The recent Council meeting heard a petition from the residents of Bostall Park
Avenue who are asking that the pavement along that road be made safe for
walking. Whatever are these cheeky residents thinking of, expecting Bexley
Council to provide something in return for the highest Council Tax in
Conservative London? Quite rightly they were dismissed in 14 seconds and the
meeting moved on to Questions from the Public.
It
used to be the case that the only questions asked at Council meetings came
from Messrs. Barnbrook, Bryant and Watson but with all of them now into their 9th
decade they have found other things to do. Fortunately the challenge has been taken
up by the upstart Dimitri otherwise known as @tonyofsidcup.
A recent bee in his bonnet has been the lack of Councillor Surgeries in
Conservative wards and he asked the Council Leader to comment. She said
surgeries were a personal choice and “as and when” arrangements are preferred
especially as a lot of residents prefer to correspond by email which is quicker
and more productive than monthly surgeries. She also referred to the attacks made on politicians (Newham, Southend
etc.) It seemed to be a reasonable enough response.
Dimitri went on to ask why it is that nearly all the Councillors in London who
conceal their home addresses are Bexley Councillors (presumably after seeing
the BIB survey
back in 2013) and how is the Monitoring
Officer persuaded to approve the Section 32 exemptions in such high numbers.
Should the Monitoring Officer do a review?
The leader said that it was nothing to do with her and if the Monitoring Officer is a soft touch and Councillors
exploit her weakness then that is simply tough luck on residents.
@tony has commented before that after
Bexley Council admitted that
the Conservative
2022 manifesto claim to have fulfilled every pledge since 2006 was an outright lie they had cleverly
not made any promises in 2022 so as not to be caught out
lying again. (It should be explained that it is not possible to formally complain
about manifesto pledges as everyone expects them to be broken but Teresa O’Neill foolishly
repeated the lie on a public website, hence the complaint and the
admission that the claim was not true.)
@tony asked the Council Leader “Can you please comment on the
near-absence of any measurable, verifiable
commitments in the most recent Bexley Conservatives manifesto? Is introduction
of a new recycling service the only specific thing you can promise to Bexley residents?”
The Leader said that since the election the Council had gained an outstanding OFSTED
rating for children in care and was the only London borough to get it twice in a
row; she also promised to deliver every commitment made in the 2022 Manifesto which shouldn’t be difficult
because as Dimitri said, there were pretty much none.
Dimitri reminded the Leader that because there had been so few OFSTED inspections Bexley
had won in a one horse race. The Leader didn’t like that home truth and said two
in a row was outstanding which well it might be but it does not explain the
attempt to deceive the population of Bexley.
A Mr. Pereira asked a question about air quality in Bexley and after Cabinet
Member Craske replied he rather naively pointed out that Councillor Craske had not answered the question.
All the Conservatives laughed which neatly sums up the contempt with which our Conservative Council regards its electorate.