26 April (Part 1) - The Council Leader’s report allowed yet more electioneering
At last we come to the Leader’s report to Full Council. She said it was a
busy period in which the Council Tax had gone up by 3·99% “achieved through good
housekeeping on this side of the Chamber”.
“The Growth Strategy, our long term vision for the future of our borough was
approved. The C2E [Crossrail extension] report is due in May and we are hopeful
of good results but we have to wait and see. Our proposals for The Place and
Making Institute, there is a lot of interest around that and it is very
exciting. BexleyCo; hopefully it will bring about sympathetic development with
the benefits coming to our residents.”
The London Borough of Culture, we were unsuccessful but we should put on record
and congratulate all those who pulled together the bid. We have a very good set
of officers and we have achieved one hell of a lot over the past four years.”
Councillor Val Clarke
(Conservative, Falcon Wood & Welling) wanted the Leader to congratulate the people responsible
for ‘up cycling’ old bikes. “Yes it is fantastic.” (Old bikes are refurbished by Sidcup Cycles and given to schools.)
Councillor Eileen Pallen (Conservative, Barnehurst) trod a similar path on the subject of Adult Services.
Cabinet Member Brad Smith had his script at the ready. Everything is wonderful.
Councillor James Hunt (Conservative, East Wickham) repeated the stunt with Children’s Services. Councillor
Smith had a script for that too. Bexley is doing a lot better than Bromley,
Croydon and Lewisham. 2,110, 3,726 and 4,269 children in temporary
accommodation respectively. Bexley has only 1,808.
Councillor Daniel Francis (Labour, Belvedere) said that those boroughs were carefully selected.
Labour controlled Greenwich has fewer children in temporary accommodation than Bexley. Bexley has
“by its policies seen those in temporary accommodation rise by 250% over the past four years”.
He referred to the decision to sack all the CCTV operatives and the petition to
restore live monitoring. The police have at best the facility to track two
cameras while the Council had 48 and no staff to review the footage. “Will the
Leader accept that monitoring should be reinstated.”
Cabinet Member Peter Craske said that a Labour Motion on CCTV restoration “was
only for twelve months, it said it in an amendment to the Motion. The proposal
is a waste of time and money and it is not serious. It is a slap in the face for
everyone in this borough, one of the safest places to live in, and a joke”.
Councillor Melvin Seymour (Conservative, Northumberland Heath) asked the Leader if LED lighting is a good idea. She
and Cabinet Member Alex Sawyer said it was a very good idea. “It will save £450,000 a year in energy and
another £150,00 in maintenance.”
Councillor Stefano Borella’s (Labour, North End) microphone failed and I only half heard his
question about education. Cabinet Member John Fuller said the Council was unable
to influence their decisions to become Academies.
Councillor Borella was not the first to suffer microphone failure, most had
failed to work, or if they did, only intermittently, throughout the meeting.
Councillor Seán Newman (Labour, Belvedere) asked how any record of the meeting could be kept.
Cabinet Member Don Massey said the Council “had really tried to sort something
out. When tested it works perfectly and we can’t find the gremlin in the system. I am annoyed.”
The Chief Executive,
renowned for her ability to fix toilets, apologised and
said she would have the audio system fixed.
It fell to Councillor David Leaf (Conservative, Longlands) to ask the last question. He wanted to know what the
benefits would be of reducing the number of Councillors in Bexley. As a
Conservative candidate who backed the idea you might think he should have known that already.
Cabinet Member Don Massey “said it would save about £400,000 per annum” and then
he managed to provoke a pathetic argument over which party was in favour of the reduction. They all were.
The Mayor, Councillor Peter Reader has proved himself to be the most effective
Chairman of Council meetings over the past eight years, shut him up. Fortunately
for us the allotted time had run out.
Nobody asked a question about infrastructure but the written Leader’s report
records that Council officers attended the
MIPM property exhibition in Paris last month and that the Peabody Compulsory
Purchase Inquiry was ongoing. (I believe it has subsequently ruled in Peabody’s favour but Google has let me down.)
The Erith station public Realm improvements are due for completion “before Christmas” and
those on the Harrow Manorway flyover by next July.