3 May (Part 1) - Playing a-round with our money
There’s
a children’s playground three minutes walk from my home. I’d never been in it until the
Easter holiday weekend and it looked pretty good to me. It must have cost quite a lot. Anyone
have an idea how much? Well in March alone £631,940.45 went to two of the big playground
equipment manufacturers. That’s an awful lot of money. How much did Bexley council prune from the getting
disabled children to school budget? £1·6 million wasn’t it? Speaking
of playgrounds, I wonder why Bexley council found it necessary to pay the Thamesview (Thamesmead) Golf Centre £1,800.
Another big payout close to my home was ‘an event’ in Belvedere on Easter
Sunday (with another planned for this month). “London Borough of Bexley want to raise awareness and celebrate the work
they have done on the Belvedere Green Links Programme. They plan to run a series
of events with the assistance of Seventeen Events: Events will include a
business networking event and official launch event in May; attendees will
include local businesses and official dignitaries.” And how much of your money
did Bexley council spend partying and celebrating? A mere £20,021.40
on the glorification of councillors with only “official dignitaries” invited. A
bit of a difference from the effort put in by leader Teresa O’Neill when she
invited the public to her
‘have your say’ sessions in libraries and then dodged them upon hearing a
few residents had taken her seriously and turned up.
What are Green Links anyway? Cycle paths according to ‘Seventeen Events’ the
company that profited from Bexley council’s need to drag dignitaries from their
homes on Easter Sunday. Maybe they were tempted by a souvenir bag from the
company ‘Rocket Bags’ who were paid £2,940 to produce them but a celebration of
cycle paths by councillors and invited dignitaries doesn’t benefit residents, it
just costs them the price of a dozen houses’ council tax.
I clearly remember councillor Campbell (St. Mary’s. £22.650) saying at
the meeting which approved
refurbishing of the old Woolwich building for council offices that savings would
in part come from not having to maintain or upgrade the existing council
buildings, he specifically mentioned air conditioning and I felt so sorry for
council staff having to go without that I mentioned it in my report. Now I see
it isn’t strictly true. More than £8,000 was spent on “air conditioning
construction costs” in March. The cynic sitting next to me at that meeting
muttered “illusory” when Campbell came out with his savings theory and I
wondered myself if neglecting old buildings would affect the resale value of
those not scheduled for demolition. The cynic is probably right.
D’you remember
councillor Craske telling us there was no £4m. contract
with the transport consultants Parsons Brinckerhoff? It may not have been exactly £4m.
but Craske is paying them nevertheless. Another £34,463.95 in March. Not
that it compares with what UBS Global Asset Management (UK) Ltd. took us for in
March, a cool £95,533.78. Why are we paying a Chief Executive around
£240,000 a year; “good value for money” according to council leader Teresa O’Neill, and paying
consultants to do the job of managing our assets for him? Exactly what use is Will Tuckley?