14 December (Part 2) - Motorists kebabed
Sometimes on a Wednesday the News Shopper acts as a prompt for a second blog
of the day, but its news pages provided nothing new today. Readers from far away
who lack local knowledge may wish to know that the Shopper’s front page features
yet another knife murder and Page 3 reports an attempted knife murder the
previous week. If I am at some future date sceptical about claims that the
authorities here have influenced crime levels significantly for the better you
may understand why. The statistics have an unhappy knack of reverting to the
mean and four knife deaths in six months may be an example of that. Bexley council believes that
shutting a kebab shop
is the way forward. It doesn’t seem much of a plan to me. For the record I have lived in Bexley 25
years and never seen any violence except on late night trains and very rarely at that.
The News Shopper covers
the petition nicely but the council has
not found a new excuse for ignoring it. They still can’t do better than “inaccurate and misleading”.
The
Public Announcements page reveals that Bexley council is continuing with its
drip drip attack on motorists on the day the national press features Mary Portas’
advice to the Prime Minister that local councils are killing shopping centres. Long Lane is
to have some Free bays converted to One Hour Maximum Stay bays and any remaining
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. restrictions converted to 8 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.
I am intrigued by the plans for Sidcup High Street. Three new pedestrian
crossings to be installed. 30 metres west of Church Road, 23
metres west of Church Road and in Church Road, 13 metres
south of Sidcup High Street. If one of those announcements is wrong and should have
read ‘east’, that’s quite close to how things were before the present traffic lights
were put in. Round in circles we go while fat cats run off with the cream.