21 November - Complaints and Crosses
There isn’t much from me today because I have decided to use my spare time on
a letter to Bexley council’s Standards Board. Just because I’ve been told it
will be a waste of time because it is rigged in favour of Conservative
councillors is not a good reason to accept defeat; and who knows, I may be
pleasantly surprised. The basis of my complaint will be that Craske deliberately
misled the council and public with his claim that there was no £4m.
contract with Parsons Brinckerhoff
when the council’s website says there is and he was just playing with words
over the subtle difference between a £4m. contract and a contract which may be worth £4m.
The fact he rounded off his denial with a personal attack on the resident who
raised his concerns about the £4m. will not go unmentioned.
if the council’s postbox gets loaded with complaints about the Craske then
so does mine. Within the last couple of days I’ve been told of someone who bought a
residents’ parking permit by plastic card without realising the price had
doubled and immediately requested a refund. If you do that in a shop the
transaction goes back through the card terminal, but not in the supremely well
organised Bexley council. They couldn’t do that. It had to be recorded on paper
and a cheque had to be sent through the post, at what extra cost goodness only knows.
Another resident gave up on the permit system because she only used hers when
driving to the nearest shopping area and local friends which reminds me of my
similarly disabled daughter’s complaint. She says that councils rarely say if
her blue badge is valid in residents’ bays and without guidance on the web
assuming it is is dangerous. Almost needless to say, Newham passes that
test and Bexley doesn’t.
Finally, one of these two Craske complainers thought that bringing misery to
Bexley was his full time job. It is not as
this website will
reveal. You would think someone as deeply unpopular as Peter Craske would be a
little more careful about what he allows his employer to say about him. “…the
Golden Jubilee Bridges which cross the Thames between Waterloo and Charing Cross
stations – bridges he crosses every day on the way to and from the office”. Dark
winter evenings, a low parapet and all that murky swirling water below. Careful
Peter, get that bit removed. You don’t want the 0·92% of the electorate who put a cross
against your name at the last election to have to look elsewhere do you?
0·92%. A figure sent to me by a supporter but not checked.