9 March (Part 2) - In a nutshell
I managed to listen to last night’s budget setting Council meeting without
once dozing off; the object of the meeting was to ensure that Bexley kept its prized position of 25th worst place to
be in London from a taxation and charges point of view. I see no chance of
making a more fulsome report until at least next Sunday (dentist, family
business, fiddling with cables etc.) so this brief summary is more or less what
Councillor Daniel Francis (Labour, Belvedere) said two and a half hours into the three hour meeting.
You need only know that Labour had submitted a fully costed variation to the
Conservative proposals. (See below.) It had been approved by the Finance Director for
which sin the Council Leader later admonished him. Cabinet Member Craske, aided and abetted by others,
went on and on and on about it being too brief. Craske thought 100,000 plus
words would have been appropriate and criticised it being made public without sufficient notice.
Bexley Labour was the worst opposition in history
Councillor Francis began by saying care workers in Bexley had not been given a
pay rise for between three and six years (dependent on contractor) and “Members
opposite don’t really care and now we see another budget from a Council that has
run out of ideas. The revenue position is unsustainable”.
“Some Members like to talk about the past but let’s look at their record.
Council Tax up 61% in ten years.”
Turning to Budget Amendments… “From 2003 to 2005 all Conservative Amendments
were presented on the night and comprised 36 words, 41 words and even Councillor Craske’s
submission was only 76 words in length and he didn’t even attempt to make any spending amendments.”
They will not say what impact the avoidance of the Capitalisation Order has had
and will not even give a list of posts that have been eliminated. They blame
Covid but the Section 25 statement preceding the pandemic says otherwise,
detailing services that would have to go.
SEN transport applications will be throttled, the same for Adult Social Care,
road gritting reduced, less gully cleaning, more on street parking charges,
restrict limited waiting bays, more CPZs, paint more yellow box junctions and
look at parking charges for Hall Place. And as if that is not a big enough
attack on residents, a 20% increase in garden waste charges, 10% on cremations and
similar across other fees. Before he could go on the Mayor put a stop to
Daniel’s catalogue of failure. It was a well filled five minutes.
Bexley Tories are not ‘Making Bexley Even Better’ as was claimed many times throughout the meeting.
Several Conservative Councillors only managed to criticise the use of the outdated term Road Tax instead of Vehicle Excise Duty. How very clever of them.
They unanimously rejected the Amendment.