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News and Comment July 2015

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28 July (Part 2) - If you ever doubted Bexley council is up to no good…

What would I do without loyal readers? Yesterday, short of time as ever, I invited readers to play Spot the Difference between the March and May Splash Park reports.


O'NeillWhen Teresa O’Neill gets to know that the original report is now public alongside councillor Craske’s version her face may once again look as it did whilst listening to councillor Slaughter speaking about Old Farm Park. (See Photo, it’s a new one.)

I heard councillor Sawyer say in early May he had not seen the report, he was waiting for council officers to ensure it would answer all his questions. I am not at all sure that was the real reason and you may not either if you compare the two now available.


• Fairly inconsequential is that one mentions the number of children using the park, the later one doesn’t. Similarly one says no one knows the design capacity of the park, the other says the numbers were well beyond design capacity.

• Getting more controversial, the original report covers the risk of human soiling (nappies), the council version pulls Cryptosporidium out of the hat.

• Where the consultant’s report doesn’t mention maintenance as much as the council would like, the council makes sure it does.

• The real report refers to the poor workmanship of the replacement rubber surface installed in 2012 under the Conservative administration. It is edited out of the final version.

• The consultant says the filters may possibly be not very good at removing Cryptosporidium and Bexley council step that up to claiming that even replacement filters will not eradicate the problem introducing the word Cryptosporidium twice where it wasn’t present before.

• The March report “understood” there was not a single case of a bad test result being returned but Peter Crsake’s version on the web says “these results often showed levels of bacteria in between cleaning regimes that gave rise to concerns and prompted further investigation”.

• The original conclusion said nothing about further investigations being necessary, the council version does. It also devotes a large section to Cryptosporidium although the consultant had not seen fit to mention it at all.

• Where the consultant offers remedies the council drones on about breeding grounds for bacteria.

• The consultant offers a solution but Bexley council prefers to say “human soiling cannot be prevented”.

• The March report says that with attention to appropriate measures the park can continue. The council’s report emphasises “maintenance on an ongoing basis”. It also considerably beefs up the problems with a mains fed solution.


There is absolutely nothing in the report to suggest that council officers were ensuring that any question councillor Sawyer might have asked would be answered, it is perfectly obvious that they were enlarging the highlighted problems to ensure Bexley council could claim the problems were largely insurmountable.

The original report mentioned Cryptosporidium four times and only as a possibility, Bexley council mentions it twelve times and says that even improved filters may not eradicate it.

It is not hard to conclude that Bexley council has embellished the report to satisfy their own requirement and, put simply, they are crooks.

Here; see what you think. Green text is comment by the BIB reader who prepared the PDF comparison.

 

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