Last week the News Shopper carried the council’s excuse for four months
of traffic delays in Wickham Lane which skirted around the truth
to conceal their incompetence but this week the letters page gets to
the heart of the matter. Some idiot designed a roundabout that a bus couldn’t
navigate. At the weekend I mentioned this latest in a long line of Bexley
council fiascos to my friend the Transport Research Laboratory’s senior
consultant. He said that they produced some software several years ago (now
marketed by Savoy Computing) into which you enter the dimensions of your road
junction or roundabout and it will tell you what sort of vehicle can get round
it - and vice-versa. “Only an idiot wouldn’t use it”. But
unfortunately we are in Bexley and the council is in the grip of idiots.
Everyone’s favourite, councillor Craske, is still intent on penalising
residents who need to buy a parking permit. The News Shopper reports the growing
list of protest groups. Shouldn’t they be grouping together to stand up against
the little tyrant? I’m not against his basic philosophy
that services shouldn’t be subsidised, but only an idiot blindly accepts that
administration costs of £249 a permit doesn’t need to be urgently investigated
and reduced. Craske treats the council as a gravy train run for the benefit of
councillors and senior employees.
The News Shopper also reports that John Watson of Sidcup who requested a
reduction in the very high salary paid to the Chief Executive be discussed at
the next council meeting has had his request rejected because “under standing
orders it cannot debate staff’s salaries even when they are in the public
domain”. There was bound to be some excuse trumped up, secrecy is one of the
tools of corruption. The News Shopper’s website has today reported how
Bromley council is freezing its top executive’s pay at some twenty odd thousand
below Bexley’s; and guess which council has the lowest council tax. Not wasteful
incompetent mismanaged Bexley that’s for sure.