26 November - Bexley’s quarter million pound comedy duo fails to show
The Winter 2010 edition of the Bexley Magazine has council Leader Teresa O’Neill
saying “We will be meeting local people to discuss the issues with them”
(Page 8) and an attachment in an email from the Bexley Voluntary Service Council (B.V.S.C)
announces the first of nine “Roadshows” was to be in Bexley Central Library from 10.30 a.m.
to 12.30 p.m. yesterday. This ties in with information put out by the library over the
last week or so and confirmed by them in a telephone enquiry. So I took myself along
to listen to what Will Tuckley the C.E.O. and the Leader might say and more particularly what residents
might ask.
Arriving just before 10 - because that is the time advised by the library - I saw nothing
out of the ordinary happening. By five past there was a small audience awaiting the
entrance of the expensive pair but soon afterwards the phone rang and a librarian
apologised that the Roadshow was cancelled. Someone asked why and I drew the short
straw to call the council’s communications office to enquire what was going on.
There was no Roadshow it was explained, it was something that they had
considered and may at some time go ahead, but nothing was planned so far. One
must wonder how B.V.S.C. came to hear about it and why a cancellation
message come from the office I was speaking to just ten minutes earlier if there was no
Roadshow to cancel? “Ah,” said the communications officer, “you had better speak
to my boss who is out.” So I left a phone number and at the time of writing no
explanation has been forthcoming. I’m reluctant to use the word lie on this blog yet again but
something odd is going on even if it’s just a case of stage fright.
The Roadshows are probably a charade by a “listening council” that would like to claim that it
called on the public to respond and no one turned up. The B.V.C.S. email lists eight more dates
across the borough. The one in
Blackfen library scheduled for
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Friday 14th January, 2011 should be interesting; the shoppers and traders there that I
have spoken to are not exactly brimming with praise for the council and all its wicked works.
Something else that Leader O’Neill says in the latest magazine is “We’ve worked
hard to ensure that as many of the savings as possible involve cutting our costs
and improving how we work”. (Page 3.) Is this the same Teresa O’Neill who allowed
Craske to hike up the cost of a £35 parking permit to £100 in 2011 without once
looking at why it costs £250 a permit to issue them? Is it the same Leader
who advocated cutting the number of councillors for the benefit of a newspaper
headline but failed to discuss the issue at the council meeting? And is it the
same inadequate council Leader who sanctioned the C.E.O.’s £200,000 plus annual
salary and refuses to allow those that fund it to raise the issue? Cuts are necessary,
but they should be applied across the board and that includes senior staff and
politicians. These people are hypocrites primarily interested in their own well being and income.