisan role is that if anything does come through to me, my job is to pass it on to a cabinet member. It really is important for me during the year that I do keep away from issues that could be politically sensitive. Then, when I do go out to events, it doesn’t matter what party you are I am still your representative.

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