Plans to build a statue celebrating London’s first Black mayor have been revived, six years after a campaign for the monument was launched.
Wandsworth Council has agreed to put £30,000 towards building a statue of John Archer in Battersea, who was elected mayor of the area in 1913.
It comes six years after former Conservative council leader Ravi Govindia launched a campaign to build the statue, in response to calls from community group Love Battersea. The authority pledged to contribute an initial donation of £10,000 and then secure further funding to build the statue by 2022, but progress stalled.
Six years later, Wandsworth’s cabinet has now agreed to set aside a higher sum of £30,000 towards building the statue in Battersea.
Mr Archer, whose father was from Barbados, moved to Battersea in the 1890s with his wife Bertha. Elected as a Liberal councillor for Latchmere, he successfully campaigned for a minimum wage of 32 shillings a week for council workers.
Mr Archer was elected Mayor of Battersea in 1913 for a year, and was re-elected as a Labour councillor in 1919. He became the first president of the African Progress Union in 1918 and chaired the Pan-African Congress in London in 1921.
He was elected as a councillor for Nine Elms in 1931 and died a year later, aged 69, when he was deputy leader of Battersea Council.
However, the Tory-run administration’s decision to set aside these funds while making sweeping cuts to council services came under fire at a meeting on October 21.
The authority is proposing to raise council tax by 94 per cent from April, in addition to making a range of cuts – including shutting its cost-of-living reserve with £6.2million of unspent funds, replacing Labour’s Access for All with a much smaller concessionary scheme, cancelling its Borough of Sanctuary status and suspending voluntary sector grants for four years.
Labour councillor Sara Apps said that if Mr Archer, as a champion of social justice, “was faced with cutting swimming for children living in poverty or erecting a statue, he would have prioritised the children in this borough every time”.
Councillor Apps added: “If the leader really wants to invoke the spirit of John Archer, he should focus on protecting those residents who need it, and we left the borough in good state for him to do that – he shouldn’t continue slashing services and doubling council tax.”
Labour’s Access for All scheme offered between 50 and 100 per cent discounts on sports, leisure, transport, education and other council services – including free gym memberships and swimming lessons – for a broad range of eligible residents.
The Tories’ new concessionary scheme, which will come into force on January 1, will not provide any free offers, with available discounts expected to range from 20 to 40 per cent. It will only involve leisure activities for those in receipt of carer’s allowance, students, looked-after children and care leavers.
The authority is looking at developing a water safety initiative for young people, which would offer free lessons to children from year two to 11 who can’t swim 25 metres.
Conservative council leader Robert Morritt said presenting the decision “as a choice between children and heritage is a real false one”. He said the statue required a one-off capital cost paid for by developers, rather than ongoing revenue commitments.
Councillor Morritt said: “The real challenge is how we, and this would have happened had you won also, face protecting core services and supporting vulnerable residents, and at the same time putting back the council on a sustainable financial footing.”
Councillor Govindia added at the meeting that “celebrating a Black role model is an important statement for us to make”.
The agreed funding will go towards initial works supporting the delivery of the statue, which would require further funds and agreements.
