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News and Comment July 2023

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1 July - Bexley Places

The report on last week’s Places Scrutiny meeting has been hampered by Bexley Council’s failure to provide a full Agenda which is illegal but they plead technical problems. Some segments have since become available, the Dog Walking proposals for example.

At last week’s Places Scrutiny meeting L&Q the housing provider attempted to bore the Committee to death with a presentation which is of course preferable to making the attempt more literally as they did with an old friend in Blackfen who has disappeared off my radar and I fear the worst. It was confirmed that 4,400 L&Q homes in Baxley have been reported (including multiple occasions) as suffering damp and mould which L&Q should know can prove fatal.


By the end of their address to Council, Sue Gower remained wide enough awake to ask a question which included comment about “pulling the state of the area down and people are weary [of it]”.

The blame was dutifully passed elsewhere in the manner perfected by our illustrious Mayor Sadiq Khan. “A solution is not on the table.” and damp is often caused by condensation and too many people in the house. “If water is gushing someone will go out the same evening.”

Simply untrue.

Chairman Cheryl Bacon moved on to road maintenance, potholes and poor workmanship by the utilities. As you might imagine utilities should operate on a like for like reinstatement basis but can be “rather slack”. There should be a two year warranty on their work but it is difficult to enforce.

BT are “quite good” but others are not and therefore inspected more often. Thames Water has been mentioned at previous meetings. There are about 12,000 holes dug in Bexley’s roads each year which will surprise no one who has to drive across it regularly. Around 4,000 of them are subsequently inspected by Council staff and 300 of them were found to be inadequate.

Potholes have to be 40mm deep and 200 wide before they are dealt with promptly. 1,600 of them last year but even so the budget was underspent. The number of potholes that do not meet the criteria is about four times larger.

Total resurfacing is programmed twice a year and reviewed in the Spring with reference to weather damage and known utility plans.

Councillor Sally Hinkley (Labour, Belvedere) asked if Bexley was being targeted by SGN (gas) as they are disrupting things right across the borough at the moment. The Highways Manager could only guess at the reason and the Chairman asked him to look further into things.

Councillor Slaughter (Conservative, Sidcup) complained that utilities block roads with cones and temporary traffic lights and promptly disappear. Are they falsely claiming urgent status for their work? The Highways Manager implied that the utility companies have an excuse for everything.

Chairman Bacon recognised the difficulties “but our residents do not think we are on it”.

Bexley Council not only proposed to restrict the number of times you can visit the refuse dump but is in the early stages of considering restricting the number of dogs you can exercise at the same time - which may be a good idea if there is evidence of widespread dog minding issues. Councillor Slaughter thought that “anecdotally there maybe is a problem” especially as neighbouring boroughs have introduced restrictions.

It was revealed that other boroughs had seen up to 1,500 dog incidents as evidence for dog walking restrictions while there was next to none in Bexley. Greenwich has introduced a four dog limit while Bromley had four but is in the process of reducing it to three dogs. Councillor Hall representing East Wickham on the Greenwich borough border had seen one person exercising 16 dogs in his local park. Drone footage has shown up to 25 dogs out of control and people are migrating to Greenwich parks for safety reasons.

Bexley Council would welcome such evidence before considering PSPO restrictions in parks - but would displacing dogs from parks to footpaths create a worse problem?

Councillor Ball (Labour, Erith) said there are already all sorts of restrictions on dogs and none are enforced and a dog PSPO should not be top of any priority list. The Chairman was inclined to agree as were a number of other Councillors. Councillor Slaughter thought that residents should be encouraged to report dog problems, perhaps on FixMyStreet but my guess is that nothing is going to happen in the immediate future.

Note: On a Monday evening two weeks ago on an Elizabeth line train at Abbey Wood a couple sat next to me with eight small dogs in tow. While no enthusiast for the constant attacks on personal freedoms I did begin to think a decibel limit on yapping might be a good idea.

 

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