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News and Comment November 2013

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4 November (Part 2) - More Howbury stuff

At no time have I been in contact with the leaders of Howbury Friends which is probably a good thing; their association with me probably wouldn’t go down too well with Bexley council. However there has been a steady trickle of whispers from people who should be in the know.

The involvement of Jonathan Rooks who runs Bexley Village library with the new Eco Communities company is not fully explained. Apparently his organisation, Greener Bexley, grew out of a charity called Frobloms. Someone from Lewisham claimed that Eco Communities had no library experience in that borough, as the company had claimed. Maybe their predecessor Eco Computers took away old library computers for recycling, because that was their business activity. One can only surmise that Greener Bexley was co-opted to plug the library hole in Eco Communities’ bid.

It is reported that the new company told Bexley council it was sufficiently well funded to be able to lower The Howbury Centre rents paid by voluntary groups. Their accounts cast some doubt on their ability to do so and they were presumably ignorant of the fact that some rents are already waived completely.

Eco Communities said they would be able to run Child Care for as little as £8 a session. Howbury Friends charge £1. Eco Communities said they would be able to pay the volunteers for their service. The volunteers said they did not want to be paid.

The new company’s name is still in doubt. Sometimes it is called Eco Communities and at other times Eco Learning. The people concerned are all the same so it probably does not matter except to illustrate the labyrinthine manoeuvrings helping to conceal the truth.

The above information is from more than one source, documented only in the sense that the sources are well connected locally, have been reliable in the past (except the one from Lewisham who is new), and submitted the information in writing.

 

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