10 January - Where are we now?
It’s another quiet time for Bexley Council news as the poor dears are still on their Christmas break but there is a meeting next week
which I aim to attend.
While occasionally pondering whether it is worth continuing with Bonkers I am encouraged somewhat by there
being four occasions recently when BiB has published things before any other local news outlet. There was
@tony’s Court victory in the vexatious FOI business, Councillor Smith’s
belated - not his fault - Motion on ULEZ, the
mysterious business of Methuen Road which acquired double yellow lines
against the wishes of the residents - while similar and busier roads don’t have them
- and finally
the imminent refurbishment of train carriages announced here
almost two months before anywhere else. In the case of Methuen Road, the press even
stole my photographs of the protest, not that I care but maybe Bonkers has its occasional uses after all.
This is perhaps the time to answer a few questions directed at me in recent weeks. An easy one; “how old are you?” Answer, old
enough to have survived a V1
flying bomb at the beginning of 1944.
Did I pay the £4,800 demanded under threat of Court action by the Reform UK candidate for ruining her election chances? I had said that
voters who wanted to know more about her should search Bexley Council’s
website to get an idea of what her former Councillor colleagues thought of her. Maybe I should have been less obtuse and say what she had done.
Instead I sent six pages of polite eff-off to her solicitor. It was six pages of stuff
which no one would want to be aired in Court and referred to a two hour audio
recording which has never gone public in any way. It is of her former business
partners discussing in some detail her modus operandi. Almost six months later all is quiet.
What is happening to the CPZ Consultation
the result of which was promised in an email dated 21st October to be available during November? Did I report that? Possibly not
but there was a similar reference here on 13th November
when it was said that recommendations would be available before the end of November. The very latest information is that it may be available next week.
My guess is that the Lesnes Abbey area voted in favour of a CPZ and Belvedere and West Heath did not and if the Council honours those wishes areas further
away from Abbey Wood station will likely suffer from bad parking even more than they do now. An interesting dilemma for the Cabinet Member.
And finally, “what happened to the Social Worker scandal alluded to last week?” Ah that.
It looks to be absolutely horrendous behaviour by Bexley Social Services. The young man who says he was abandoned in a foreign
country aged only eleven and with no one to care for him sent me 23 emails and a
few legal documents none of which told the complete story and I spent a lot of time trying to assemble
it into a cohesive whole.
It was a complicated story and I asked for approval to publish and a check for
accuracy. There has been no reply and whilst the legal documents indicate that
something awful may have happened it is equally possible that ‘recollections may vary’. For the time being at least Bexley Council Social Services are off the hook.