4 November (Part 1) - Bexley council. Penny wise and pound foolish
As
you probably know, the Belvedere Splash Park is a product of the borough’s
2002-2006 Labour administration and there has not been another major council
funded infrastructure project in the north of the borough since. Not one!
After every election Bexley’s Conservative council has launched an attack on it but before
elections they take the credit. A month before the last one Kerry Allon, then a Conservative
councillor in Lesnes Abbey Ward, was backing Amandeep Singh Bhogal in claiming
the Splash Park as a Tory electoral asset. Mr. Bhogal was the shameless
Conservative candidate for Belvedere.
If you read my Sunday blog you will know that I
rubbished councillor Alex
Sawyer’s excuse that the Splash Park was at the end of its life because all
technology, like computers, moves on. I agree it does but the old stuff, given a
modicum of maintenance, should keep on working to its original standard. Over the weekend
I refurbished a five year old laptop which was taking 40 minutes to start up. It had lost
its recovery partition so it was a start from scratch job but it is now in ‘factory condition’
and working like new. Slow by modern standards but no worse than in 2009.
It will be the same with the Splash Park. The same old bugs need to be dealt
with and water is still water so how come the technology coped for eight years
but suddenly, just when Bexley council has run out of money, it can’t? It seems
odd but perhaps there is a reason.
The following is not an original thought on my part but I have totally forgotten where it came from.
Someone said; at Saturday’s meeting I suppose, that Bexley council seriously cut
the number of staff who monitored the park for inappropriate behaviour this
year. Presumably that led to more inappropriate behaviour.
Maybe toddlers were allowed in with soiled nappies. Perhaps older children,
teenagers or even adults would run through the fountains fully clothed, probably with their
shoes on. That would be enough to tread in all sorts of mess, dogs’ mess
probably. The bacteria level would shoot sky high. It might explain why the
single tank system stopped coping in 2014.
If the theory has any merit it would indicate that Bexley council brought the
problem on themselves, maybe deliberately so; anyone who doesn’t believe they
are capable of dirty tricks doesn’t know them. Perhaps a rota of volunteer
monitors would fix the problem at virtually no cost. Just a thought.