They say that small minds are easily amused but one of the things I enjoy
about watching Bexley council is to see what new excuse or lie they will come up
with when caught out by something or other. My favourite so far is that a Policy is
not a Policy it is a Protocol, followed by a Protocol is not a Protocol it is a
Rule Book Issue
and as only Policy matters can be questioned at council meetings you cannot
actually ask Policy questions because they have been redefined as Rule Book Issues - which are not allowed.
Correspondents tell me how disappointed they are at Bexley council providing
damn fool and evasive answers to their questions but invariably such answers provide
grist to the Bonkers’ mill. I was therefore looking forward to Bexley council’s response to finding themselves on
the wrong side of the Thames crossing argument.
They claimed in
letters to newspapers to have read residents’ minds and told
them they didn’t want a fixed crossing and
spent £3,366 on
a leaflet to convince the dissenters.
Now that Bexley council has failed to persuade residents that remaining in the dark ages for the
foreseeable future is their preferred option, the council is griping that the TfL consultation
produced
an inadequate sample. (1,053 respondents from Bexley.)
I find that a bit rich. When there was a consultation about Bexley adopting a mayor to replace the cabinet system
only 99 people responded
and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if 63 of them were councillors. They seized
the opportunity to stick with a cabinet despite a bigger poll in the Bexley
Chronicle going heavily in the other direction.
Strategy 2014 which has been the cornerstone of the present
administration’s decision making was approved on the back of
a massive
consultation exercise with the town festooned with encouraging posters. It
failed to reach a four figure response (829) but Bexley council seized on it as
vindication of its plans. Bexley council will only accept democracy in action if
it suits their preconceived notions.
It
will argue no doubt that the people keenest on a bridge will have been those
that rushed to complete the consultation and thereby unfairly biased it, but a
closer examination reveals that the number using Blackwall four or more times a week was almost exactly balanced by those using
it less than once a month.
Where are all these people clamouring for splendid
isolation? Do they exist outside Teresa O’Neill’s cabinet? The newspaper
commentators are almost entirely in favour of solving the transport problem
sooner rather than later.
Maybe the council leader should give some
thought to the fact that despite putting a magazine denigrating the bridge
through every letter box in the borough and following it with a tax payer funded
leaflet imploring residents to ‘Don’t let the bridge back in’, she aroused the
interest of fewer than half the number or people who flocked to sign
Elwyn Bryant’s
petition asking Bexley council to renegotiate the obscenely high senior salaries
O’Neill has to pay to ensure the loyalty of her henchmen.