There is absolutely no need to close Battersea Park adventure playground for financial reasons in a borough where the community charge is so low, and flats go on sale for £6m. This was raised in a letter last week (Council acted shamefully on adventure playground, February 21).

Where is there a mainstream political party saying that this (and other) cuts are unnecessary in such a rich borough?   The problem is that Wandsworth’s Conservatives are unchallenged politically and clearly think they can go on doing cruel and stupid things such as the closure of the adventure playground with complete impunity. What to do about it? The best way to punish Wandsworth’s Conservatives for this and innumerable other atrocities (the closure of Ralph West Hall is another that comes to mind) is to defeat them at the council elections next year.  

Wandsworth Conservatives are not invulnerable. They are just not faced with a credible opposition.   And where good and popular independents have run in the past they do not win because the Labour Party (which will never come back into power in Wandsworth, and probably does not deserve to) siphons off 300 to 400 votes.  

So Labour should stand down in those wards, such as Queenstown and St Mary’s Park, where it cannot possibly win, to allow independent candidates to run.  In other wealthy parts of south-east England, for example Elmbridge in Surrey, the political divide is between Conservatives and a federation of residents’ associations (ie. normal people) with council wards divided roughly evenly between these two.   We need a meaningful political divide to be re-established in Wandsworth along similar lines, or face the prospect of Govindia and Tracey laying waste to even more of our cherished services.  

Keith Garner
Rosenau Road London