10 July (Part 2) - Bexley Council resorts to lies and deceptions of every description
Bexley Council came out with this weird statement today
and maybe a full explanation will be forthcoming at tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting.
However the notice appears to confirm that the Conservative administration’s budget strategy is twofold.
1) Slip in a big service cut which only the two or three people who attend
public meetings and the half dozen who watch the webcast will know about.
2) Use their web pages, social media and
Press Releases to announce a partial reversal
and claim that is a real positive step forward for the borough.
They take us for fools and most residents will let them get away with it.
That is how a a £230,000 cut in the park maintenance budget could be presented
as a £90,000 investment. The same tactic was applied to street cleaning and a
similar one was applied to tree planting. It was withdrawn one year and a token
amount invested later was presented as something of which to be proud.
These things are almost certainly worked out well in advance; bad things
immediately after an election and a step back from the brink just before the next one.
However some of their crafty stunts probably only come to them a little too late in the cycle.
No one has formally announced any plan to reduce the refuse collection frequency from
two to three weekly. I think if the Conservatives had made such an announcement I
would have noticed - not having missed either a Cabinet nor Council meeting in
several years - and the Labour Councillors would have milked the situation for all it is worth.
Presumably having omitted to announce the frequency reduction Bexley Council had to invent it.
It sounds good. We are so generous with residents that we are not going to
worsen that particular service. I have it on good authority that Cabinet Member
Peter Craske does not beat his wife either.