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.