This is part three of Adam Bienkov’s interview with Spencer Drury – Conservative candidate for the Greenwich & Woolwich parliamentary seat and leader of the Conservatives on Greenwich Council. Part one and part two were published on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

Olympics

Hosting the 2012 Olympics has a been a polarising issue in the borough, but the Greenwich Conservatives have so far been relatively quiet about it. Drury himself has mixed feelings about the Games.

He tells me that while the cross country equestrian events will be “fabulous for the park” and an “amazing event” he admits that “this is not the line that NOGOE would like to hear.”

However, he also thinks that the temporary stadium is a “sticking point”:

“The 20,000 seat stadium I have got serious questions about. I mean the fact that it’s a temporary stadium, I’m already thinking is that worthwhile? But where they’re planning on putting it will actually ruin the views down the park to Maritime Greenwich. I mean if you put a great big stadium in front of that then you’re ruining the very views that they seem to want. That seems to me to be self defeating.”

He also believes the Council have missed a big opportunity to capitalise on the Games.

“The Olympics have got tonnes of money and as far as I can work out Greenwich as an area is going to have no legacy from it. Well I mean I say no legacy, but there might be trees chopped down but no legacy from it in any positive physical way.”

So will the Games be good for Greenwich overall?

“Well if you could sort out the congestion as a legacy then I think that people in Greenwich would take the rough with the smooth but at the moment we are just getting the rough.   We’re just getting problems from it and we’re getting damage to a much valued park although I don’t think it will be as bad as NOGOE are making out. I really don’t feel that.”

Are NOGOE representative?

“I think they are representative of a certain group of people in Greenwich but when you go out knocking on doors, I mean I was out in Greenwich last weekend and not one person mentioned it to me. Not one person. Schools, bins and recycling are the things that come up. People are more concerneed about other things. I think that is why you won’t see political parties focusing on it in a major way because on the doorstep it is not the major issue that people are concerned about.”

Schools

I’m speaking to Drury after the announcement that the John Roan school will no longer be moved to the Peninsula. He is relieved:

“The plans to put the John Roan school on the peninsula were always ridiculous. They were planning to put a bigger school on a smaller site, five stories tall with a playground on the roof. It was madness.”

While pleased about this, he believes that it is symptomatic of a wider problem:

“The Council’s education policy is in chaos frankly. We’ve still got the worst GCSE results in London.  They’ve improved a lot but they’re still the worst in London. So our kids are leaving education at a substantial disadvantage to most other kids across London.  And that’a huge blow to us and a massive shame”

He supports the Conservative plans to create smaller “Free Schools” run by parents:

“Parental choice is absolutely vital in this and we know parental choice is already happening in Greenwich because so many hundreds of kids at eleven go out of the borough, whether to private or to Grammar schools.  But what’s interesting when you look at the figures is that they are not just going to the Grammar schools they are also going to Welling and other schools along the border with Bexley because they are better run than Greenwich schools frankly.”

The General Election

Drury is set to stand against Nick Raynsford in Greenwich later this year. I ask him if he knows him well. He tells me that while he sees him annually at the borough’s Remembrance Sunday event, he hardly ever comes across him otherwise:

“I think Clive Efford [Labour MP for Eltham] marked himself as a local MP who didn’t care about Westminster very much. Well I think that Nick Raynsford is the opposite to that. There is a local area. He’s aware that it exists, but Westminster is where his heart is.”

Like Efford, Drury has a close attachment to the area. Raised in Woolwich and a long standing councillor in Eltham, Drury still lives within the borough.

With boundary changes giving the Conservatives a real chance of winning Eltham, I ask him why he didn’t choose to stand in his home town again:

“I did [consider it] but it was for various personal reasons. My daughter had been in hospital for two months and then my wife became ill as well. It was in the run up to the selection for the parliamentary seat and I came pretty close to just packing it all in frankly. And ironically it was a letter from Chris Roberts asking if everything was okay that changed my mind.

“It made me think think that maybe politics isn’t just about doing silly stunts and playing silly games. That maybe there is a point to it”

I meet Spencer Drury the day after the monthly full meeting of Greenwich Council. As usual the Conservative group raised a motion which was voted down by Labour, with Council leader Chris Roberts dismissing the debate as a “complete irrelevance.” Only a handful of voters were there to hear it.

And yet every week a newspaper promoting the Council’s agenda and featuring exclusively Labour politicians is distributed to the entire borough. Many thousands of voters will go on to read it.

So how can an opposition party ever hope to counter this imbalance?

In part three of the inteview, to be published tomorrow, Spencer Drury is asked about the 2012 Olympics, schooling in Greenwich and the forthcoming General Election campaign.

Thanks to Ed Ewing for this gorgeous photo of the sunset over Our Lady Star of the Sea Church on Crooms Hill, taken from Greenwich Park.

Also, don’t miss Ed’s review of Laughter in the Rain, currently showing at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley.

The library, donated to the community by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, is also home to Greenwich Community College’s Meridian Music Centre.

Greenwich Community College is currently undertaking a consultation process on the courses it can afford to offer after it had a 10% cut imposed on its “Adult Learner Responsive” budget this year.

The review involves all aspects of the college, including the Meridian Music Centre, although local Greens claim that staff have already been told the music centre will close at the end of this academic year.

Dave Sharman commented: “I hope the music college’s planned closure is not part of a wider project to do away with the library by stealth – the people of East Greenwich will not stand for that”

Cllr John Fahy, Greenwich Cabinet Member for Culture and Olympics, commented that “the Scheme [to refurbish the library] and Estimate is being costed and work will commence shortly“.

He added that he would continue to work with the Friends of East Greenwich Library and Ward Councillors ”to maximise a long term future for the building“.

Monday night in Bromley and a sea of grey heads in the stalls greeted us. They were here to see a new musical about the life and times of Neil Sedaka, who started his rock-n-roll career in the 1950s and is still going today.

Much to my shame I thought he was dead, provoking peals of laughter from the theatrical crowd I was with in the interval bar. “No! He’s alive!” chastised one, a West End actress and Greenwich glitterati.

And still going strong by all accounts: he turned up in Bromley for the opening night of Laughter in the Rain last week and was so taken with it he changed his flights so he could see it again. ‘Forty of my songs, three hours, audience on its feet, all about me…’ You can understand why he called Heathrow.

Sedaka started life sharing a two-room flat in New York with his family and three aunts. As a child his mother encouraged him to play the piano with a career as a concert pianist in mind. But rock-n-roll happened and the teenage Sedaka rebelled and started writing songs with geeky neighbour Howard Greenfield. Together they formed a musical partnership that sold 40 million records between 1959 and 1963.

Stardom faded abruptly in the face of the ‘British Invasion’ by the Beatles in the 1960s, which left him skint. But a 1970s comeback helped by Elton John put him back on top. Now he’s a legend, with a new album out this year.

It’s an interesting tale spanning six decades – rags to riches to rags and back to riches – and it’s told simply and well. It could do with delving deeper into the darker years to give it a bit more emotional narrative, but it skips along at a pace from hit to hit.

And that’s what the audience is there for: the songs. A full house would guarantee dancing in the aisles. A three-quarter house on a cold Monday night and we only danced at the end. A weekend crowd would be a lot of fun.

Wayne Smith plays the lead. His voice is beautiful. He sings flawlessly in almost every song – some feat. But two scenes nearly steal the show. Kieran Brown as Tony Christie singing Amarillo could easily bring the house down if cheesed up. And Kieran Brown (again) as Elton John could, if camped up, run away with the night. Both scenes are kept in a lowish key, probably for that reason.

The set is effective. A cinemascope style screen shows film footage and photographs from the time to lend authenticity and occasional poignancy. The clarity of staging lets the music shine through.

All up it’s a lot of fun, and a rollicking good show. A bit of tweaking on its way round the theatres of England as it tours this summer (Elton John needs new glasses, for starters) and the West End must surely beckon.

Until Saturday 13 March, Churchill Theatre, Bromley

The Conservative’s parliamentary candidate for Greenwich and Woolwich has spoken of his “huge disappointment” after the Mayor broke his promise to reinstate tidal flow in the Blackwall Tunnel.

Speaking during a wide-ranging interview with Greenwich.co.uk, the current leader of the Conservatives on the council Spencer Drury said:

“I think it is a huge disappointment because it does create congestion unnecessarily. For years it worked perfectly well and I can’t see why it suddenly had to change.”

In the run up to the Mayoral elections, Boris Johnson promised to reverse the controversial decision to end tidal flow “at the earliest opportunity.”

The pledge gathered widespread support in the area and formed a major part of his transport manifesto. However, last month he admitted to LBC presenter Nick Ferrari that he would not fulfill his promise:

“If I were to impose my will and say restore that contraflow and if there was then to be some huge conflagration in that tunnel and there were fatalities I’m afraid then under the present law of corporate manslaughter brought in by this Labour government then the tragedy is that I would be liable.”

Asked about the legal implications comments, Spencer Drury replied:

“I’m not aware of the legal position so I will have to take [Boris's] word for that, but yes it is a disappointment.”

The importance of relieving congestion at Blackwall was highlighted after a recent fire in the tunnel caused widespread traffic chaos in the area. It also comes after reports that Olympic lanes will be installed in the tunnels.

However, on this issue Spencer Drury insists that the Mayor has listened:

“We’ve spoken with the Mayor’s office and they have said that this is not the case, so I don’t believe that the plan that we have seen in the public domain is the plan that we are going to end up with. I think the Mayor is listening to us on this.”

He also hit out at Greenwich Council for failing to deal with congestion in the area:

“I have always said that one of the things that you could have as a legacy from the Olympics is sorting out congestion in Greenwich, that we could get outside organisations involved and say that we want this as a legacy and I think that many more residents would be on board about the Olympics if it meant we could sort out the town centre.”

However, he suggested that the council’s plans to pedestrianise the town centre were little more than an election gimmick:

“If you were cynical about it you might suggest that it is just because there is an election coming up because there doesn’t appear to have been a proper plan behind this. The problem is that they haven’t done a study on the surrounding areas. This is a huge hub within SE London and the impact the plans would have on Lewisham and on Deptford and on the A2 is even bigger. And because the Council have not looked at it on a global scale we might have a situation where it would work for one part of Greenwich but then has a negative effect elsewhere.”

He believes that the council should instead secure funding to widen certain roads in the borough and even to build a road tunnel under Blackheath:

“Well one of my colleagues was very keen on taking one the road across the heath down into a tunnel because you could dig down very easily there and make it wider. I think that would be a lovely idea although I don’t know whether we would ever be able to afford it. But quite clearly if we want to look after our town centre we have to look at something that would be a genuine leagacy from the Olympics”

In part two of our interview Spencer Drury speaks out against plans to build a temporary stadium in Greenwich Park, says that the continued publication of Greenwich Time is “morally wrong” and claims that Chris Roberts is a “divisive” and unpopular leader of the council.

Fergal Spelman kindly emailed me this spectacular photo of a pigeon landing at what appears to be the avian equivalent of an all you can eat buffet.

The Royal George pub in Blissett Street is set to be turned into flats after planning permission was granted by Greenwich Council.

The pub closed its doors recently and the owners, Shepherd Neame, put in an application to have the building converted into two flats.

To illustrate the loss of trade the pub had suffered, Shepherd Neame described in its application how annual beer barrel volume averaged at 120 barrels between 2000 – 2009, whereas it has been as high as 310 barrels between 1977 – 1986.

They also highlighted the affect of the smoking ban, business rates, utility bills and the minimum wage as factors which they say made the pub no longer economically viable.

Six responses from the public were made which all opposed the closure, but permission was granted at last week’s meeting of the Greenwich area planning board.

This convoy of three tandem rotor helicopters passed over Greenwich on Wednesday and can be seen here above St Alfege Church.

Zuma, known for his polygamist weddings, is on his first State Visit to the UK after becoming president last year.

It’s reported that Zuma requested the visit himself because of the trading links between Sainsbury’s and his country. He was greeted at the supermarket by Sainsbury’s CEO, Justin King, and shown some of the products that Sainbury’s imports from South Africa, such as wine, apples, grapes and flowers.

Justin King said, “We have strong links with South Africa, so we’re delighted to welcome President and Mrs Zuma to our store in Greenwich.

“We’re proud of what we have achieved at this store. It has acted as a blueprint for many of our subsequent environmental stores, so it is apt that the first state visit to a British supermarket should happen here.”

For an eye witness account and photos of the presidential visit, check out Darryl’s post on 853.