12 July (Part 2) - Chipping away at the fundamentals
Planning rules have been relaxed over the years and last week’s budget
took another step in that direction. With no effective border controls under the
present government and the everybody welcome immigration policy of Labour from
1997 to 2010 it is hardly surprising that there is a housing crisis.
When people occasionally ask me what Bexley’s Chief Executive does to justify his quarter
million pound salary package the only answer can be “not a lot”. Practically everything
Bexley council is required to do has been privatised, out sourced, sold off and
if asked to give examples of what may be safe from such a strategy I have always volunteered “Planning”. I couldn’t
quite see how something so fundamental to the character of the borough could not be kept as close as possible to
direct council control.
Maybe this is another subject on which
Bonkers is always wrong, but planning
staff are making noises about their jobs being on the line and being actively
considered for “privatisation”.
I suppose there must be jobs that involve going out and measuring up which
doesn’t need too much skill.
Everything is fair game for the axe apart from councillors’ own allowances. The Tories
voted unanimously against
the one third reduction proposed by UKIP.