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News and Comment March 2023

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10 March - Money Money Money

Spending a penny; 16,700,000 of them
Tweet Last November a Sidcup resident who lives close to Sidcup Place discovered that the park’s (closed) public toilets had been acquired by the Cabinet Member for Growth and implied that it was all a little too suspicious for his mind.

However a deeper dive into the facts revealed nothing untoward; the Cabinet Member merely responded to a For Sale notice in the Estates Gazette. He may have been tipped off that the toilets were for sale or perhaps he had his eye on the ball anyway; either way it is not much of a scandal by Bexley’s historical standards. Not a scandal at all.

Another Sidcup resident noted that the car park area had been fenced off as well as the toilet block and in friendly correspondence with Bexley Council confirmed that it was included in the toilet sale. It also slipped out that the price paid by our entrepreneurial Cabinet Member was £167,000.

A bunch of well paid amateurs
Tweet TweetI called in a Bexley Council Trading Standards Officer soon after I moved into the borough. I was used to building work at my previous address so when I ordered two cubic yards of sand from a long gone builder’s yard by Abbey Wood station I could easily judge I had been seriously short changed. Thirty odd years ago sand didn’t come in a canvas bag but was tipped out of the back of a lorry.

The Trading Standards man sorted everything out and that was the last time I had any dealings with them, I am surprised we still have any. When the Tories came to power there were 20 TSOs and the number was reduced to six and then two by 2014.

I suppose if you are down to two then one will be Junior and the other his Senior but most people would expect the latter to know quite a lot about the job. But apparently that is not necessary in Bexley. It is a bit like the most senior legal officer not being either a solicitor or a barrister which was tolerated for several years.

Bexley Council has made it clear that it is content to pay £40k. for inexperience. Blind leading the blind? That would explain a lot.

Needless to say Bexley Council did not have an answer to the obvious question.

 

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