18 October - Decision making in Bexley. Deplorable
After
a short update on the burst water main problem in Crayford (the disruption will
go on for at least another week from today), Places Scrutiny moved on to the sale of parks.
Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour, North End) reiterated his party’s position
that it is against all such sales and referred back to
the General Purposes
Committee meeting where it was revealed that the value of the Napier Road site
“was not sufficient for disposal”, so moving on to his question Stefano said “I would
like to ask the Cabinet Member why and when did he decide not to dispose of this site”.
Councillor Craske said “I was thinking about it on Friday and over the weekend and I decided on Monday morning”.
Councillor Borella thought it “was bizarre not to have asked for the figures
before it was even on the list. The objectors were given an email on Monday
morning by the Cabinet Member and he said very clearly that it was going through
the decision making process. In the afternoon the Cabinet Member said he was
going to stop the sale. The disposal value was not worth anything, he should not
have had it on the list in the first place”.
Well in a competent Council Stefano, then maybe…
Councillor Craske said “there were 27 sites on the list and we are only taking
forward eight. The policy was to generate a sum of money, we have got to the
point when we do not need to sell the rest off”. Just how big is their
miscalculation? 27 sites put under threat with all the consequent worries for
residents and they are only going to sell eight.
“I have known the value of that site for ages”, Craske said “and it was touch and
go but there were questions about utilities that may or may not be underneath
and by the time you put all those through you come to the view it is not really
worth…, it doesn’t justify the worth of what comes out of it. I rang Mr. Moore
[Director of Regeneration] to tell him about it at 08:30 [on Monday].”
“This site wasn’t going to make a difference one way or another.” So there you have it, Napier Road
would never have been on the list if Bexley Council had exercised an iota of common sense.
How many hundreds of residents were put to so much trouble? How many of them now
think that Bexley Council is a well run organisation?