18 March - A Transport of Delight
I have seen a wide variety of Chairmen perform in the Chamber since I began
Bexley Council watching in 2010.
We have had one who illegally moved her public meeting to a private room and barricaded it
because she did not want her words to be recorded. The lies told about that incident were so extreme that they resulted in the police sending a file to the CPS.
Then there was another who encouraged Councillors to switch off their microphones
so that the Hearing Loop didn’t work and two deaf people in the public gallery
could no longer follow the meeting. The Equalities Commission stepped in to prevent a recurrence.
Another Chairman reprimanded a member of the public in a letter to
his home address because she deemed him not sufficiently enthusiastic about
her performance. I suspect that breaking into Council records to find his
address broke all sorts of rules but that particular Chairman was never very
interested in following rules.
Most meeting Chairmen have been perfectly OK if unremarkable. Towards the other
extreme Andy Dourmoush would always welcome me to his meetings and on my not
very frequent attendances at Planning Meeting, Chairman Peter Reader would
come over to shake my hand. (All of these Councillors have gone or announced
their imminent departure.)
And then there is Cameron Smith. (Conservative, St. Mary’s and St. James
and Chairman of the Transport Sub-Committee.)
He used to invite me to sit alongside him until he noticed I always declined his kind offer. He also allows me to
participate in the discussion if I feel so inclined. He is unique in both
respects and I particularly like his tendency to say what most of us are
thinking. He is his own man willing to represent residents without being too much of a whip aware party slave.
Within a few hours of
me admitting missing his Transport Users’ Committee
meeting through my own stupidity he was in touch to tell me what I had
missed. Not much on the police and bus front apparently but the rail
authorities made some interesting announcements.
The pre-Covid six Southeastern services an hour will be restored on all three
cross-borough lines, The Bexleyheath line will get more Charing Cross
services while the Greenwich line will get loop services to Sidcup
off peak and Saturday too. “So delighted” he says.
Cameron takes issue with me on Lane Rental. I say take issue but in reality
yesterday’s blog was deliberately escalated into a bit of a rant. I am not
unsympathetic to Cameron’s view but I really hate
Thames Water who refuse to talk to me about them never fitting a street stopcock outside my house. As every
driver knows, getting across the borough is an extremely frustrating experience and I am not immune from it.
For your benefit, the Chairman is of the opinion that “charging utilities may
very well act as a deterrent but it is effectively a tax on investment.
Ultimately, bill payers would pick up the tab and it would deter mains water
replacement etc. that we need to stop the cycle of endless road works caused by failing infrastructure”.
“My hope is to secure the mains replacement Bexley Village needs so we can
substantially reduce road works. Perhaps not a popular view, but it’s
short-term pain for long-term gain. The politically difficult but right
thing to do is to encourage the real investment we need to replace our
ageing pipes. The alternative of taxing investment or just saying no which
isn’t usually possible, would just mean more of the same. Old pipes,
breakages and road works ad nauseam.”
True, but I am not sure I will live long enough to see the improvements!
He adds that the map of forthcoming works will not disrupt life all at the same time. It depicts what is in the pipeline if you will excuse the pun.
Cameron
had nothing to say about buses so I will fill in for him. They are
everywhere but not terribly reliable. At 6 o’clock yesterday evening there
were eleven double deckers stuck in Gayton Road, Abbey Wood and overflowing into Florence Road.
I was at the Clock Tower at ten to three yesterday and unusually caught the
scenic route home because I wanted to take some photos near the bus garage. So I
got off the 229, looked for what I had been asked to photograph - and failed
- and went back to catch the next 229.
The bus App said it was due in eight minutes and 20 minutes later three turned
up at the same time. The first was full but I squeezed on to the second one and
stood next to the stairs opposite the priority seats.
At the next (near Silverdale Road) stop, a frail old lady got on and stood in front
of me. The two chaps in the priority seats took no notice as she swayed perilously.
I was tempted to photograph the back end of the bus filled with sixteen school
kids easily visible to me but you can’t take pictures of kids in these woke
times so I didn’t.
All but one were black. Probably things would be no different
if they were white British but not for the first time I wondered why you see
mainly black children on buses. How do the others get home?
The three 229s travelled in convoy to Lesnes Abbey and beyond but by then mine was heading the queue.
It arrived around quarter past four. Well over an hour after leaving the Clock
Tower.
Earlier the same day I took an SL3 home from Lion Road. I was literally the only
passenger on board. It travelled non-stop to Florence Road via Nuxley Road
because of the incessant road closures. It even missed Bexleyheath station and
the oncoming bus on New Road where the parking is idiotic.
Note: Showing my age here but the blog title comes from a
1957 comedy song by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. I recall it included the line,
97 horsepower London bus, the Routemaster had 115. About half that of my
electric car. I seem to have nicked all my sister’s records.
