31 May (Part 2) - Fifteen quid is no deterrent

Bexley Council will presumably be pleased with the take-up of the reopened Felixstowe Road car park today as it was pretty much full at 13:30. Three vacant spaces in the far distance plus three disabled bays.

The effect of the rail strike is hard to judge; I had planned a trip to Bond Street today but decided against it on the grounds that for me the Liz line is a failure on one trip out of three and without it the journey back home would be a pain.

While counting parking spaces I took the possibly nerdy opportunity to count the number of bike racks within 30 seconds walk of Abbey Wood station.

It was 347 give or take one or two. The number of parked bikes was easier to count. 37.

In Carrill Way a pavement parker had been given a Penalty Notice before 8 a.m. but a couple of hours later someone had added a helpful note reminiscent of today’s earlier headline.

Equally helpfully the silver Mercedes that was shifted by yesterday's road contractor has unwittingly started a trend towards traditional longitudinal parking and away from the end on nonsense tolerated by The Council That Doesn’t Care.

Note: The shelter provided by the Harrow Manorway flyover (North side) has become a refuge for the homeless. Tent City.

 

31 May (Part 1) - Fifteen quid is cheaper than a PCN

It should be a good day for the new Felixstowe Road car park with South Eastern on strike again and commuters from all around the borough trying their luck on the unreliable Liz line.

At 07:30 this morning it was approaching half full but as the congestion around the station suggests, the £15 fee is not as attractive as getting a lift from a family member.

Meanwhile in Carrill Way pavement parkers are in evidence but the traffic enforcement lady is due soon.

 

30 May - Two new car parks. You have a choice. £15 or free

It’s been a busy day in the Abbey Wood area with Bexley Council reopening the Felixstowe Road car park after spending a claimed £250,000 on it. (‘Claimed’ because my local Councillor says that is not what his budget papers say.)

At 1 p.m. there were no takers but maybe there are reasons other than the £15 a day fee, tomorrow morning may tell a different tale.

Fortunately for hard pressed Liz line commuting drivers, Bexley Council has also provided a brand new car park only half a mile away free of both tiresome restrictions and charges. How very generous of them.

It is called Carrill Way or Carill Way dependent on which road name plate you find first.

After 36 years of providing the only access to four more roads within the Priory Gardens development it boasted some of the best pot holes in Bexley so it is good to see the end of them.

The contractor, Riney, seemed to be doing a good job, closing the road at precisely the advertised time and accommodating towards the very few drivers who left things a bit late. Covering the drain gullies to stop debris going down the hole and sucking them clean again afterwards, ready to answer questions when asked and leaving behind them a very smooth surface, albeit not quite finished at the time of writing.

The very few residents taking an interest in the project thought Bexley Council would be doing the sensible thing and finishing off the job with a yellow line or two. Sadly sensible and Bexley Council are not words that have much in common.

The 09:30 to17:00 road closure overran. It seems that the excessive number of curves required additional care and attention as the machinery is more suited to the straight. The road was partially opened by 19:45.
The final photograph taken at 07:30 31st May after an early morning tidy up.
There is no news as to when the unfinished patch will be dealt with.

 

29 May - Cash and Trash

As usual, some Councils were very slow to put their Council Tax figures on line this year preferring to hide them under a Post Code, Select your Address system which is not very friendly towards researchers, but with Southwark trailing the pack they are all available now.

Readers will be pleased to know that Bexley has retained its coveted position as the highest taxing Conservative borough in London (if one excludes Croydon which went bankrupt under Labour and the new administration was forced to impose a 15% rise). Bexley remains the 25th worst Council in London, it was 14th in 2002.

Bromley has dropped below, that is worse than, both Barnet and Ealing. I am not sure how this leap frogging occurs when the maximum percentage increases are all much the same. What was a £10 Band D advantage last year has gone the other way by about a pound.

What do we get for a Band D tax of more than £2,000? Well not a decent refuse collection service that is for sure.

It is a month since Country Slop labelled the nearby paper bin ‘Contaminated’ and as usual all that does is cause an overflow because they cannot be bothered to put a lock on the broken lid. Then the wind distributes it down the street and into nearby gardens, mine included.

That story has been repeating every month or so for two years. It results in extra collection costs and presumably the loss of half a tonne of cardboard each time it happens.

The solution is obvious to anyone with a fully functioning brain but presumably that excludes Country Slop management and the recently departed Cabinet Member Peter Craske.

Maybe his replacement will be more proactive.

 

26 May - Turkish Delight

I don’t like this Tweet; it is box ticking virtue signalling by people who believe that faith and ethnicity are someone’s most important characteristics. They are not and it indicates a preoccupation with race by Bexley Conservatives that is unhealthy if not quite racist. Is Deputy Mayor Betts an English Christian? Do we need to know?

We don’t. We need to know what is going make a good Councillor and Mayor and the Tory Tweet sells the new Mayor seriously short.

I know nothing about Councillor Betts except that he once asked a meeting Chairman to have me reprimanded for taking a photograph a few seconds before a meeting began but Councillor Ahmet Dourmoush has always seemed like an all round good egg; as one might expect of a man in his line of business.

What do we know of him?

He was born in Greenwich but spent his early years in Cyprus where he knew no English; something he very soon put right on his return to Britain. As well as running a poultry processing factory in Erith he founded a Turkish school in Blackfen and was both a footballer and rugby player in his younger years. A magistrate and allegedly a good cook too. Both energetic and hard working evidently.

Following the Turkish earthquake earlier this year he organised nine lorry loads of relief supplies. His energies have not only been directed towards foreign disaster zones but also to his local ward and a little beyond. I first became very aware of Ahmet when he intervened to help someone whose predicament had been featured on these pages and subsequently when he was a meeting Chairman back in the days when I was a regular attendee. There was always a warm welcome from Councillor Dourmoush when that was something frowned upon by the Leadership.

With Andy elected to chair Full Council meetings the omens are good.

 

25 May (Part 2) - Better late than never

They were expecting it to reopen in April but it looks like we will have to wait until June for the Felixstowe Road car park to reopen. That is an awful lot of revenue lost with 100 spaces at £15 per commuter per day.

Nearly five years after the new Abbey Wood station opened Bexley Council has remembered that the under the flyover walk way was never reopened, so they have. But only at one end.

Take the short cut to the station, pass the rubbish dump and the never used cycle racks and…

…find your way blocked. Clever stuff.

 

25 May (Part 1) - Not Dim and not Dour. Definitely not

I watched yesterday’s Council meeting on my TV at home. It’s a lot safer and more convenient than risking one of Bexley’s motoring traps. It was not a proper Council Meeting, more a Coronation of Councillor Ahmet Dourmoush as Mayor. To be honest I had entirely forgotten that we were due a new Mayor but it was a pleasant surprise to see Andy elected unopposed. One of the few Conservatives who may deserve our unqualified respect. Well almost unqualified.

His assertion that 30% on parking charges is only a few pence still grates somewhat but maybe I am too much of a skinflint. Only 20 minutes ago I called the manager in Sainsbury’s over 50p when the check out assistant refused to honour a shelf price. (I won!)

Just as pleasant but not a surprise because it was in the Agenda published a week ago was Richard Diment’s appointment as Places boss to replace the disreputable Craske. Places is a bit of a Poisoned Chalice but Richard is thoughtful with not even the slightest hint that he might turn out to be yet another liar.

Caroline Newton takes Richard Diment’s place as Headmistress. (Cabinet Member for Education.) Another good choice hopefully.

Deputy Leader David Leaf made an informative, amusing and occasionally self-deprecating speech about Mayors old and new and for once nobody complained about its length. It was really rather good. Labour Leader Stefano Borella similarly praised both albeit with some jokes that went over my head. (I know sweet F.A. about football!)

Bexley’s Cabinet appears to have taken a small step towards honesty and competence but we still have three out of eight who have taken active steps towards putting local bloggers behind bars. There is a way to go yet.

Note: This was the last Council meeting to be supervised by their right hand man Dave Easton who long term readers may remember was always polite and helpful to me at meetings when Councillors generally were not. I wish him a long and happy retirement.

 

24 May - No arguing, I’m in charge

It’s a long line; Peter Catterall, Simon Windle, Rob Leitch, Louie French, arguably Alex Sawyer and most recently Felix Di Netimah. All are Bexley Conservatives who suddenly upped sticks and left Teresa O’Neill’s ruling cabal.

One of them told me face to face and in some detail why he had decided not to be a Councillor any more. Another emailed his desire that I should continue to scrutinise the Council and yet another had a similar conversation to the first but with a third party who passed it on to me.

None could get on with a domineering Leader. Through an intermediary once again but written by the man from Crayford only two days ago; “The Leader of the group and I clashed on a great many things. She won and I lost. That’s it.”

Teresa O’Neill does not like people who disagree with her and “criticism of Councillors” is a matter for the police as I Iearned the hard way. (See below.) But she makes the well paid appointments and money always talks.

I was accused of threatening arson and violence because of the use of the metaphor “Pitchforks and Flaming Torches”. The truth was that I quoted the Erith based Maggot Sandwich blog which continues to host the same words. The police later apologised to me for heeding the Leader’s misinformation but she did not.

 

23 May - Bexley’s Grand Plan. 7,000 more families on your GP’s waiting list

Bexley Council took 20 minutes to nod through their plan to turn the borough into something resembling a money generating concrete jungle. Leader O’Neill and her Deputy David Leaf merely asked for immediate approval but the opposition Councillors were having none of that.

Labour Councillor Daniel Francis (Belvedere) said he was in favour of more housing and regeneration but it needs to be the right sort of housing. Housing for everyone. He therefore supports part of the plan but not all of it and his party’s views had been made clear in the past sometimes with abstentions from votes.

Some Conservatives appear not to understand the document or maybe even not support it but ultimately it is the result of Government policy, he said. Development of industrial sites is accepted. Planning applications are currently showing housing densities between 50 and 75% above recommendations. In Belvedere there are seven sites designated for more than 2,000 homes but it looks as though more than 3,000 will be squeezed in and BexleyCo will build even more right next door to two of them. “Where is the new infrastructure?”

He reminded Councillors that a month ago at a Planning Meeting Conservatives spoke against one of the site developments which is part of the Local Plan as “a face saving exercise for residents and a Cabinet Member was forced to say he was disgusted by what Planning Officers had put forward in dereliction of their duties”. Another Conservative said the Plan was “a cover up of facts”. “Conservatives do not understand what is in their own document.”

Councillor Francis said he had concerns about the Plan and the Labour Group could not support it.

Conservative Councillor Kurtis Christoforides (St. Mary’s & St. James) said he voted against the quoted planning application but Labour Councillors chose not to follow his lead but went on to say “the Local Plan is as good as it could possibly be”. (If Kurtis has you confused, join the Club.)

Councillor Wendy Perfect (Labour, Northumberland Heath) was not in favour of turning the Mill Road car park in her ward into yet more flats, The high street is already struggling and the plan will likely force the closure of more businesses.

Councillor Borella (Labour, Slade Green & Northend) said that even BexleyCo fails to provide the required level of affordable homes while Bexley Council presses on with more and more homes on green spaces with no doctor’s surgeries, no dentists and no transport facilities.

Cabinet Member for Growth Cafer Munur sounded close to tears at the thought of Labour voting against his Plan to change the north of the borough beyond recognition. He was “shocked and disgusted. Councillor Francis usually annoys me but this time he has made me extremely… extremely sad and it is no laughing matter. To say at this stage that you are not voting for the Plan is a disgrace, You had ample opportunity to feed into this plan. You did not previously raise any concerns about social housing. You are absolutely disgusting and let yourselves down. £500,000 was spent on specialist advice to support good growth, protecting the borough’s characteristics and climate change mitigation and bio-diversity. I am really sad about it.”

Such is the calibre of Cabinet Members in Bexley today.

The Plan was approved.

 

22 May - The message from Bexley’s Lady of Lords

The last Leader’s Report to Council was nearly a month ago but still relevant. She said that the Mayor would be sending a letter to the King and visiting a number of Coronation street parties but very quickly moved on to congratulating the Council on “the terrific OFSTED result”.

Then it was the less well known issue of the Park View Care Home fire but there had been “absolute sterling work by our team. Every one of the residents had been placed by eight o’clock that evening. Absolutely amazing.”

Teresa O’Neill said that the opposition would groan but but the Council was elected to oppose the ULEZ scheme and residents made the same decision during the consultation which the Mayor decided to ignore. He has gone ahead with camera installation in the borough despite the Council’s objections. (I saw them being sneakily installed near The Cob roundabout at dawn yesterday morning.)

The Leader said that the Mayor is determined to hit the most hard pressed residents hardest and says it is OK to pollute if you can afford it. Later she remembered that the new Superloop bus services go nowhere near the North of the borough which has the highest proportion of non-compliant cars.

Councillor Borella (Labour, North End) jumped in to put his pro-ULEZ pro-taxation views by saying there was not enough air quality monitoring in Bexley. His ward is full of “dirty traffic” and the Conservatives do nothing about City Airport expansion which allows pollution to blow across the whole borough. (So the air quality figures for Bexley are due more to Frank Whittle than Rudolph Diesel? Does @tonyofsidcup know?)

He referred to Bexley Conservatives’ְ insatiable appetite for taxing motorists with their outrageous parking charges designed to curtail local shopping and the proliferation of yellow box junctions which serve little purpose other than to raise revenue.

Just like Khan ordered his ANPR cameras before conducting the ULEZ Consultation Bexley Council has installed ANPR at the recycling centres before any such order to restrict access has been signed.

On less firm ground perhaps Councillor Borella returned to the allegedly “racist remarks made by Councillor Davey on Social Media. Will the Leader condemn them?”

Bexley is no longer the top recycling borough and it is due to poor management of the contracts.

The Leader said there is air quality monitoring in North End Road but the Mayor had withdrawn funding for it and made “ridiculous” assertions about the Council’s data recording which avoided the nonsense of comparing recent times with the Covid period. It didn’t suit the Mayor’s biased agenda.

The Leader added that ULEZ is not comparable to Yellow Box Junctions because one is a choice and the other is not.

Councillor O’Neill said that Councillor Davey’s Tweet was not racist. The Monitoring Officer (and BiB) had said so.

Cabinet Member Craske responded to the ANPR issue by saying that he had told the Labour Group what was to happen before he took any action and they did not respond. Similarly they are on record as saying they have no criticism to make of Yellow Box Junctions.

He is “devastated” that Bexley has lost its position as top recycler and the reason is the Summer 2021 strike which the Labour Group supported.

Councillor Wendy Perfect (Labour) said the Yellow Box Junction at John Luton Court is very difficult to negotiate and is nothing but a Cash Cow. The Leader appeared to be sympathetic to that view.

Councillor Steven Hall (Conservative) asked if there was any recent comment by City Hall on not wasting money by comparing Covid pollution levels with more typical ones. She instead highlighted the Mayor's lies about the allegedly low number of non-compliant cars which had been discredited by both the BBC and the RAC. The true number is 700,000 in Outer London alone.

Note: Some of the comments attributed to Councillors O’Neill and Borella are interpreted summaries of longer speeches, hence the lack of quotation marks.

I was unable to locate John Luton Court but the Labour Group quickly advised that Wendy said “John Newton Court” which is in Welling. Hasn’t Welling got enough to contend with without being attacked by Bexley Council? On the very few occasions I’ve walked past the shops in Welling I thought they were an interesting selection but there is no way I would go there by car and risk a cash grab by Bexley Council and there is no direct bus service from Belvedere/Abbey Wood. (Three packages coming from Amazon later today. Bexley Council think their policies have no effect on the borough. As usual they are wrong.)

 

19 May - Things can only get better

We will probably never know why Councillor Felix Di Netimah was kicked out of the Bexley Tory Group and we will probably never know exactly why John Davey was allowed back in. Similarly we will probably never know what prompted Councillor Peter Craske to relinquish his £23,500 Cabinet position but one should rejoice nevertheless.

I am inclined to agree with Councillor Dourmoush that being in charge of bin collection and presiding over pot hole city is a high profile job that will attract more criticism than most but ‘compassion’? I could tell you how he had absolutely none for a fellow Councillor but unfortunately cannot without breaching confidences but it may help to explain why only three colleagues commented on Craske’s departure.

 

17 May - Police parking drama in Belvedere. When will Bexley Council react?

The plan for today was to regurgitate the worst of Cabinet Member Craske’s attacks on residents to maybe persuade him to do something sensible for once in his life by solving the Abbey Wood commuter parking problem. I think my favourite Craske archive story is his attack on Mr. Felix Akele. Pure spite in revenge for a minor mistake on Felix’s part.

So far Craske has proposed additional CPZ restrictions which are unwarranted everywhere except arguably in Abbey Road and nothing for those beyond its boundary who suffer from inconsiderate parking on a daily basis. Craske’s grand plan is to displace as many commuters as possible from the existing CPZ into already badly affected areas.

And then Craske threw a spanner into the works yesterday by resigning his Cabinet Member post. Has he been arrested again?

The residents he cares so little for were told on Monday that in two weeks time they will be unable to drive in or out of Carrill Way, Bright Close, Samson Close, Coptefield Drive and Abbotswood Close. As that list implies the 36 year old Carrill Way is heavily used and badly in need of repair.

They will be trapped but will they notice any difference from a normal day? Possibly not.

I was alerted to today’s problem by a visitor who felt unable to drive through the gap left by KF15 LWC and BN61 YCH. I ran out and guided her through.

Then a neighbour called to say the police were on their way. I grabbed my camera and ran again for what turned out to be a long morning.

The photo record below was taken over a period of more than three hours but during that time a number of stories came from the assembled spectators.

Many had complained to Bexley Council and been fobbed off with fairy stories. Apparently the Council did not foresee any parking problems with the coming of the Elizabeth Line. Commuters were expected to park in Belvedere or Erith despite those stations offering a very poor train service to Abbey Wood. I am not even sure this is true. The Transport Committee was talking about doubling the size of the CPZ in September 2016.

A foster carer who complained that her diabetic child would be denied life saving care if the frequently required ambulance could not get through was told to contact the police and get the obstruction removed. As this morning’s events proved this can be a three hour process.

A lady whose husband had a serious heart condition told an identical story. Bexley Council at its caring best.

Several residents said that the woman driver of GJ09 NZR who parks on the corner with Bright Close most days and stops a nearby resident from going to work is the rudest woman they have ever met.

This morning, most van drivers fled the scene leaving disappointed clients but one decided to run down the road to update his customer on the situation. For his decision to do the decent thing he got a Parking Ticket. (Photo 9 below.)

At one time three Royal Mail vans were unable to go about their business. (Photos 12 below.)

An Oxleas nurse on an emergency call out dumped her car where she could and ran. She got a Penalty Notice too. (Photos 7 and 8.) Maybe next time she will leave her patient to die. Bexley Council has form for that.

The traffic cop said that if he had realised what was going on during the nurse incident he would have given words of advice to the Enforcement Officer. (He arrived seconds after the ticket was issued and to be fair I am not sure the CEO knew it was a nurse on call until after the event.)

I made arrangements with both drivers to let them know when these pictures go on line and asked them to let me know if the appeals are not accepted. The police did the same and gave the van driver the CAD number. (2165.) Not that it helped when I last did that. The Cabinet Member at the time made it very clear to me personally that he would prefer roads to be brought to a standstill than a lorry stop briefly in a residents’ parking bay. Why is Bexley blessed with such stupid Cabinet Members?

It must be said that the police officers, maybe five of them at one time, were all incredibly helpful and supportive and may have made comments about Bexley Council which I should probably not report here. Everyone was pleased to see them respond quite quickly and the traffic cop said he would add Carrill Way to his itinerary.

The driver of KF15 LWC will incur a penalty of £160 for the tow and £20 a day storage charge. If not collected within 14 days the car will be crushed. Additionally both KF15 LWC and BN61 YCH will incur a TfL penalty of £40. (Photo 15 below.)

How long before Bexley Council gets off its backside?

Photos taken between 09:51 and 13:07 today. Click image for enlarged copy.

 

16 May - The Russian invasion

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.

 

15 May - Enough is enough

The driver of HN58 0PV is an ignoramus who has never read the Highway Code and has created a hazard on a blind bend. He has been given a Penalty Charge Notice but not for parking like an idiot. He has a ticket for parking against a dropped kerb which in isolation does no harm whatsoever. Some drop kerbs serve a useful purpose but this one is helps no one.

50 yards away the driver of YX61 SXS has blocked two residents’ drives all day but Bexley Council deems him to be above reproach because he is not actually adjacent to the dropped kerb. Apparently there is a difference between parking broadside on to a dropped kerb and being at 90 degrees to it.

Our useless Council may have a point in law but if so it is proof that their road design skills are zero. How have they allowed a situation where they approve dropped kerbs knowing that they are rendered worthless by inconsiderate drivers?

With Cabinet Member Craske in charge should we expect any different? He has no plans to alleviate the problem, indeed he is keen to make them worse through further CPZ restrictions which will cause more parking displacement to roads beyond the CPZ boundary.

Today my own drive is not quite blocked to small vehicles but the whole thing is becoming intolerable. We have a Council that cares not one bit for residents and puts a thoroughly disreputable individual in charge of roads and parking services.

It is time to hit back. First the banner will take a step back in time and on alternate days beginning next Wednesday there will be a repeat of all the bad things about Bexley Council. Enough material for several weeks at least.

 

13 May - Dishonest then, dishonest now?

Twelve years ago there were three political blogs in Bexley - not counting Cabinet Member Craske’s libellous efforts - but in the London Borough of Barnet there were at least six. Since then things have moved on and blogs are not as popular as they used to be.

Bexley is down to one if one applies the term political blog strictly. It is the same in Barnet, I am only aware of one plus a second which evolved into a campaign against unfair parking penalties and the blog has become famed London wide. Its origins are still apparent in its URL. http://lbbspending.blogspot.com/. (LBB = London Borough of Barnet.)

Occasionally Bexley comes under the parking spotlight. It happened again this week.

Barnet’s Mr. Mustard, not his real name obviously, Tweeted…

"If you have had a letter from Gladstones like the attached on behalf of Bexley or Bromley Council (but not private parking which I don’t touch) please email me mrmustard@zoho.com - I think these letters are unlawful”.

Mr. Mustard is an expert in parking law who wins nearly all the cases he takes to the Adjudicator so the chances are that he is right.

I know for a fact that Bexley’s parking department (which it runs jointly with Bromley) has been prepared to break the law whenever it thinks it might get away it, like rejecting all Appeals at the first stage hoping that their victim will go away and cough up and perhaps even more emphatically because I have the report written by their own auditor which refers to the ‘maladministration’ of the parking department 13 times. It repeatedly ignored legal advice and preferred to break the law.

I didn’t publish the report on Bonkers because the man who leaked it to me asked me not to but maybe this short extract from its 21 pages provides a flavour of the sort of behaviour that permeated Bexley Council at the time.

Does Mr. Mustard’s letter suggest that nothing much has changed?

After the Ombudsman ruled against Bexley Council their Parking Department defied legal advice and carried on as before.

 

11 May - Bexley Council pleasing no one again

The Consultation period on extending the Abbey Wood CPZ restriction hours by a factor of five and increasing the cost of a permit by 25% ended yesterday and I did not get around to commenting - usual reasons applied.

I knew of two petitions against the proposals, one by a resident of Fendyke Road (pictured) and another by the owner of the refreshment Kiosk at Lesnes Abbey which Bexley Council would happily see go out of business.

My own view is that the proposals are taken straight out of Sadiq Khan’s book of unnecessary regulations. I can look straight down Fendyke Road from my front door and as the picture taken this afternoon shows it doesn’t have a parking problem. The 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. restriction is enough to successfully deter commuters. Maybe Abbey Road is different as it includes paid bays (£7·50 an hour, minimum two hours) which are arranged in a way which amount to entrapment of the unwary, but the CPZ comments I have heard have been entirely negative. They will if implemented cost residents money, make care and trade visits next to impossible and push any parking problem there may be into adjacent roads, viz. mine.

Craske’s scheme is unwanted, unnecessary and nothing but a cash grab with few benefits. ULEZ anybody?

I may not have had time to respond to to the Consultation but fortunately my Labour Councillors did.

I donְ’t like Facebook and rarely look at it and among the reasons is that the dictator who runs the show won’t allow the text to be copied to BiB so that readers who share my view of Facebook don’t have to log in to read it. So we have a screen shot instead.

It is very comprehensive and makes a very good job of covering the various issues. Read it carefully and I think you might conclude that my three Councillors are very politely saying that Bexley Council is run by uncaring and undemocratic incompetents who have already made up their minds as to what they want to do - ULEZ tactics again?

One must hope that Cabinet Member Craske is for once in his life in listening mode.

 

9 May - What’s their excuse?

I have alluded several times to neglecting Bexley-is-Bonkers while I tackle a DIY job that turned out to be rather bigger than I expected. It began last summer at the height of the electricity price scares when I contracted an electrician to install household battery storage. To cut a long story short they left it unable to charge from the grid on the overnight cheap rate or with the promised control by mobile app. I have kept a count of their promises to fix it and the number of failures to show is close to 20. Even when I got the thing working after a fashion it did not meet the specification which was submitted before ordering . It became obvious that I knew far more about battery systems than the so called professional installer.

In a moment of exasperation, and with the contractors blessing who agreed to check over the new installation and take back the useless inverter, I decided to replace pretty much everything he had installed with something better and inevitably rather a lot more expensive.

While I was busy working on it Councillor Sally Hinkley dropped by and christened it ‘Malcolm’s Power Station’ so it now bears a suitable label.

Now that I can store the solar generated electricity costs have fallen to around 70 pence most days - including standing charge, water heating and some car charging - but I still doubt it will earn its money back in any reasonable time. Over time it changed from a money saving project to a determination to install a good system whatever it cost.

It automatically switches the house to battery power in the event of a power cut which was not on the agenda with the original system. But enough of that, I think I have an excuse for neglecting Bonkers. Will I ever catch up with reporting Council meetings?

What is Bexley Conservatives excuse for neglecting their website? No idea but it has not been updated for more than a year.

What have Councillors Kurtis Christoforides and Cameron Smith done to deserve being persona non-grata? What is Val Clark doing there?

Click image for a more expansive view and see that Adam Wildman is still a vacancy. The current Bonkers page is overlaid on the screen shot to prove that the OBSCA site really is a year out of date.

I expect to completely finish the electrical project next weekend. There is quite a lot of tidying up to do including filling in the cable trench across the patio. Essential and maybe one of the reasons for my electrician being reluctant to do his job properly.

He put in none of the stuff shown in Photo 2. No isolators and no fuses on the battery line which could reach more than 200 amps. Beware of cowboys!

 

6 May (Part 2) - God Save Us From Country Style!

It is not only the guardsmen who are standing in a line today…

There were about six different refuse trucks circulating around the Abbey Wood end of Belvedere between seven and eight this morning. One didn’t empty the nearby communal bin deeming it contaminated again. This is particularly annoying as I have had more than 100 Amazon deliveries this year so you can imagine how much cardboard I have bequeathed to Bexley Council but Country Slop cannot be bothered to fix the unlockable lid. (No way will I shop in Bexleyheath and pay the parking fee or risk a yellow box fine.)

Greggs in Wilton Road was refreshing the workers and the crew servicing my road were anxious to get home early and dumped most of the bins at my place. I tidied them up for their photo line up but those that were numbered were from 2, 5 and 18.

Well done Country Slop and Cabinet Member Peter Craske for thinking they might be better than Serco.

 

6 May (Part 1) - God Save the King!

There doesn’t seem to be as much excitement about the Coronation as there was in 1953 when our parents, or at least our mothers, were talking of little else for weeks beforehand. Adults can of course do what they like today but I do hope that children are encouraged to watch, they need to have their memories to look back upon.

Mine is of the fancy dress parade, Punch & Judy Show and a lot of people crowded around a 12 inch TV screen.

There is some absolutely shocking cultural misappropriation here.

 

5 May - Thinking about ULEZ, Part 7 - The Endgame

Before Part 7 of @tonyofsidcup’s dissection of the opposition to Khan’s new car tax the usual word of dissent…

I am quite pleased to know one of the ULEZ rebels who a couple of months ago asked me if there was any danger of electrocution from snipping a cable or two. I was able to give reassurance that professional grade security cameras operate on 48 volt DC, so wear gloves but the worst you would get is a not too severe jolt.

In the end of the previous post, we talked about Bexley’s air-quality monitoring stations, and were going to check just how clean Bexley’s air is. Before we do that, let’s think about what “clean” means.

Recall that discussions of air quality tend to focus on two pollutants - nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. The two “villains” are very different in their origin, behaviour and impact. Nitrogen dioxide is mainly produced by combustion engines, “stays local”, and hits the lungs. Scientists’ best guess is that long-term exposure to NO2 increases one’s chances of dying in the next year by 1-2% for every 10 micrograms-per-cubic-metre (“mgcm”) of NO2 concentration. Particulate matter has more sources - motor vehicles are an important one, but not as dominant as with NO2 - travels far and wide, and affects both respiratory and cardiovascular health, as smaller PM particles (2·5 microns is the established cut-off, hence “PM2·5”) can pass from the lungs into the bloodstream. Scientists think that every 10 mgcm of PM2.5 exposure raises one’s “hazard rate” by 6-8%. (To provide some reassurance after this morbid talk, one’s “baseline” hazard rate - the chance of dying in the next year - reaches 1% only after 70. That tiny number gets multiplied by 1·02 or 1·06, etc.)

In 2005 and again in 2021, the World Health Organization published a set of “guidelines” for NO2 and PM pollution levels. They are 10 mgcm for NO2 and 5 mgcm for PM2·5. A guideline level answers the question: “Based on what we know, what is the lowest pollution level that, with long exposure, affects health?” To clarify, a value below a guideline level does not mean that “everything is good”, it just means “We don’t have enough proof that it is bad”. Likewise, a value above the limit does not mean that “everything is bad”: the higher the pollution level, the higher the hazard rate. In the end, there is no “clean” and “not clean”, only “less clean” and “more clean”.

And now, finally, the Bexley numbers. Please review the charts below. Note that red lines stand for roadside monitoring sites, and green lines denote residential settings. What are we to make of this? I see two main take-aways.

Everywhere we look, measured NO2 and PM2·5 pollution levels exceed the WHO guidelines - about 10 mgcm too high for NO2, and about 5 mgcm too high for PM2·5. (It sounds more dramatic if we express the gap in relative terms: for both NO2 and PM2·5, the Bexley levels are double the WHO guidelines). If these values were fixed long-term, this would mean a Bexley resident’s hazard rate to be elevated by about 5%. However, they definitely haven’t been fixed - and so we get to the next finding.

(Someone like Gareth Bacon, waxing lyrical about the meadows of Biggin Hill, ought to notice that PM2ܕ5 pollution levels are essentially the same next to a highway and in a residential neighbourhood. As noted earlier, particulate matter travels far and wide. There’s a very good chance that if PM2·5 were measured in Biggin Hill - it hasn’t; as we know from Part 6, London’s largest borough has a single monitoring site - the reading wouldn’t be particularly low).

Both NO2 and PM2·5 charts display a clear downward trend. Should it continue, it looks like WHO guidelines will be reached within a few years, maybe by 2030.

“Will they, even without ULEZ?” is the million-dollar question. Here, we get into guesswork territory. My guess is that they will. On the other hand, I believe that the ULEZ expansion will *ensure* that they do, and drive pollution to an even lower level. (What about the Independent Impact Assessment commissioned by TfL, which forecast only a negligible air-quality impact? The forecast applied only to the first 12 months, whereas the policy’s effect will develop over many years).

If the trajectory of pollution levels is permanently shifted downward, and not just short-term but long-term exposure to NO2 and PM2·5 is reduced, we “slide down” the hazard-rate curve and save lives. Importantly, we save them year after year, whereas the costs of ULEZ expansion are largely transient. Accumulated over many years, even a tiny public-health improvement eventually compensates for the initial pain.

“Easy for you to say - it’s not your pain. You are not an already-struggling low-income worker facing an extra £300 pm expense”. I have no comeback to that, and pointing to the Tories who refused to fund a bigger scrappage scheme (or develop public transport and “active travel”, or generally promote the clean-air agenda - looking at you, Bexley Tories) would be a deflection tactic. It is what it is. ULEZ creates winners and losers. If you are on the winning side, you want the blow on the losers to be softened. Unfortunately, the Tory politicians in charge have opposite incentives, hoping to convert suffering into votes.

So that’s my “defence of the Red Dictator”, as the gracious host of this series introduced it, done. We may have reached the end with our views unchanged, but we definitely have learned something new.

Links
World Health Organisation, Global Air Quality Guidelines, 2021
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/345329/9789240034228-eng.pdf
COMEAP, “Mortality Effects of Long-Term Exposure to Particulate Air Pollution in UK” https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/304641/COMEAP_mortality_effects_of_long_term_exposure.pdf

 

Glutton for punishment? All seven pro-ULEZ articles on one page.

3 May - A wrong blog and bad parking

Humble Pie
I half expected to be hauled over the coals for Sunday’s late night comment which was not very kind to the local Labour Group but I feel they ought to know how they go down with people who are not their natural supporters; like me. However bad the local Tories are, Labour never quite makes a breakthrough and probably they wonder why.

Their Leader has politely reminded me that contrary to the content of Sunday’s blog it was not only Dave Putson who had offered advice on coping with the spiralling Cost of Living. Three months ago they issued a Press Release which was featured on BiB and which included a link to their helpful booklet. And I forgot it!

So apologies are due to Labour on the Cost of Living issue.

Commuter Parking
Bexley Council’s current plans to tackle commuter parking in Abbey Wood are pleasing no one. The residents within the CPZ are not happy about the new rules which will drive visitors and trades people away while those just outside the Zone will suffer even more than they do now.

Yesterday it was difficult to leave my road by car because although the gap left by three idiot motorists was just about wide enough for a car, it was very difficult to approach it at the required angle and straighten up before hitting the corner parker, If ever there is a fire during the day we will be in trouble but Bexley Council doesn’t care. Do they ever?

The driver of the silver car in Photo 2 above was a resident who said he had not seen the local Councillors’ leaflet but was fed up with commuters parking on the allocated parking space which he owns.

That habit is getting ever more common. The driver of YW16 VEP (Photo 4) was very obviously a commuter. He blatantly parked in a householder’s space and marched off to the station.

FM06 FZJ (Photo 5) is on my drive although probably a genuine mistake and it wasn’ְt there for long. The motorbike which has been outside my house for 24 hours is totally unexplained. There is a chain around the rear wheel but anyone could lift the whole thing up and take it away in a van.

Contact Us
Just for the record, the email address and the destination of submitted web forms has been changed to counteract too many sales messages and adverts. blog@bexley-is-bonkers.co.uk no longer works. If readers simply click on the appropriate page they need do nothing, it does the same job as before without further intervention.

 

2 May - Council plans to impose yet more charges on Bexley residents

Last week’s Places Scrutiny meeting was a special one called to look at the proposal to raise more money from refuse collection by charging for excessive visits to the two borough rubbish dumps. Maybe I should declare an interest. In 36 years residency I have been to Thames Road and Footscray only once each.

Cabinet Member Craske had decided to introduce the charges and Conservative Councillors Bacon, Smith, Slaughter and Brooks formally questioned the wisdom of such a move. (In democratic Bexley, Labour Councillors are not allowed to challenge Cabinet decisions.)

Existing dump permits will no longer be accepted and alternative address ID will be required. The proposals include free visits by car restricted to 20 per year and enforced by new ANPR cameras and software. Vans, 4x4s etc., to be further restricted (ten visits) and allowed to dump only half of what is permitted now. (500kg down to 250.) Construction materials charged at £2 per 15kg bag. Pedestrian access to be restricted 30 minutes.

People with access to more than one vehicle will not benefit, the registered addresses will be monitored. if the two vehicles are both cars the visiting limit will remain at 20 but if it is a van/large vehicle and a car 30 visits may be permitted. Councillors appeared to be as incredulous as I am and the responsible Council Officer appeared to backtrack to a maximum of 20 visits.

Councillor Cameron Smith (Conservative, St. Mary’s & St. James) thought that in the absence of any data on dump visits it might be more sensible to install the cameras and use them to collect the data needed to introduce a fair system. Cabinet Member Craske floundered but seemed to be not unsympathetic to the idea.

Councillor Slaughter (Conservative, Sidcup) took a further step backwards and wondered why the policy was needed at all. How big is the construction waste problem? She pointed out that it has to go somewhere, if not the Council dump, somewhere else. She was told that construction waste forms about 17% of Bexley’s waste against the London average of 10%.

Councillor Hinkley (Labour, Belvedere) said she uses her car to deliver her neighbour’s rubbish. Cabinet Member Craske said she could register that situation as an exception. It was also pointed out that some 4x4s are smaller than family cars, e.g. the Suzuki Jimny.

Councillor Lucia-Hennis (Crayford) said her experience is that every change in the rules, like the alternate day rule during Covid, results in more fly tipping. Lots more, like 100%.

Councillor Ball (Labour, Erith) said that what data we have suggests that about 3% of people “play the system” with an excessive number of visits and he felt that that 3% will be not be the sort of people who will in future pay. They will fly tip it and the Council is encouraging them through a massively bureaucratic system of registered addresses, counting, exception lists and ANPR. Will there be a net gain? The answer was at best not much. The scheme is not seen as a big revenue earner but other boroughs have seen an overall benefit.

Councillor Ball said the experience of other boroughs may not apply to Bexley which is known to be an outlier on construction waste.

Councillor Dourmoush (Longlands) whilst generally supportive of a fair use policy thought there was insufficient data to be sure of the consequences but one would inevitably be longer queues of traffic having their credentials checked. “What is commercial waste? Is my old garden gate commercial waster? What about people who take their garden waste to the dump to save the bin subscription fee?”

He was told that people who cut their grass once a week and deliver it to the dump are being subsidised by those who do not go often. (I would say that such people should balance the cost of petrol against the garden bin tax.)

Councillor Betts (Conservative, Falconwood) was another Councillor who thought that the net result of imposing “hurdles” on waste disposal would inevitably cause fly tipping. He asked if different families sharing one address would fall foul of the new rules. He was told that they will despite bigger houses paying more Council Tax.

Is the 20 limit arbitrary asked Councillor Brooks? (Conservative, Falconwood.) He too thought it might be more sensible to collect data before imposing new rules. Cabinet Member Craske said people would be warned when they exceeded 50% of their visiting quota so that they could modify their behaviour.

Chairman Cheryl Bacon (Sidcup) asked it the ANPR cameras filmed events in real time or merely registered a visit. Will there be a DVLA check? Answer: Registering only and no DVLA check.

Councillor Smith thought any revenue would come from commercial waste and not excessive visits. Wouldn’t savings be made without imposing limits? Answer: Probably yes but it is part of the package and one could start without the other. Cabinet Member Craske once again sounded like a man who had not thought everything through.

Councillor Borella (Labour, North End) raised the question of false number plates but the Council Officer said that if one is linked to an address it will become a police matter. However with no DVLA check how will anyone know?

Councillor Slaughter asked how much the new ANPR software would cost. £37,000.

Councillor Lucia-Hennis said that fly tipping is “a boil ready to burst in Crayford” and much of it is on private land and it takes “ages” for site owners to clear it. Does it get included in the fly tipping data? Answer: No. Only Council collected fly tipping is recorded.

The Chairman summed up by saying that she was “a tad concerned about the arbitrary 20 visits and reviews should be carried out once data became available but in principle supported fair use”. (Seems OK to me but then my usage is closer to one visit every 20 years than 20 visits in one year.)

The decision to charge has already been taken because Bexley is ruled in this regard by just one man.

 

1 May - They have concrete plans

The following is a very abbreviated summary of how Bexley Council plans to develop the borough or maybe wreck its character.
Felixstowe Road, Abbey Wood
The soon to reopen car park will go in favour of a minimum of 90 new homes. A “tall building is favoured”.
Coralline Walk, Thamesmead
Approximately 1,850 new homes (the old site had 746). Large green public spaces but no new shops so as not to undermine existing local facilities.
Lower Belvedere
The existing B&Q/Asda 550 place car park is severely criticised for dominating the area. The plan does not specifically refer to closure of the two stores but redevelopment of the site to provide 460 new homes very much suggests the car park will go and without it a store like B&Q will become unviable. It is acknowledged that the area has no flood defences and goes underwater regularly.
Station Road, Belvedere
A minimum of 120 new homes (in two areas with 80 and 40 approximately) with provision for Elizabeth Line and DLR extensions. It is acknowledged that the existing shops have multiple owners who are expected to “unlock their full potential”.
Halt Robin Road, Belvedere
Land surplus to educational needs at Woodside School will provide for 140 new homes.
Site of Belvedere Gas Holders
465 new homes.
Picardy Manorway, Belvedere (Old Monarch Works)
90 new homes built in such a way as to mitigate internal damage due to flooding.
Crabtree Manorway, Belvedere (Industrial Sheds)
740 new homes with provision for “intensification”.
Erith Western Gateway
440 new homes.
Erith, Pier Road West
190 new homes.
Erith, Pier Road East
110 new homes.
Erith Riverside
270 new homes. “Taller buildings to face the river to maximise views.”
Erith Morrisons
A minimum of 420 new homes to be squeezed into the Western end of the site.
Erith Road, Barnehurst
Former NHS site. A minimum of 180 new homes with the GP surgery retained.
Bexleyheath Town Centre (East)
130 new homes squeezed into Arnsberg Way and Broadway.
Vacant EDF Energy building, Bexleyheath
220 new homes squeezed into Arnsberg Way and Broadway.
Pickford Lane (Buildbase site)
30 new homes plus shops fronting road are possible.
Peppers Builders Merchants (Rowan Road)
A minimum of 30 new homes.
Belvedere Road, Bexleyheath (The old playing field behind the Leader’s house, no wonder she moved out.)
A minimum of 70 new homes with retention of a 0·4 hectare green space.
Crayford (Former Electrobase Works)
A minimum of 310 new homes and new riverside walk.
Crayford, Tower Retail Park
A minimum of 360 new homes. Car park in jeopardy.
Crayford (Sainsbury’s)
450 new homes, Car park in jeopardy.

The plan contains numerous references to creating a strong new character, enhancing the area, optimizing site capacity and minimising the impact of car parking.

7,000 new homes, some talk of pie in the sky new railway lines and a limited rapid transit bus service, but no new infrastructure or health facilities. Make your own new housing plans now.