Banner
any day today rss X

News and Comment March 2023

Index: 2009201020112012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232024

8 March - No drinking, no browsing, no use

With spare time in short supply (see below) BiB will fall back on answering a couple of readers’ questions…

No singing
No, Belvedere’s Great Harry Pub featured on Hugh Neal's blog last Sunday has not been acquired by the developer closely associated with Bexley Conservatives.

23/00433/FULM for those who need to know all the details.

No History
Bexley Council’s record on preserving its history has not been an especially good one, they don’t destroy it but may have an inclination to hide it from public view. Ten years ago the proposal was to hide their artifacts away in a cupboard in Bromley to save a few bob; £41,000 to be precise and when questioned said that the Impact Assessment confirmed all was OK.

How local residents could drop in easily and take a look was not explained and one must suspect that the Philistine in charge at the time didn’t care. The Labour Leader asked where the Impact Assessment could be seen and Teresa O'Neill was forced to admit there wasn’t one.

The Philistine’s departure five years ago has coincided with Bexley Council becoming less dishonest which may or may not be coincidence.

Fortunately a local historian, Penny Duggan, came up with a much better plan which did not involve a lengthy trip on the 269 bus and the silly Bromley idea was dropped. It is perhaps noteworthy that Councillor John Davey said that everything was going to be digitised anyway.

Last week an observant reader reported that the website that hosted Bexley’s historical photos had been down for several weeks. I asked Ms. Duggan if she knew why.

She said that the contract with the site host had expired and Bexley Council had not renewed it, adding that only nine London boroughs continued to use it. Researchers will have to go to https://www.bexley.gov.uk/discover-bexley/archives-and-local-history in future.


Note. ‘Time in short supply’. Six months ago I contracted a company to add storage batteries to my solar panel system. They did a couple of hours work on each of two separate days and pronounced the job done. The system did not work and could not work. One vital cable was missing and another was connected to the wrong place. I corrected those errors (one involved burrowing under the front drive) and the system began to work after a fashion but the control system didn’t.

The company came to fix it and agreed with my diagnosis that the comms unit was faulty. They promised to return within the week to replace it. That was six weeks ago and I have seen no one since.

I have given up on them. I am now engaged in replacing everything with something that meets my five kilowatt specification. The unit they fitted peaks at 2·5kw and the cabling is not adequate for very much more.

I doubt that J&G Solar Maintenance of Wickford Essex will be seeing any more of my money and probably a trip to the Small Claims Court will become necessary.

This is the same company that left me with no central heating in December.

Council meeting reports may appear here when working outside in this weather gets to be too cold.

 

Return to the top of this page
Bonkers is a cookie free zone. Not a single one