19 June (Part 1) - Give with one hand, slap down with the other
While
£300,000 of public money is piled into improving the look of the shops in Abbey
Wood with another quarter of a million likely to be spent on the public realm,
Bexley Council is doing its bit to make the lives of shopkeepers a misery. They
are threatening punitive action against those shops which are not paying the
Council to take their waste away.
There is a service road running behind the shop premises on the Bexley side but
not all of them have access to it. Some shops do not extend that far back and the only
way in and out is the front door, the one used by customers. So there is
absolutely nowhere to put a waste bin.
Before Crossrail came along and complicated matters some had tried to negotiate
with Bexley Council to be able to store a privately hired bin in nearby Gayton
Road. As you might imagine, Bexley Council was completely unreceptive to the
idea. Instead it removes piles of fly tipped rubbish from Gayton Road almost
daily. Yesterday twelve black sacks were removed early in the morning and within
a couple of hours nine more appeared.
Where it comes from no one knows but from what spills out it would appear to be domestic,
some flats above the shops have no space for a bin either. Bexley Council
has written to every nearby address in an attempt to put a stop to the dumping. If they had allowed a commercial
service to operate taxpayers might have saved a lot of money.
Unfortunately it is futile to expect flexibility or common sense from Bexley Council.
Their latest wheeze is to demand proof from traders who do not rely on Council
waste disposal services that they have an alternative contract in place. I
know of one who has nowhere to store a bin but fortunately doesn’t produce a lot
of waste and certainly not enough to interest a commercial operator.
Inevitably there are cardboard boxes and there is a small amount of
organic material. The boxes which are not reused during deliveries to customers
are collected by an individual who has a use for old cardboard and the organic
material is taken by a keen gardener and composter. The remaining oddments are incinerated off the premises.
Bexley Council believes this is unacceptable and apparently prefers prosecution.
The people who make these threats do not have a clue about running a business,
and one only has to look around the borough to see that few have a clue about running anything.
The Wilton Road hairdresser steered well clear of useless bureaucrats and
financed her own shop improvements - picture above. The cab office took the
Council’s money and has had its signage replaced. It looks rather impressive, especially at night.
Station Cars by Day and Night.