29 October (Part 2) - Great tits, creepers and rooks
The website featured in
the previous blog,
www.bexleywildlife.org
is probably not a serious campaigning site. When I noticed it was complaining
that Bexley council had withdrawn its list of
land for sale from its website and wouldn’t let the Wildlife people have a copy, I used
its web Comments section to provide a link to the document.
After an hour or so for moderation the link duly appeared at the
foot of their page but overnight it disappeared. I thought I should find
out more about the site and soon realised that I had previously been
asleep on the job. It is run by the same person as www.erithquarry.org; Jonathan Rooks.
Only two days ago
the implied criticism of Bexley council was removed from that site
too. I think it would be fair to assume that any campaign against Bexley council
run by a former Tory and contractor to Bexley council will have one hand tied
behind its back and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
I doubt I will be devoting much space to campaign sites with such mixed motives again.
Campaigning
against crooked councils is a time consuming business and not for the impatient.
The Peter Craske business
is still dragging on three and a half years after the obscenities were first
sent up his phone line. Former mayor
Sharon Massey’s dalliance with naked oiled bodies in The Charlotte pub still
rumbles on too. Councillor Stefano Borella has been pushing for the pub’s licence
to be reviewed; just because it is run by a councillor is not a good reason to
look the other way.
The News Shopper has
a report on recent developments.
Something that has not been reported for a long time and
ought to be wrapped up is Bexley council’s
illegal closure of Bridleway 250. It
was established that to close a bridleway because of crime a council must first
obtain the permission of the Secretary of State. Bexley council didn’t even ask
and the reason was fairly obvious. Far from being a crime hotspot, the locality
is almost crime free. It was another case where Bexley council connived with the
police to hide the truth. The case should have gone to court, it’s an easy
enough process and at one time Michael Barnbrook thought he might do that himself.
However he is not personally affected by the closure of the bridleway and he
argued that it would be much better if the local residents who had alerted him
to the problem in the first place took out the summons. However after months of
to-ing and fro-ing during which time
The
Bexley Action Group offered to pay their
expenses, they backed off. So once again Bexley council is able to break the law
and get away from it because no one really cares.