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News and Comment November 2010

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13 November - Lie detectors, parking permits and
13 November - Wickham Lane roundabout six months on - almost

Wickham Lane roundabout Wickham Lane roundaboutThere was another case in this week’s News Shopper of Bexley’s rotten council using a lie detector against a resident living alone and it reveals that the operation is contracted to “a west Midlands based company”. Interesting because you and I are generally prohibited from recording phone calls without the other party’s permission but as I understand it the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act which so many council’s routinely abuse allows councils to do it - but not a third party. Since when has a resident living alone been a potential terrorist anyway?

I still don’t understand why anyone would agree to let the council talk to them about the issue, especially after all the adverse publicity. Despite all the restrictions on freedom introduced by Blair and Brown I do not recall a law that says it is illegal not to answer a phone call. My phone is fixed so the bell doesn’t ring if it doesn’t recognise the incoming number. Maybe that is why I am still waiting for my lie-detector test.

When I attended the cabinet meeting on cuts one of the expenses pot raiders took responsibility for this Nazi-like attack on residents and luckily for him he was facing away from me and I didn’t catch his name; otherwise I would have had a new entry in the Rogues’ Gallery. Next Wednesday I shall be at the full council meeting with my note book and a report will be posted here within hours of it ending.

The pictures of the Wickham Lane roundabout taken at 2 p.m. yesterday are deceptive. There were long queues along each of the three entry roads but no traffic at the roundabout because of the long intervals between ‘go’s’ that widely spaced three-way lights necessarily entail. It’s not apparent from the photos and the ones taken two months ago what has been changed. The first photo may show a wider carriageway but it may be an illusion caused by the wide-angle lens. The roundabout appears to be the same size; maybe it has been moved. There was nothing going on at the site, it was pouring with rain at the time and you can hardly blame the Conway guys for packing up early on a wet Friday afternoon. So inconvenience to drivers by the thousand continues daily plus the near-by residents who are suffering road closures, presumably to prevent rat-running but reducing access to their own homes too. Don’t forget this wasn’t Bexley council’s fault at all, I know because I read it on their website.

Something else that hasn’t made much progress recently is the residents’ parking permit saga. A letter was sent to Craske 13 days ago picking apart his false monetary claims and giving him 14 days before legal action was to be commenced. Last I heard there had been nothing but a stony silence.

 

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