1 December (Part 2) - Lesnes Abbey and Broadway Phase II make progress while a new stealth tax creeps in unannounced
The
work on Lesnes Abbey appears to be progressing fast while Phase II of the regeneration of
Bexleyheath Broadway is winding down towards its Christmas break on 12th December.
Lesnes Abbey looks to be a wreck at the moment, old stone steps, gardens and hedges
have all been torn out. A few days ago I met John from Erith who had come to visit his
favourite park and was appalled by what he saw, the hedge removal in particular.
However the new Visitor Centre has grown something over the past week. (Photo 1 below.)
In Bexleyheath Broadway the new footpaths are very nearly complete and
undeniably look very smart while they remain clean. If you look carefully
through the grime and splodges of chewing gum with which those laid two years
ago as part of Phase I are now plentifully adorned one realises they are
identical and look distinctly tatty. Bexley’s cut back on street cleaning is
presumably taking its toll, but did it ever clean off chewing gum or power wash its footpaths?
The seats look good too, (Photo 3 below) none of the water accumulating granite slabs which were
thoughtlessly installed in Welling, Sidcup and Northumberland Heath.
The final photograph includes a warning notice against pavement parking, one can
well understand Bexley council not wanting that, and they have drawn attention
to their CCTV camera on a nearby pole. How is that going to work when the
council stops monitoring the CCTV and hands the job over to the police?
Pavement parking won’t interest them.
Bexley council’s looking for savings and taking it to silly extremes will have
unintended consequences. They used to have an 020 8 telephone number on their website
where you could report illegally parked cars. I used it once but it seems to
have gone. I know that Bexley’s website is horrible and lots of things are hard
to find, but I am not alone in getting lost before going around the same circle again.
The
only way now is to fill in a web form - a really clever idea if you are blocked
in your drive and need to get out sooner rather than later. If you phone the
council’s switchboard they will give you a number to call direct - several
people have told me about it over the past couple of weeks.
It is not exactly a friendly move, even on my BT ‘free’ calls package it is
costly. Stuff that; another stealth tax from Bexley council. All they do is
annoy people. I’m still not always washing my plastic and tin cans before recycling
them since having to pay bin charges. Maybe it’s petty but why should one be
helpful to a council interested only in extracting cash from residents and selling what residents value most?