7 March - Labour puts forward an alternative budget
On
the Monday before last,
Bexley Council’s Cabinet approved their budget and
the inflation busting Council Tax increase it requires. All that was necessary
to legally raid your pocket was the nod through by their Conservative colleagues
at Full Council on Wednesday, Their job depends on total
acquiescence. So all done and dusted within 20 minutes; right?
Not a bit of it, so much grandstanding, rehearsed speechifying and applause is
necessary that they managed go for an extra three hours! (Much of it in the next report still to come.)
It started with Leader David Leaf moving that the 2026/27 budget be approved.
Simple enough but he spun it out for more than seven minutes saying very little of note while finding time
for a word or two about Rachel from Accounts [Complaints?] and the two party
before residents Bexley MPs who voted to cut the borough’s grant.
New in this new budget, £30 million for Highways, freezing the cost of parking permits - at a level six
times higher than when this blog commenced a few years ago - £2·5 million on
playgrounds and £2 million for libraries. “BexleyCo will provide millions more.”
The Leader is going to make Bexley Even Better while few can see any improvements.
Cabinet Member Melvin Seymour said it was a Budget for People while ignoring the poor
sods who have to pay the bill out of their inflation ravaged incomes.
Labour Leader Stefano Borella had heard enough and put forward an Amendment to the budget which is included in his
subsequent Press Release. The Finance Officer said its figures did add up OK.
After Councillors considered it, or maybe not in the case of the Conservatives,
for seven minutes the debate progressed.
The Labour Leader said his budget represented aspiration. Potholes would be fixed and a new Housing Strategy introduced focusing more on
affordable housing and social rented properties. No more selling of the family
silver, notably parks and open spaces. There are 50,000 residents in Bexley
renting privately, Bromley gets Government grants to help them, Bexley doesn’t
bother to apply. Sidcup would qualify but its MP attacks HMOs instead.
Scrutiny Committees in Bexley do not work, sometimes major decisions are not
scrutinised at all, “Absolutely appalling,”
“The Conservatives are proposing a 12% increase in 30 minute parking charges but
Councillors are allowed to park in four car parks without charge.” [Tories have
been going public with a claim that parking charges are frozen.]
Councillor Jeremy Fosten (Labour, Belvedere) reiterated the affordable homes and social housing aspirations
and said that BexleyCo’s performance had been pathetic. In what was supposed to
be a criticism he said that Reform UK locally wanted to see BexleyCo scrapped.
“That would be money down the drain.”
The pothole team would be augmented to speed up pothole repairs.
Cabinet Member Chris Taylor said that
at a time when the Labour Government
{and Sadiq Khan] was failing to meet its housing target the Amendment was “a silly plan and
he was not going to
allow that horrid Labour Mayor to build on green spaces across our borough.”. He
failed to explain how he would stop Khan over-ruling them as he did in Abbey
Wood but he did remind us that the last Labour administration raised Council Tax by 40%.
Councillor Peter Craske (Conservative, Blackfen & Lamorbey) said that a year ago Labour forecast that their 2026/27 Budget
would be one of ambition, vision and new plans and all we got was more broken
promises and seven new ideas and the biggest of them would be to charge people
who do not own a car £57 not to use a car park. It was “Labour summed up”. In 2023 they
voted against an investment in 300 roads; investment which resulted in the recent good
report from the Labour Government and instead proposed cutting it by 3%. “In
2024 they proposed spending zero on road repairs.”
They are “ULEZ loving, LTN loving Lefties and we we know what will happen to them on 7th May”.
Councillor Anna Day (Labour, Slade Green & Northend) said residents’ main concern is potholes.
She said that in 2023/24 press reports were that Bexley did not repair a single pothole.
Labour Councillor Baljeet Gill said the hard pressed businesses in his
Northumberland Heath ward were angry about the further increase in short term
parking charges and asked for a change of heart by Bexley Conservatives. [For the
record, 50 pence ten years ago and £1 now. Inflation in that time 40%.]
Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) spoke about the
new Labour housing strategy. Whilst residents see housing as a top priority for a Council, Bexley
gave all theirs away leaving it powerless to introduce necessary improvements. Instead we have Housing Associations
profiteering by selling them off. Cabinet
Member Chris Taylor thought the reference to housing in poor condition was funny.
But then he also thought the reduction in pay for care workers was something to rejoice in.
Cabinet Member Caroline Newton said there was nothing in the Labour Budget to
say how they would manage the £11 million plus SEND transport budget supporting
1,200 young people. [£10,000 each.] She said that the all caring Labour
Government only pays enough for two Bexley schools to get free breakfasts.
Councillor Brian Bishop (Conservative, Barnehurst) said that Bexley was one of the best performing Councils
for temporary accommodation and ridiculed the Labour MP for shifting his
attention from potholes to the closure of Community Centres. “But
who was in
charge when the keys were handed back at Belvedere? Who ran it into the ground?
It was Daniel Francis MP. Desperate Dan the Pothole Man is now picking on
Community Centres which are safe in our hands.”
“The Amendment will not make a blind bit of difference to the budget”, in which case one might argue, why not accept it?
Councillor Cameron Smith said the Amendment was “a good piece of fiction” but it
was “so confusing”. They ask the Conservatives to welcome more Government money
for potholes in Bexley while the Labour MP asked the Prime Minister to
withdraw it. They want higher affordable home targets in Bexley while the Labour
Government and the London Mayor are busy reducing them. They want less
overcrowding while Sadiq Khan cuts the family homes target. They complain about
parking charges while Bexley has among the lowest in London. In Greenwich and
Lewisham parking costs uo to £8 an hour. [The same as in Abbey Road and New Road close to the station.
Unlike in Greenwich and Lewisham there is no reduction for clean vehicles.]
“They are as confused as Kier and Rachel and would like to be the party of builders but Sadiq
Khan has been responsible for building for ten years and he has been an absolute
disaster.” In nine months of last year only 3,248 homes were built in London and
the target was 80,000. London is supposed to provide a quarter of the country’s
1·5 million home requirement, He has made it too expensive and too complicated
to build in London. The London plan is 500 pages and 123 policies.”
Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) said it was not absolutely true that the
Council gave away its housing stock, it actually sold them for £8,000 a piece
and the Government of the day spotted the interest earned and took it from the grant.
The Council was at its best when it was run by cross-party sub-committees and
not via the current Cabinet and Scrutiny system where Councillors are rude to
each other and the public is largely ignored. Hence the Amendment below.
Councillor Melvin Seymour (Conservative, Crayford) objected to the alleged neglect of the North of the borough,
“absolute hogwash”, and pointed to the efforts being made to reach out to ethnic
groups on health issues and their attitude to women but the health grant is
three times lower than in the City of London.
The Mayor asked the Council Leader if he would like to accept the Amendment and
got a resounding “No”. He went on to say the Labour Amendment was “a lengthy
piece of rhetoric”, a subject upon which he claimed to be an expert. It had “no substance whatsoever.”
Even by Councillor Borella’s dodgy arithmetic Bexley is 34th best in the country
for potholes. The Amendment comes from a party whose two MPs backed the
cuts for funding of Bexley’s grant. A party embroiled in sleaze and scandal. A party that promised billions for social care with none
forthcoming. A party that promised to freeze Council Tax but failed to do so. A
party that boasted it would boost growth but which according to the OBR is
falling, unemployment is rising and inflation remains above target. A party that
betrayed pensioners and businesses with huge tax rises. It is Smoke and
Mirrors and it is nonsense and we need to vote the Amendment down.
The vote was as expected with the only Independent present, Nigel Betts
(Falconwood & Welling), siding
with the Conservatives.
The debate on the Conservative budget will follow.