21 September - Another collection of the trivial and the not so trivial
Houses in Multiple Occupation
Bexley Council has issued its long awaited consultation on
Houses in Multiple Occupation.
The first step along the long path towards restoring order to a situation that has made some residents’ lives a misery.
Bexley’s Press Release.
What’s their excuse?
It’s well over a year since the police in Greenwich submitted their file on
the lies told by Councillor Cheryl Bacon, Bexley’s legal bod Lynn Tyler and the
former Chief Executive Will Tuckley to the Crown Prosecution Service.
The evidence submitted was in my view overwhelming and the police
evidently took it seriously. They interviewed eight people who I know of and
took written statements from more, all of them confirming the general theme that
Bexley Council lied their socks off and all to protect Councillor Bacon against
a trivial transgression of the law on public meetings. Who really cares about that?
Obviously Bexley Council did because they lied to the press and asked the police
to rewrite history. Not so shocking as it might seem now that we know for
certain that the Council Leader is prepared to see petty thieves elected so long
as they add to the tally of her voting fodder. Literally it is Honour among Thieves
and makes one yearn for the good old days when the worst the Council Leader did
was fiddle his expenses. (Ian Clement, £2,300.)
Presumably Greenwich police thought a good case had been made, they were supportive of the
victims throughout and said they would present the case to the Crown Prosecution Service
personally to impress upon them its many alarming aspects.
Since then Will Tuckley has been appointed by government
commissioners to run Tower Hamlets Council. Can you imagine the furore if he was hung out to dry?
If I may digress for a moment, I think Tuckley was under firm instructions to cover
up for the corrupt politicians by you know who and would have been glad to get away from the
Watling Street hell hole. Probably the Bexley Buffoon has landed in the same mess
and knows not what has hit her.
So sooner or later the CPS must concoct a reason to dismiss the allegation
against Cheryl Bacon et al. More than a year should have given them enough time.
Numerous decision dates have already come and gone.
The last that was heard from the CPS
was in
writing and not via the police as before, and if they are true to their word the
decision cannot be far off.
The name of the game now must be what excuse will they come up with to overrule
ten witnesses against none. No one who stood up for Cheryl Bacon was actually
a witness to her meeting so only know what she chose to tell them.
But Bexley Council has a very long arm when it comes to interfering with the
process of law. The Metropolitan Police's Department of Professional Standards
is still burrowing into that following Cabinet Member Craske's links to
the infamous 2011 obscene blog, and from what they say are coming up with
some very interesting stuff.
Trains of thought. Or maybe not
Last Wednesday’s report of a Luton Airport train service from Abbey Wood was
quickly repeated on a couple of Greenwich blogs maybe without a great deal of
enthusiasm but if you are into trains in a big way the report on
London
Reconnections is worth a read. (Scroll towards the end.)
They take the plan apart on a technical level, I am much more simplistic. If it
is true that the Gillingham via Woolwich Arsenal service is withdrawn the North
Kent line will not only lose its connection to Waterloo but also to Blackheath and Lewisham.
If that comes to pass they can brick up
the mile long Charlton to Blackheath
tunnel. I suspect someone has not thought this through properly but
there is a
consultation going on. If you can find anything about the Rainham service on
it, well done, because I haven’t.
See also
Murky Depths and
the 853 blog.
Wilful neglect
Since
Mick Barnbrook moved out of town I have not had any reason to travel to Blackfen. A shame because
its residents and its woes are not often featured on BiB.
Today that is remedied to some extent by a resident of Orchard Rise West who is
more than a little disenchanted with Bexley Council. Aren’t we all?
Orchard Rise residents have had the delights of an abandoned wrecked car on their doorstep, well
nearly, for the past six months. Well nearly again.
No amount of reporting it to Bexley Council has had any effect. It’s amazing it
isn’t festooned with parking tickets as it is not within a marked bay. The sharp
metal edges must be dangerous to dogs and toddlers.
Better late than never
I
am writing to the sound of pneumatic drills and for a change it is not Crossrail
making the racket. At long last the Keep Left sign in Abbey Road which has been
in darkness for more than a year is being repaired.
There was an attempt to fix it on 2nd September but the problem must have been
greater than expected because the men went away without effecting a repair.
The new sign is going to be one of those flap down ones but obviously Bexley
Council has little idea about the standard of driving that one occasionally sees in the borough.
People in large vehicles think it is fun to drive straight over them and it was
only last Wednesday that I saw a 229 bus, in sheer frustration at Bexley’s road
design presumably, go round the island on the wrong side of the road. Not the
refuge shown here but the next one along.
Never Knowingly Undercharged
As one ages people don’t tend to celebrate birthdays, not me anyway, maybe
those ending in zeros perhaps but the next one of those is quite a long way off.
Yesterday morning was spent sitting in a dentist’s chair and as a friend had asked for advice
on a big purchase we went up to John Lewis in Oxford Street in the afternoon, stopping off at
the new London Bridge station to nose around.
Fantastic bit of civil engineering as one might expect but I wasn’t especially
impressed by anything else. The hype was just too much, it’s a railway station
for goodness sake with, unless I took a wrong turn, an absolutely awful
interchange with the Underground. It’s a temporary arrangement no doubt but I
was glad the rain had stopped.
In
John Lewis we sat in their cafe for a moment to contemplate the decision to drop
£4,500 on the chosen items. I was served the coffee you see here, I have no idea
what it was supposed to be but at £2 a cup it was undoubtedly a rip off. I am
still used to a Lyons Tea Shop where a cupful used to be 5½ old pennies. Two pence to you youngsters.
John Lewis did not get the order, it will go to somewhere that does not sell coffee. It was putrid by the way.