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News and Comment May 2021

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27 May (Part 1) - A little more about last night’s Council meeting

You wait ages for a proper Council Meeting to put some meat on to the BiB bone and it is all over in half an hour with only one thing happening that had not been predicted here.

MeetingI had dozed off in a chair and woke up at 19:29 just in time to rush upstairs to the PC and record and view the Full Council Meeting which fortunately started a few minutes late. The audio was pretty naff at times and the video was worse.

On the spur of the moment I decided to live blog it.

As expected, the Covid Mayor James Hunt was given a second chance which seems fair enough to me. His Deputy is to be Councillor Alan Downing who was Mayor himself in 2012 and earned the accolade of rudest man in Bexley for his finger wagging activities directed at members of the public. Pre-webcast days Council meetings could be more like bear gardens.

The previous Deputy Mayor Sue Gower MBE was elevated to Cabinet status three years after election which is a surprise to me bearing in mind our conversations at various times.

Councillor Sawyer gets the elbow presumably because he is unlikely to have been a Yes Man which is an absolute requirement under the present Leader. I’ve never known what to make of Alex Sawyer. He says whenever the opportunity arises that motorists are hard done by but tries to yellow box them into submission.

I find it hard to accept the show of sincerity that he displays is genuine and I think my mind was made up when four Crossrail delivery lorries could not get into the Abbey Wood station site and could either drive down Wilton Road over and over again creating traffic chaos or pull over. They chose the latter and got a ticket each. Sawyer said they should have created chaos instead and told me they must pay the fine.

At least I have some confidence that Sue Gower has more common sense than that.

Scrutiny Chairmen seem to have suffered the chop too and the most ludicrous must be Resources and Growth where successful businessman Councillor Dourmoush kept a critical eye on the pair at the helm while Bexley was driven perilously close to the rocks. Then Cabinet Member now Deputy Leader David Leaf and Finance Director Paul Thorogood.

Good Chairman too. The first to break ranks and welcome me personally to his meetings. Probably his downfall.

Councillor Munir who used to chair Children’s and Adult’s Services gets a leg up to the Cabinet - Growth. The only change that was not predicted here.

 

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