31 October - The Restoration

The restoration of 2015 blogs is now complete. While reading them I was struck by how dishonest both Bexley and Tower Hamlets Councils had been while transferring our Chief Executive across the river. I decided to add an Index to BiB to make access to those blogs easier only to find one already existed but had fallen off the Menu.

Restoration of 2016 blogs may be more difficult than the preceding years as a lot of effort was put into investigating the circumstances of a Code of Conduct complaint against a Councillor which once some facts were established began to unravel and look like a stitch-up of the innocent. For coming to that conclusion the Councillor reported me to the police for harassment and they charged me with that offence presuably after not reading the story.

The CPS eventually decided that supporting the complainant was unlikely to result in a conviction and dropped the case and but I will probably do the same for 2016 as I don’t feel like going through all that again.

 

30 October - The No Hope Service

My responsibilities at Lock’s Bottom have ended but with no Council meetings until next week BiB is not likely to become any livelier than over the past few days.

I headed over to the hospital quite early this morning because I was under instructions to buy food following a complaint that expecting edible food in the PRUH was a forlorn hope. However at 10:05 a phone call said the patient was in the Departure Lounge having been discharged but I should expect a short wait for the medication to be handed over. The NHS definition of short is not mine. At 14:52 after five hours of neglect we were told that there would be no pills in the foreseeable future and they would instead be delivered by courier later.

Ironically the doctor had said that the eight day stay in hospital was the direct result of a GP failing to write a repeat prescription. How much taxpayers’ money do these charlatans waste?

The clinical care in the hospital was rated good by the patient.

 

29 October - The inevitable consequence of complacency

I spent my extra hour - and more - searching for an old blog in which I related how the English wife of a Muslim man told me how it worried her that he and his friends gathered for a weekly, or maybe it was monthly, meeting to plan how they would eventually take over the entire country by gradually getting themselves into positions of power.

That conversation took place in 1996 or 97 and one bit that stuck in my mind was that the plan involved taking over Trafalgar Square. The blog is proving to be very elusive although this one is similar.

There are no easy answers now.

 

28 October - Achievement zero

Having a friend in the Princess Royal Hospital in Lock’s Bottom has disrupted the past ten days and caused more journeys to Bromley than I would like. Two have been in the early evening and one after rain when I saw a gully sucker trying to tackle the Abbey Road flood. Harrow Manorway and Knee Hill were jammed with Elizabeth line traffic from around 4:30 onwards.

What spare time there has been was devoted to continuing the overhaul of old blogs and what did I find on those for 4th November eight years ago? These two photos. They could have been taken this week but they weren’t. Bexley Council has done absolutely nothing to counter problems which were obvious to all in 2015.

Flood blog.
Knee Hill blog.

The old Knee Hill blog reveals that the two frequently used pedestrian crossings that contribute to the traffic queues have been there for eight years. Doesn’t time fly?

On 31st August 2011, Wilhelmina Drayton from Bexley’s Engineering Services Department wrote to me asking for information about the Abbey Road flood. What have Bexley Conservatives done for the borough in their 17 years in office?

 

26 October - Another man down

Is it sinking ship syndrome again? Another manager leaves Bexley, this time from the Legal Department. Maybe Jeremy Welburn found a a better paid or full time job (†), thirty odd thousand is not a fortune for a senior manager these days, even a half timer, and his boss is on £100,647 plus £6,211 of allowances.

Does the Risk Assessor see a risk remaining in Local Government that we haven’t; yet?

† It was a part time job.

 

24 October - A Good Omen for May 2024

Sidcup’s FOI King, or should I say Tsar (†), has obtained Bexley’s ULEZ survey results. There were 8,386 respondents and they were overwhelmingly against Khan filling his mismanaged coffers with a £12·50 Freedom Tax.

The following images are from the first few hundred and intended to give a flavour of the overall result. It will require a reasonably sized screen to read them but you will be hard pressed to find anyone speaking up for the tiny tyrant.

There are five in Row 1, one in Row 2, none in Row 3, three in Row 4 and five in Rows 5 and Row 6.






Nerds may download the whole thing from here. (Microsoft Excel file.)

† @tonyofsidcup.

 

23 October - Things that never happened

I have always been interested in cinema and its technology - did you know that Oppenheimer on film is more than eleven miles long? - so I think I would have reported it and remember it if local Labour had “campaigned against the Sidcup cinema”.

The fact is there isn’t a word on BiB about anyone being against the cinema, let alone actively campaigning against it.

A blog search back to 2017 for the word cinema reveals several Councillors who were against moving the library to the old Blockbuster site but none were Labour.

The cinema idea was first mooted in October 2017 and nothing but encouragement for it has ever been recorded on these pages.

Bexley Tories: ‘Body of Lies’. (2008.)

 

22 October - So dilapidated that no one wants it?

First up for auction on 20th September. Knock twenty grand off and try again on 21st November.

 

21 October - The only way is down

If it had not been for a family funded birthday treat to The Shard I would probably have been tempted to comment yesterday on Thursday’s by-election result. Something along the lines of ‘richly deserved defeat’.

I have occasionally been slightly upset by what I have seen as adverse election results, but not this time. To my mind Sunak has not done a single thing domestically that I could applaud. It is quite an achievement to get every single decision wrong. That is, not appeal to his so called core vote.

His conference speech did nothing for me, postponing HS2 I could be persuaded to go along with but selling off the acquired land to scupper future construction is the action of a traitor to the UK, which I am inclined to think Sunak probably is.

I looked forward to his plans to abandon the war on the motorist but the summary of his speech that I read, in the Guardian I think it was, didn’t mention the subject at all.

In my view the Conservatives could still be in with a chance at the next General Election but that assumes that Conservative values still exist in that party and are brought to the fore; and at Cabinet level they simply don’t.

If he loses in 2024 Sunak and Hunt will have pretty much destroyed this country by failing to correct the disastrous course first set in 2010. No, make that 1997. With Starmer in charge things could hardly get worse economically but the British way of life will be lost for ever. With her in Number Ten the only way will be down and I will probably be in jail for mistyping this sentence.

 

20 October - Bugs in the bins?

Maybe I am going slightly nuts but about a month ago I checked on-line which bin was to be collected next day and told a neighbour he had made the wrong choice. He disagreed and we checked on line again and concluded I must have made a mistake.

It happened again yesterday but I was prepared and took some screenshots. Image 1 is from my mobile - I checked again later and it said the same thing. For today, Friday 20th, it says it is blue and brown bin day. (That should never happen, blue goes with green and brown with white.)

I was pretty sure from the state of my own bins that green was due next. So I switched from mobile to PC desktop view and got a different answer. Image 2.

This morning the mobile view is correct.

 

19 October - Lessons have not been learned

Unusually I was able to listen live to most of yesterday’s Finance Scrutiny meeting but disappointed not to note anything particularly newsworthy. It was however occasionally amusing. Labour Leader Stefano Borella when referring to Paul Thorogood’s imminent elevation to the Chief Executive’s position referred to “the Local Government Act 1972 and I am sure that Councillor Leaf will quote me the chapter…” and the Cabinet Member responded with “it was actually the Local Government Housing Act 1989, Section 4.”

Well it made me smile and it was particularly good to see David Leaf on top form after what must have been for him a traumatic eleven days. I have lost all of my Jewish friends in recent years and we must all hope that none of his are in danger of being massacred and he can feel safe in Bexley.

Whether I have time to listen to my recording of the meeting is doubtful. Do you really want to know which polling stations may move before next year? Would time be better spent looking over ancient blogs again?

Yesterday I stumbled across the car park season ticket rates for March 2015. Why Felixstowe Road was on the list I have no idea because it was closed for Crossrail works.

However you will note that the price rose there and in nearby Gayton Road from £64 a month to £164 a month now. a 256% increase over a period when inflation generally would have taken the price to no more than £85. The discount rate only applies to people who both live and work in Bexley; basically people who will probably be using the bus; so an empty gesture.

Is it any wonder that the Felixstowe Road car park is bringing in only a third of what Bexley Council thought it could get away with and residents suffer the consequences?

Is there any subject around which any Council behaves sensibly?

 

18 October - Lessons will be learned

Following the ignominy of three upheld LGO complaints about Special Educational Needs in the space of two weeks the big question for me at the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee meeting was which Councillor had noticed. It was Wendy Perfect (Labour, Northumberland Heath).

“April to June 2023 there were two findings of fault within Education Services. Is it correct that there were a further three cases upheld in August? Are there common themes within these cases and how are we aiming to address any forthcoming inspections of SEN Services?”

It was confirmed by Kevin Taylor, Deputy Director of Education, that there had been five critical LGO reports “and one is too many but they were not in such a short period of time. One started in 2021. Officers should be addressing issues more quickly and we have appointed a new Head of SEN.”

It was accepted that Bexley Council is responsible for bad decisions by schools. “How do we make sure that what is being delivered by schools is correct? We will do a series of audits starting in the four secondary schools where they are less than adequate and where SEN has come up as an issue. We have to do something extra.”

Councillor Perfect said she found it upsetting that parents of special needs children are put through such stressful processes. She was assured that the issue was being taken very seriously and that the management team is “passionate about getting it right and strive to always get it right but there will be mistakes. We are disappointed that there have been five cases but five cases coming out in one go make it look worse than what it is.”

The responsible Cabinet Member, Caroline Newton, said the Council had apologised to the parents and she would “be keeping an eye on it”.

If the Scrutiny Committee discussion was all I had heard about these SEN failures I might go along with the idea that the criticisms had been taken on board and the occasional mistake will happen but having read the LGO comments from end to end and having heard a little from affected parties I can only hope that Mr. Taylor has gone further than appointing a new Head of SEN and will have done something about the attitude of his Team Leaders. That may be the ‘common theme’ that Councillor Perfect was looking for.

 

17 October - Rewriting history

Until the next two Scrutiny meetings are over and done with BIB is likely to be quiet. I cannot be at this evening’s Children’s Services meeting so it is fingers crossed that that they do not screw up the webcast as they did last time. Will the Committee comment on the three big Local Government Ombudsman failures in August? The Agenda suggests they will.

I think I have gone through all the anonymous messages from people who appear to know the inside of Bexley’s Ivory Tower. I found some of the short financially based comments a little too esoteric for publication here. If I am not quite sure what the real message is I am reluctant to repeat it.

If any contributor feels aggrieved or I have missed something non-financial, then you know what to do.

The recent slack period has been used to restore some of the old blogs. It happened so long ago that I cannot remember exactly what happened but intending to edit one page the software was inadvertently set to Global and I wrecked the lot and they were taken off line. If you ask why I did not revert to a backup, I have no idea. There must have been a reason at the time.

The IT accident seemed like an opportunity to regurgitate the old stuff in the current format and at one point I was not only checking all the links but also searching out old photos to improve their online quality.

In practice that was taking years of spare time - literally - so a few months ago I abandoned hunting for and reprocessing old photos and things speeded up considerably. The years 2009 through to 2014 are now complete and the most recent update is 2nd January 2015. It deals with a parking injustice in Abbey Road, Belvedere. It still exists to this day, fining people unfairly, and I am absolutely certain that Bexley Council knows about it - because I showed them in person myself.

Despite the headline very little text has been changed. Some of the dishonesty reported is absolutely shocking however one Councillor is no longer consistently referred to as a liar because I am now almost certain that she was set up by dishonest Council Officers; none of whom reside in the Ivory Tower any longer.

Whilst 2018 is on the menu it is incomplete and unchecked and mainly there to support link backs from 2019-2023.

 

15 October - 300% above inflation in 30 years

Now that I have reached a certain age and can bore people with how I survived a Doodlebug (German flying bomb) and waited for a tram inside the Kingsway tunnel, people tell me that I should be downsizing my house to make it easier to maintain. What a load of rot that is. Ignoring the fact I cleaned the gutters by myself last week, do they not realise that getting older means an ever growing collection of clutter?

Today I decided there was nothing worth writing about here and it was time to throw out every financial document more than six years old. Unfortunately the first file I came across contained all the old Rates bills and I cross checked 1991 against what was on BiB. It didn’t match but that was fairly easily resolved. My source data was taken from Whittaker’s Almanac and they had put the 1990 figures in their 1991 edition.

The correction led to a big tidy up of the existing files and eight new ones created from the rediscovered bills. Separating out the Community Charge years caused some technical issues and the job finished up taking most of the day.

But why mention it here? It’s the staggering level of inflation. In 1990 I paid £280 to Bexley Council and the Bank of England says that translates to £658 in today’s money. I am still in the same house but paying £2,490. OK, I get a 25% single occupant discount but that still makes it three times as much as the B of E inflation rate.

As Councillor Hunt said last week, red tape and mismanagement must be a major factor. A Council insider opined a couple of weeks ago that things were much better when the Council was run by people like the Chief Executives of old. Terence Musgrave and Christopher Duffield who cared for the borough and not so much for their own bank balances.

They sometimes even responded personally if a resident wrote to them. When did that last happen? (In my case when Will Tuckley threatened me with the police for republishing what Councillor Craske had written about me.)

P.S. I remembered later that the failed Chief Executive Gill Steward wrote to me to tell me that all press facilities were to be withdrawn from public Council meetings, no reason given, she was just being spiteful - but the email didn’t arrive because she got the address wrong.

 

14 October (Part 3) - Glass and Greed

The next item on the Places Agenda was Hall Place where the glass house is closed because of the cost of maintenance and heating. Staff numbers have been cut, the Butterfly House remains shut and there are no fish left in the ponds.

Councillor Lucia-Hennis asked the obvious question; if the plants have not simply died they must have been watered and kept warm so why no public entry. Answer came there none.

Councillor James Hunt asked “when are we going to start managing Hall Place properly? The contrast with Danson House managed by another authority is concerning. There is too much red tape”.

The consensus seemed to be that there is simply not enough staff or money available to promote Hall Place properly and even if there was it would be a long term project. At the moment “Bexley is only chipping around the edges”. (Manager’s apologetic comment.)

From one disappointment the Chairman moved on to another. Car parking.

Councillor Cameron Smith said the money raised (£118,000) in the Felixstowe Road car park is only a quarter of the £461,000 anticipated and the “ridiculous” £15 for Liz line commuters is a deterrent. (Who would have guessed with Sainbury’s next to the station at a third of the price?)

Gayton Road carpark, only 100 yards away, is however relatively popular. (No one mentioned that Gayton Road has a direct access point from the main road while Felixstowe Road is half a mile further away by congested road, over two almost permanently red pedestrian crossings, via a 20 m.p.h. limit and a meandering residential road.)

“Sainsbury’s may be a factor” and Cameron may be right. Their car park was completely full yesterday at around 1:30 and their ANPR camera has not obviously worked since the Harrow Manorway road reconstruction in 2019. (Registration number used to display; it doesn’t any more.)

Councillor Cameron Smith had clearly studied the issues closer than most. He recognised that Council car parks must be competitive with others especially around railway stations and that the drop in the number of commuters post-Covid was hitting revenue hard.

However the Council’s car park in Bexley village is more expensive than Southeasternְ’s and the big stores do not charge at all. “Our offer is not particularly good and charging in small shopping areas drives people away.”

Only three years after Councillors were saying another 30% on parking fees is only pennies we have a Councillor bright enough to understand the Law of Diminishing Returns.

Cameron advocated a trial of 30 minutes, but preferably an hour, of free parking around the smaller shopping areas. Nuxley Road (Belvedere), Thanet Road (Bexley Village) and Mill Road (Northumberland Heath) were suggested. The cost would be minimal at around £8,000 and would provide valuable data on parking habits and a different parking model.

(Should I mention that Bexley’s smallest and largely forgotten shopping area backs on to the Gayton Road car park? Will the Wilton Road traders miss out?)

Chloe Wenbourne the parking manager said that there were difficult practical and technical problems with free parking periods. It could only be done via the phone app.

Chairman Cheryl Bacon recognised that bumping the charges up after the first few hours (as in Felixstowe Road) “is not bringing in the income”.

How is it that everyone other than Councils can see the obvious?

 

14 October (Part 2) - Bins and Buddleia

The refuse service was next on the Places Agenda and Councillors led by Sally Hinkley (Labour, Belvedere) thought that things must be getting better as bin collection complaint levels are well down but there are rampant weeds everywhere. What has happened to the weed spraying programme? The Agenda referred to three chemical applications this year but there is no evidence of anything being done in Belvedere.

Councillor Slaughter also said she had never seen as many weeds as there are now in Sidcup. She has taken to removing foot high weeds in her own road herself. Councillor Gower (Conservative, Bexleyheath) said the problem is likely to be borough wide as it is the same where she lives. Ditto Councillors Ball (Labour, Erith) and Lucia-Hennis (Crayford).

in related street cleaning news there will be 300 new litter bins placed across the borough.

Cabinet Member Diment was asked to comment on the new arrangements designed to limit rubbish dumping at the two recycling centres introduced a month ago. He had heard about delays caused by data collection but overall things were working quite well and his experience as a resident at Maidstone Road was good. He saw no problem at Thames Road while visiting in an official capacity. The potential problem there is that no more than half a dozen cars can queue on site and any excess disrupts the public road. The problem is being addressed with the assistance of the Highways Department.

 

14 October (Part 1) - BIDs and Books

It has been said here many times before, that the Places Scrutiny meeting chaired and vice-chaired by Councillors Bacon and Smith (Sidcup and Bexley village) respectively is the most consistently interesting of the bunch. That is because it deals with subjects that affect nearly everyone. Bins, roads, parking, shopping and, last Wednesday, libraries too.

The Conservatives’ propaganda machine is constantly telling us that library usage is up but are people borrowing books or only popping in to use the toilet? Councillor June Slaughter (Conservative, Sidcup) wanted to know how current levels of book lending compared to pre-Covid levels. Those particular figures were unavailable but with two new libraries opening this year 2023 is proving to be higher than the lock down years.

Simple visit numbers were available in the meeting Agenda and reproduced here.

Councillor Lucia-Hennis said that in her local library, Crayford, the footfall was down. She had found it closed on days it was supposed to be open. Councillor Mabel Ogundayo (Labour, Thamesmead East) said usage of the new Thamesmead Nest library was disappointing and not much better than the old temporary Portacabin. Directional signage is to be improved.

The discussion moved on to Business Improvement Districts which I have always felt is jobs for boys eager to impose taxes on shopping but it has to be said that those who should know more about the subject than I do can put up an enthusiastic defence.

There are two BIDs in Bexley, one covering Bexleyheath and the other Sidcup. Councillor Munur, the Cabinet Member for Growth said it was not the right time to create more.

Councillor Cameron Smith said the BIDs have been very successful and add a lot to the High Streets including the creation of events that bring people in. Councils can no longer afford to do such things but the downside is that BIDs may be placing the smaller shopping centres at a competitive disadvantage. He didn’t think that Bexley Council should close the door on more BIDs and made a number of suggestions for expansion.

Councillor Munur again poured cold water on any ideas to change the BID structure in the immediate future.

 

13 October - Don’t get ill!

If the medical managers painted a cautiously optimistic picture of Bexley’s GP services on Monday - a friend in Bexley village phoned to say his doctor is excellent - then the Director of Adult Social Care, Stuart Rowbotham had a rather bleak message for Councillors. If Stuart is an unfamiliar name around here that will be because he has never merited a bad word on BiB. Seven mentions, all positive.

This time he didn’t beat around the bush.

• In 2022/23 there was £5·6 million of support for hospital discharge and re-ablement and this year it is down to £1·9 million and even with diversion of funding from elsewhere, money will run out by the end of November.
• There is no way to sensibly plan ahead with only one third of the money available.
• All four area hospitals are running below the level previously thought to be the worst possible for discharge rate.
• Assistance has had to be sought from hospitals outside the local area.
• “Demand has not diminished and there is no way to get a quart into a pint pot.”
• The two hospital trusts have been formally notified that Bexley is about to run out of money.
• There is no funding available for ‘Care at Home’.
• ‘One to One’ Advanced Care will not be possible.
• There is “no solution to what happens come the end of November”.
• “In all previous years there has been a last minute announcement of more money. We can only hope that that is what happens this year. There is no alternative plan.”
• It is a crisis across all London boroughs and acute hospital care and the ambulance service will be seriously impacted.
• The Council Leader has been able to arrange a meeting with senior Civil Servants.

The foregoing is a summary of Mr. Rowbotham’s disturbing forecast and not verbatim except where indicated.

For those who wish to listen for themselves, the meeting Chairman invited Mr. Rowbotham to speak at 51 minutes and 50 seconds into the webcast.

 

12 October (Part 2) - Three in a row

Joe Coughlan the Local Democracy reporter funded by the BBC has given Bexley Council’s condemnation by the Local Government Ombudsman more publicity than BiB could ever achieve with a report on both MyLondon News and the BBC website.

So far he has not covered the second similar criticism of Bexley Council and certainly not the third. This one has cost taxpayers another £2,900. It’s not quite the same as the other two. It involves a young adult and a training college which did not do all that it should or could have done; however in law the Council remains responsible for the outcome and they failed to manage the situation adequately again.

LGO report in full. All three cases were completed over a period of two weeks last August. There are only two Team Leaders in Bexley’s SEN department. Is it just one responsible or are they both as bad as each other?

 

12 October (Part 1) - Number 13. How many more?

A Baker’s Dozen now.

There has been an update since the last report. My suggestion that Housing Associations allow their stock to fall into disrepair has been confirmed. By whom I cannot say.

Photos of L&Q house in Groombridge Close.

Addresses announced for auction by a Bexley Housing Association…

34 Pengarth Road, Bexley
53 Pengarth Road, Bexley
235 Iron Mill Lane, Crayford
Crayford Road, Crayford
52 Jenningtree Road, Erith
204 Ellenborough, Sidcup
50 Mallard Walk, Sidcup
56 Maylands Drive, Sidcup
30 St. Andrews Road, Sidcup
18 Burnell Avenue, Welling
39 Burnell Avenue, Welling

Note: The title was found to be a miscount when checked on 24th August 2024!

 

11 October - A potentially good but little known medical facility

Some NHS managers gave a presentation to Bexley’s Adult’s Services Scrutiny Committee on Monday on how they were trying to improve the GP service - so there is no shortage of things they urgently need to do. I last saw a GP at the end of January 2020 when a bad dose of flu wouldn’t go away. Maybe it was Covid but no one outside of a Chinese laboratory knew anything about it at the time. Since then I have not been able to get any GP appointment at all and my opinion of the services (not) provided is at rock bottom.

But maybe I have missed a trick because alternative services are now available away from the registered GP at medical hubs. Open until 8 p.m. on Monday to Friday evenings and all day at the weekend. A patient survey with around 14,000 respondents clearly showed a preference for face to face consultations and the aim now was to make 75% of appointments F2F and same day whenever possible. Bexley is providing more F2F appointments than elsewhere within our six nearest borough neighbours.

The capacity provided is often not taken up especially at weekends and No Shows were wasting even more resources. “Usage is nowhere near what was expected” largely because people prefer to see their own GP rather than go to an unfamiliar site.

A GP said that in his recent experience the service was running very well and the only possible downside was the inevitable inability to see the registered GP. (Am I missing out on something? I have not known the name of my GP for more than 20 years and I don’t think I have ever seen the same one twice in that time. A hub looks all positive to me.)

A doctor from Erith said that he is usually able to offer same day appointments at his surgery failing which her refers patients to the hub but Councillor Day (Slade Green & North End) hadn’t found reception staff to be aware of hubs. “Is this something confined to specific areas?” It was admitted that the survey showed performance in the North to be less than ideal and the appointment booking software was not yet good enough.

Another doctor said that patients are simply unaware of the hub service.

It was supposedly publicised in the Bexley Magazine but in a perusal of the last three issues I failed to find any reference to it. A Google search was a little confusing until I found the following. With capacity currently exceeding demand it might be a good bet for patients registered with Bexley Group Practice or any other local outfit that has forgotten what medical care is.

 

10 October (Part 2) - A bit of a rant

The past few days have been more than usually depressing. Last week Prime Minister Sunak managed to do the near impossible by making me even less inclined to vote for a party led by him than I was before he made his Conference speech. Early yesterday morning I listened (Times Radio) to Labour’s Shadow Chancellor putting forward some not unattractive plans. Usually when Labour lays out its pre-election stall my reaction is to think that if fixing the economy was that easy it would have been done already, but I am not sure that applies any more.

There are things Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has done which are just plain stupid such as raising Corporation Tax to uncompetitive levels, making tourism more expensive for foreigners while everyone else is made worse off by his green taxes. And then there is his refusal to chase the Covid scammers. There must be plenty of scope for Rachel Reeves to improve matters. The next interviewee to speak from the Labour Conference was eco-Loon Dale Vince who has decided that Labour has all the right ideas so I quickly came to my senses.

Without a television to watch I have been spared seeing most of the graphic images coming out of Israel. Where does such hatred come from? I watched a YouTube live stream of the protests in London last night. How did we come to live alongside so many people content to endorse, rape, mutilation and murder? Did we import it or did we breed our own form of savages? I found myself wondering if any of them looked like they might be Conservative voters. I would guess not.

Now it’s back down to earth with more examples of people with no regard for their fellow human beings. Self entitled motorists who are happy to endanger others by parking on corners and content to block roads to anything larger than a private car. I didn’t report them because to be honest it is a bit fiddly but presumably somebody else did. The black Vauxhall was ticketed a couple of hours after the CEO’s usual visiting time. I will add that the maroon coloured car in Photo 2 was not parked. The lady driver was struggling to turn around in a restricted place.

One day Bexley Council may decide to improve matters but no one here is holding their breath.

I will probably get into trouble from both sides for posting this but I don’t see how I can support any party at the moment although the one that doesn’t attack me on Twitter/X probably enjoys a small advantage.

 

10 October (Part 1) - And another one!

While looking around the LGO website yesterday I found another current SEN related case that involved an autistic child provided with inadequate education and suffering because of a series of mistakes and delays by Bexley Council.

The penalty imposed on the Council was only £1,000 but it had already reimbursed the £5,000 cost of a replacement education package which the Ombudsman thought was sufficient.

The second case will not be summarised here because unlike yesterday’s I have no contact with the parent; speaking of which the father corrected my implication in the eighth paragraph that it was Bexley Council which had fibbed about the employment of an autism expert.

Our correspondence did not reveal exactly where in the borough he lives but it was reasonably clear that it was far to the south of me. His final comment confirms what I would have expected, that Councillors from both parties were always very supportive of his situation. One must wonder if the SEN staff work in isolation from reality.

 

9 October - Ombudsman puts an expensive boot into Bexley Council

A little  over a year ago I brought together two BiB readers who had similar problems. Young sons who needed special help with their schooling. I lost track of one who went off in the legal direction as his argument was more with an unreasonable Academy than Bexley Council which tried - unsuccessfully it is true - to help him.

The other case was more complicated as the boy had additional medical problems which went beyond simple Special Educational Needs provision and Bexley Council failed to provide any sensible help. The whole process was slow and the parents considered Council staff behaviour to be inappropriate. Because of that their son lost a great deal of his education and any caring parent would be distressed and upset to see a difficult situation made worse.

There is a statutory requirement to review such cases annually and communicate the findings promptly. The parents considered the Council’s response to be inadequate and provided their reasons. Bexley said their son was no different to anyone else on the autistic spectrum. They were unsympathetic to the child being unwell and were critical of the consequential poor school attendance record. They threatened the parents with legal action and turned up, mob handed and uninvited to his home insisting that he should be at school.

Bexley Council was dismissive of their concerns for the boy’s welfare and ignored the advice of the family’s privately hired psychiatrist. They went further and implied their own Autism Advisor knew best. They had “a vast knowledge of autism”.

The parents complained and Bexley Council agreed to revise the educational plan after which he received an hour or two’s tutoring each week. The council failed to find a school which could meet the child’s needs.

Four months after the parent made their Stage 2 complaint it was accepted to some extent and by the end of 2022 the Council agreed to pay for tutoring costs while still maintaining that they were the autism experts.

Despite the small concessions and promises there was still no education forthcoming except for a bit of homework which does not fulfill the statutory obligations. Additionally Bexley Council made no effort to check whether or not it was suitable homework.

The Ombudsman has said that while a very few weeks of delay may sometimes be acceptable the delays were measured in many months. Bexley Council was guilty of contradicting itself and its hounding of the family with a home visit was unnecessarily upsetting. The school involved claimed to have referred the case to the Autism Advisory Service but that looked to be untrue.

Bexley Council excessively delayed proceedings and caused significant distress to the parents. As a result it must apologise to them and pay for the privately sourced tutor. Separately it must pay a total of £4,450 as compensation for the upset caused and for the lack of education throughout 2022.

The foregoing is a summary of the Ombudsman’s report and is in no way intended to enlarge upon it. There has been no recent correspondence - apart from provision of the LGO link - with the parents who have not actively sought publicity for this case and prefer to keep a low profile. Obviously provision of the LGO URL implies that this summary should be published - but without comment.

Beyond what you have read here I only know the name of Bexley’s Team Leader and what my parent/contact had to say about her a little while ago is probably best left unsaid.

 

8 October (Part 2) - For his next trick…

Whenever the financial situation in Bexley is mentioned a reference to reserves is sure to be close behind. The last available CIPFA report places Bexley at the bottom of their Sustainability table - and by a wide margin.

More optimistically the same report said that the Finance Director had a cunning plan, which must have worked because Bexley Council did not quite go broke.

As you will know from his Deputy’s comments at the last Cabinet meeting things are heading rapidly South and Bexley is on course for spending reserves again.

Can another rabbit be pulled out of the hat? One must hope so because the attractive prospect of seeing egg hurtling towards certain faces will be totally outweighed by the pain that will be inflicted on residents. As if they have not suffered enough already. From almost the lowest taxing borough in London to almost the highest in the few years I have lived in the borough.

 

8 October (Part 1) - A day in the life of Council misfits

People bombarding my email Inbox are determined that I will have no time to get out to enjoy our belated Summer, so here I go into blog number 6,760, an easy one because it arrived pretty much already written.

 
Staff at the Council have no faith in the leadership and more than ever listening to rumours. A number you probably have already been advised of but can’t print.

• Member of staff having an affair with a consultant he managed in Human Resources. No action but his wife divorced him. And he needed new clothes.
• Member of staff claiming to be legally qualified but not. Removed from being Monitoring Officer.
• Member of staff falsifying sickness and getting large payout. Vilified in Private Eye Nick Johnson. Allegedly Mr. Johnson got a member of staff to do his Master’s degree. (†)
• Member of staff lying about a Masters Degree. Promoted to various senior roles. Gill Steward.
• Member of staff being incompetent. Various roles around the world. Currently singing and sailing in America. Mark Charters
• Member of staff being incompetent in financial affairs. Our new Chief Executive.
• Member of staff acting as Chief Executive failed to get the permanent job. Heartbroken. Paul Moore

The writer is correct, there is nothing there I have not been told before except the item marked †. The divorce news was previously suppressed as not being particularly relevant but there have been many obscure references such as the recent ‘protect his mistresses’.

The link ‘Heartbreak’ includes an extract of Paul Moore’s departure letter. I have it all but certainly not for publication.

Mr. Johnson left Bexley Council with a large pay off and a sick pension and was immediately re-employed by Hammersmith & Fulham Council on £950 a day. The full details are available here. (PDF) As commented yesterday, the whole of Local Government is corrupt with obscene levels of pay.

Note: Perhaps I should add that not all of the 6,760 are currently on line following a technical accident several years ago. They are being restored a handful at a time most days. More quickly than in the past following a decision not to upgrade the photos and graphics at the same time.

 

7 October (Part 2) - We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell ye!

The first Public Cabinet meeting since the middle of July was like all the others in recent memory. It was all about the money and an update on the scarcity of that commodity.

Ms. Morris (Deputy Director of Finance) kicked off with a report on the monetary situation as it was last July by which time Bexley had spent £7·152 million more than it should have done and more than half a million more than just a month earlier. Everyone is overspending with Children and Adult Social Care being the worst offenders. The demand will not stop growing and if things do not improve by the end of the year the only solution will be to spend more of the reserves. Council Tax collection rates are still running behind pre-pandemic levels but there will be no need for further borrowing until the middle of next year.

Deputy Leader David Leaf said much the same thing but in a far more convoluted manner. However he did usefully add that the Council had managed to cut expenditure on temporary housing. (There will be celebrations in shop doorways across the borough.)

Cabinet Member Cafer Munir said he was managing the impact of higher interest rates and BexleyCo had some “healthy projects in the pipeline”. Redevelopment of Erith continues with “commercial frontage between Morrison’s and the Riverside shopping centre. 68 Pier Road will be fitted out as a Community space for hire and an indoor market”.

Cabinet Member Richard Diment spoke about recycling and commendably did so without any Craskian bragging about Bexley being top of the recycling pile. However despite some setbacks it is still among the more successful London boroughs. Green bin waste costs taxpayers £130 a tonne to burn and 37% of that is food which can be recycled at a profit - or at worst be cost neutral.

He debunked some of the dubious PCN stories emanating from the BBC - and repeated here. The monetary write-off was down to various factors and the debt situation is not straight-forward. The £2·7 million allegedly owed is mainly recent penalties yet to be paid and a big chunk of the write-off is because the DVLA has no record of the reported vehicle registration number. The next biggest group - 25% of the total - were foreign registered. Of 2,193 cancelled tickets, 1,500 fell into those two categories. They could not be economically pursued and bailiffs are very often unsuccessful, especially against dead people. Bexley’s write-offs are worth about half a million; in Labour run Newham the write-off was £7 million higher.

“The Council issues nearly 5,000 PCNs a month and they provide revenue to support the many other services that have to be delivered.” (I thought that was illegal and parking revenue had to be spent on road improvements.)

Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour, Slade Green and North End) asked what impact there might be on Bexley if neighbouring Kent County Council declared a Section 114 in line with their recent warnings and he questioned the continuing reduction in reserves which are now below recommended levels. As the auditor has said, this money is going to run out.

Everywhere one looks projected savings are not being achieved and local government is in crisis after 13 years of cuts. Cabinet Member Leaf responded with references to Sadiq Khan (ULEZ) and Jeremy Corbyn (friend of Putin) and “the record of Labour’s economic failures while he (Stefano) supports more tax”.

Councillor John Davey - remember him? - said that ULEZ is impacting small business in the borough who are finding it difficult to get supplies and services from out-of-London contractors who will no longer cross the GLA boundary. (Good. I have always felt that ULEZ might be defeated by a concerted effort to starve the Mayor into submission.)

Councillor Cameron Smith (Conservative, St. Mary’s and St. James) asked how the Children’s Social Care overspend was being monitored and remarked on the increased popularity of the garden waste The service is bringing in an extra £300,000 a year. Cabinet Member Philip Read said the Care budget is monitored constantly but the demand keeps increasing and Covid is in part the cause of that. Richard Diment said about half of residents with gardens are paying the bin tax and suggested that £2·40 a collection is competitive with other boroughs, carefully ignoring the fact that I have family members in North East London who are still getting the service for free.

Councillor Daniel Francis (Labour, Belvedere) decided to blame transient Prime Minister Truss with a little bit of Brexit thrown in for good measure for residents feeling the financial pinch, especially on mortgage rates. Back on track he correctly identified reserve dipping, especially in election years, as a huge problem but “never, even under the Labour administration have things been as bad as in the last two. We will have to spend £32 million of reserves to balance the books within two years. 43% of total reserves and in non-ring fenced reserves it will be 55%. We have not followed our own recommendations. Is this correct?” (Daniel’s comments have been cut down to size but with the main thrust of them preserved - I hope.)

“In March Members opposite said they would deliver on the deep dives but by July 43% [of the savings] were said to be unachievable.” Similarly in March the deep dive recommended more CPZs [to raise more revenue] but in July “there was no political support for more Controlled Parking Zones. The reason is the lack of capacity to deliver things.” About a dozen items were listed as being pushed back to next year. Cuts have consequences.

You can always tell if the opposition has touched a financial nerve because the Leader will jump in with a few words designed to steer the Finance Director in the right direction,

When she was done, he commented on a few minor issues but did not refute Daniel Francis’s basic facts and figures. How could he when they were his? But he is “looking at all opportunities to mitigate the impact”. You can bet he will be or his Chief Executive ambitions will be doomed. All hands to the S114 pump!

 

7 October (Part 1) - It’s all bull

Yesterday I had to drop the Belton bomb as the sun came up and then prepare for a day out on the train. I went from a station that has a ruined abbey, a prison and a river close by to a station within a few minutes walk of a ruined abbey, a prison and the same River Thames. Reading in Berkshire at the far end of the Elizabeth line. I’ve not been to Reading station since trolley buses pulled up outside. The station was totally unrecognisable from when I used to watch the Paddington express speeding through while slipping its end coach for those who didn’t want to go all the way.

The Lizzie train didn’t break down and was only four minutes late. My appointment was in Reading’s Town Hall but it was in no way political unless you count unisex toilets as making a political statement. They were spotlessly clean while the Council run café area was filthy.

I think BiB had the Belton Birmingham news on line before the main news providers and in my rush I overlooked the point that Ms. Belton had been appointed for her expertise in the housing arena. As former Councillor Hackett says, Michael Gove the Levelling Up Secretary must be having a laugh. It is not unique as a Council, but Bexley has an appalling record on housing.

The word I couldn’t get away from while Reading bound was ‘obscene’. The jobs for the boys philosophy which infests government not to mention the pay level for someone whose only achievement has been job slashing is little short of obscene.

 

6 October - The non-stop gravy train

Apologies, that headline has been used before. About the same person too. Jackie Belton, Bexley’s Chief pole climber, who allegedly left to go and study. To study what was unknown but we now know that it is her pay slip.

It will be a mere £1,100 a day according to the appointment letter. (PDF)

I would like to be able to continue with a list of Ms. Belton’s achievements while in Bexley for the past four years but nothing has been recorded in these pages apart perhaps for having to go cap in hand to the Government to avoid bankruptcy.

At least her predecessor Gill Steward was on record for mending a dripping tap and depriving the press reporter of his table but Fanny Adams appears to have achieved the square root of you know what.

Appointment news source.
Birmingham Council S114 announcement.

 

5 October (Part 2) - Another Council boss gone

Apparently I missed at least a couple of Councils from the list of those which may be on the edge of bankruptcy and East Hampshire and Coventry should have been included.

Yesterday afternoon I thought that Micra Woman had returned to take revenge on me for photographing her car and maybe she had because there were marked similarities.

I asked her what she was doing and was told she was making a video. “Why in my garden?” “It is not your garden, this is communal space.” News to me and my title deeds but she did leave when asked.

Not in the Micra which didn’t leave until well into the evening, so probably just a lookalike. The Micra has not returned today and my neighbour has applied to Bexley Council for drive registration. Unless they change their dropped kerb rules I am not sure that will do any good. The problem is due to the bad road layout.

In a follow up to the rats leaving Bexley's sinking ship comment, a reader sent me this auto-response sent out from the address of the (former) top man in the planning Department.

 

5 October (Part 1) - They built a railway to Abbey Wood? We never saw that coming

Wow! We even went to the trouble of narrowing the station access and exit roads too!

The clown driving LR69 VOB (Photo 1) thought it was a good idea to overtake the long line of traffic in Abbey Road. A head on collision was only narrowly averted.
A bus attempts to negotiate the New Road junction which Bexley Council carefully reconstructed to make that manoeuvre as difficult as possible.

The traffic queue extends up Knee Hill towards Brampton Road.

The impatient clown in the white MG BF70 HZE (Photo 1 above) undertook the line of cars by driving on the footpath.
The selfish drivers of FE67 XPJ, CN13 WDP and LW19 EFM effectively reduced the flyover width from two lanes to one.

All photographs presented in chronological sequence and taken between 18:04 and 18:25 4th October 2023.

Two people standing around commented on the chaos. One lived in Sevenoaks but had driven to his parents’ home in Bexleyheath. He was waiting for them to pick him up. The second, desperate to use the public toilet which Greenwich Council has thoughtfully closed, had driven in from Dartford to pick up his daughter who was stuck on a train somewhere. (I took him to an alternative toilet.)

 

4 October (Part 3) - The lack of parking logic

Thanks to selfish Elizabeth line commuters local roads have gone from never seeing a Civic Enforcement Officer to getting two visits a day. I caught the CEO lady this morning with the intention of asking exactly why she didn’t ticket the drive blocking Micra. I know it is an awkward bit of road design courtesy of an incompetent Bexley Council but I was keen to know the official reason.

As I approached she was putting PCNs on two vehicles each of which had one wheel resting on the kerb. I know it is against the law but it actually obstructs the footpath less than a large vehicle with its wheels in the gutter and parked end-on. (Photo 3.) Never expect logic from any public body.

With tongue in cheek I suggested the blue van owner, a neighbour, should park lengthways against the kerb opposite because he would be parked legally and the police would never find the time to attend for obstruction because they are too busy arresting political party leaders. Not Sunak unfortunately.

I don’t think the CEO, nice lady that she always is, saw the point I was trying to make so I moved on to the intended question.

What is the technicality which protects Micra WG10 TKX? She floundered while I agreed that it was a tricky judgment but having put what comments she did make together, I think I have an inkling of it. She didn’t actually say what follows so it is wholly my own deduction.

You have to forget about the right angle bend. Imagine a dropped kerb like every other one you might see extending in a straight line past the house it serves, If the bent kerb was straight the Micra would be in the clear. On the other hand if the bend wasn’t there a car in the Micra’s position would block my neighbour’s drive to exactly the same extent as the Micra has done for four days out of the last six and it would likely get a PCN.

The CEO said she would need a ruling from on high to know what should be done, so my neighbour is formulating a suitable question.

Fortunately he owns a car even smaller than the Micra and by using the pavement and umpteen short distance shuffles he managed get it off the road and out of the clutches of the CEO.

Photos 1, 2 and 4 taken today.

 

4 October (Part 2) - The countdown to 114

The headline that caught my eye was that the Royal Borough was having to take urgent action to avert a Section 114 calamity and I immediately thought of Greenwich; but it was a real Royal borough not the imposter down the road. The King's home town of Windsor.

How many is that in the past week or two? Birmingham, Brighton, Havering, Thurrock, Woking and no doubt more.

One of my Council contacts reassuringly, I think, messaged me to say that while Bexley has the same level of debt as Windsor and the reserves are heading south at a rate of knots (†), they are still nearly four times greater than the Royal Borough.

As has been obvious for many years it is children and to some extent the elderly and the criminally inclined who threaten to bring Bexley to its knees. Below are some finance related comments to be found inside the current Public Cabinet Agenda. (PDF)

• The demand on the service exceeds the budget forecasted cost. The requirement for foster services could exceed supply.
• There is a risk that the Council does not protect vulnerable children. The upsurge in demand may also lead to increased financial pressure on the Council’s budget.
• The risk of harm to a vulnerable child is increased. As further social work is required, increased costs are incurred by the Council potentially exceeding the available budget. Limited resources may mean that additional cases are not seen in a sufficiently quick manner, leading to harm or further intervention being required
• The worsening economic position lead by rising inflation, will increase pressure on households - low income households in particular. The worsening economic position lead by rising inflation, will increase pressure on households - low
income households in particular.
• Deteriorating economic environment increases pressures on households and individuals. Additional financial stress could lead to an increase in domestic violence.
• There is a risk that costs increase as the Council pays for opiate users to have multiple treatments. Increasing opiate use is likely to lead to further health and social problems for users that impact on other Council and health services. The effectiveness of the treatment services and providers used should be reviewed.

Good to know that problem areas have been identified, but what is to be done about it?

† £14 million down in a year,

 

4 October (Part 1) - Bexley Council. Converting misery into money

I had forgotten about the Southeastern rail strike when I drove the mile to Sainsbury’s at 7 a.m. this morning. The roads were busy around Abbey Wood station but they always are and I managed to get there without being stopped by the two sets of pedestrian lights. How often does that happen?

While there I helped myself to 34 miles of free driving courtesy of Sainsbury’s EV chargers and got more than £7 off my £32 shopping basket using a Nectar card. The self service machine failed when I told it I had no bags and came up with a “moneychute error”. The assistant had obviously been on the relevant training course because after the machine failed to respond to a plethora of commands she transferred my bill to the adjacent machine where I was able to pay. It took a while but the longer it took the more free electricity Sainsbury’s were giving me.

I left at 8 a.m. and the roads were gridlocked and lazy drivers conveying lazy Elizabeth line passengers were stopping and U-turning on the flyover. Traffic was at a standstill as far as I could see up Knee Hill and its junction with Wilton Road was chaotic as buses and cars tried to get to the station in Gayton Road.

It is no wonder that Gayton Road is the most profitable car park in Bexley.

The queue of stationary traffic in Abbey Road extended beyond the CPZ boundary and cars were parked every which way in my road. I saw RY55 EBL block the red van in - it is hemmed in at the back end too - and a neighbour will have to be very careful if she takes her Audi out today.

At 9 a.m. the Micra showed up driven by a 20 plus year old woman. I asked her what she thought about parking in front of drives and blocking them. She said she hadn’t blocked anyone and in any case she didn’t care. Just like Bexley Council doesn’t care.

 

3 October (Part 4) - Cretinous commuter takes advantage of a cretinous Council

BiB readers are coming up with a lot of ideas on how to deal with WG10 TKX. I’m not sure what is supposed to be done with sticky tape; obscure the rear number plate perhaps and hope the police pull him over? Shaving foam was another suggestion along with a user guide but maybe builders’ expanding foam to fill the engine compartment would be a more memorable solution.

A pile of bird poo is probably not easy to arrange and a well placed nail might be considered a little over the top. As children we would push a large plug of potato in pea-shooter fashion (correction: spud-gun) up exhaust pipes which stopped the engine from running; sugar in the petrol tank was for the really bad boys.

I’m not too keen on letting tyres down either because when someone did that in the same road it was me who had to reinflate it.

There are also more serious reasons to leave not very well alone. I’m not personally affected by this moron without a conscience but if the Micra was damaged I would likely be suspect number one.

But that is not the main reason for taking no action.

If we scare Micra Man away he will eventually be replaced by another cretin and in the meantime any pressure that can be applied on an utterly useless Bexley Council will temporarily be ceased. Far better to to tolerate the Micra and show the Council up daily; which is after all what BiB has always done and Bexley Council must appreciate it or they might not be so keen on providing so much evidence.

As the first photo shows, there is a mirror image of the same situation opposite and Bexley Council has been known to take action there. The white van is not quite encroaching on the dropped kerb which is shared by something like eight residents so is safe from any PCN but another foot to its right blocking even 5% of the drive width and it would get a ticket. However blocking 100% of a drive shared by two people as the Micra driver does is wholly acceptable to a useless Council.

One reader suggested blocking Micra Man in the manner of Blade Runners intent on frustrating the Mad Mayor. However that cannot work because the space on front of the Micra is a registered drive and liable to instant ticketing. Knowing our incompetent and invariably unhelpful Council anyone who squeezed in behind WG10 TKX would be deemed a drive blocker.

 

3 October (Part 3) - Lessons learned? Probably not

The site Contact form is quite well used, mostly by senders reluctant to identify themselves, who often provide links to websites that they think I should know about. If there is a good excuse I mention them here.

One such messenger is more than a little concerned about the appointment of the Finance Director to the Chief Executive’s job and the likely appointment of his Deputy to his vacated post. He (an assumption on my part because the Contact Form is genuinely anonymous) has supplied an advert by a Recruitment Agency which also appears to be advertising the Bexley Finance Director’s job.

He comments as follows…

£7 million missing in Newham accounts. Members say chief accountant Hussain Alanezi and oneSource Director of Finance Paul Thorogood evade straight answers. Both were ex-Barnet employees. Newham Councillors therefore got an external view of the financial position here in www.newham.gov.uk/news/newham-council-publish-cipfa-report.
Neither Hussain nor Paul stayed at Newham or oneSource for much longer. Bexley made one smart move… leaving oneSource.
And Bexley’s 2021/22 accounts are still not signed off while the Chief Accountant has departed and Paul eyes the crown.

Mr. Anonymous recommends you read the following four year old web page. Somewhat incestuous I know!

 

3 October (Part 2) - The cretin is back

My neighbour expressed the fear that once the cretin who drives Micra WG10 TKX realised that Bexley Council is too lazy or too incompetent to tackle drive blocking he would return every day. And possibly he is right.

I kept my eye on the car periodically yesterday with my camera at the ready curious to know if the Micra is driven by a man or a woman but it was still there long after dark so I gave up, but it had gone by bed time.

It was back again this morning, quite early and a little further from the kerb than yesterday.

 

3 October (Part 1) - Give us a job

It is all change at the top in Bexley Council with some saying it is rats leaving a sinking ship. With the Finance Director lined up for the Chief Executive’s job we are going to need a replacement bean counter. If you fancy the job you had a week in which to respond, four of which have already gone.

It doesn’t look like a serious attempt at recruitment. That will be because their minds will already have been made up. Top Council jobs are only available to close mates.

 

2 October (Part 2) - Bexley Council, their management and political leaders are all absolutely useless

When Bexley Council finally got around to stopping the dangerous corner parking on nearby roads they said they had no idea where the displaced bad parkers would go despite it being obvious to most people. Some drivers would park even more stupidly.

The driver of Micra WG10 TKX is now a regular at blocking private drives. I have no idea what goes through such people’s tiny brains when they knowingly block a drive and go away for the next ten hours.

Perhaps having no consideration for anyone makes them the perfect candidate for a Council job because Bexley Council has refused to take action against WG10 TKX.

Last week a reader and near neighbour gently chided me for suggesting that Bexley Council will not issue PCNs in response to requests from private drive owners unless they are registered, and in the case pictured here, not even then. (Because being 81 centimetres from the kerb is not drive blocking!)

He offered the guidance to be found on Bexley’s website which does indeed say that they will respond to residents’ complaints but unfortunately it is not true. My immediate neighbour has been unable to get his car back on to his drive today and runs the risk of being ticketed himself.

Bexley Council not only refuses to protect residents with enforcement action, it has refused to restrict end-on parking or provide yellow lines or enforce the 50 centimetres from the kerb rule. Neither will they accept that the situation arises because of their damn fool road planning.

Elsewhere in the borough parking enforcement is similarly useless…

There is a car parked on the double yellow lines on Sidcup’s Church Road. I submit the online report at 12:12 pm - ref. 60331 - and sit in front of the window, to observe your department’s lightning response.
As I am typing this at 12:47, no CEOs in sight. I try calling 020 3045 300, option 5, option 3 - and, contrary to your assurances (voiced even through the Cabinet Member, I believe), there’s no operator, I am directed to submit an online form.
What’s up? Why is it that you cannot ensure parking enforcement in a town centre, at noon?

And when they do issue PCNs they write off the fines. What was reported here a week ago has now escalated through the local news media to the BBC’s website.

 

2 October (Part 1) - Bexley Council’s LGO failures with more to come

For the past couple of months I have been keeping an eye on the Local Government Ombudsman’s website because a reader tipped me off that after a year or more of fruitless struggling with Bexley Council he took his case to the Ombudsman and won.

My LGO site monitoring has taught me nothing so far except that the LGO refuses to accept most of the complaints made to it and of those that it decides to accept, most are rejected. If any are progressed to the point that Bexley Council is found guilty of maladministration you can be sure that things must have been pretty serious.

The three that went against the Council in the first three months of 2023 are tabulated below.

However the BiB reader’s complaint is yet to appear on the LGO website and I have the impression that the complainant will be reluctant to allow it to be further detailed here. To those who follow Bexley politics closely, particularly on X, his is a name that will be well known.

Not for publication, not yet anyway, he told me about the meeting at which his lawyer called out a Bexley manager’s lies and she began to scream hysterically about being patronised and threatening to close the meeting if challenged again. Such is the quality of Bexley’s senior management team.

I only ever made one complaint to the LGO. It was about Teresa O’Neill reporting me to the police for the unforgivable crime of being critical of Councillors.

it was rejected on the grounds that anyone can make a crime report to the police and it is up to them to sort the wheat from the chaff. I suppose there is logic in that but it breaks down somewhat when the police are under some sort of obligation to the complainant, as they certainly were back in 2011.

 

1 October (Part 3) - Corruption everywhere

When regurgitating some of Bexley Council’s dubious history it is sometimes difficult to know where to stop. Certainly that was the case with yesterday’s blog which included a link to the email sent by Michael Barnbrook to the Commissioners appointed by the Government to run Tower Hamlets Council. The object was to inform the Commissioners that their favourite for the Chief Executive job was under investigation for Misconduct in Public Office.

It stirred the memory of at least one reader who sent me an interesting link to the short lived Battle of Tower Hamlets website. It has not been updated since 13th June 2016 and in case it disappears a chunk of it is cheekily reproduced below.

I knew the story of how Will Tuckley came to be Chief Executive in Tower Hamlets but had not previously seen the story reported by a TH based commentator.

Mick Barnbrook had reported Will Tuckley and others to the police for orchestrating a tissue of lies designed to protect Bexley Council from the consequences of a minor misjudgment at a public meeting. As usual it was the cover up that did the damage. Bexley had a new Borough Police Commander and Mick as a retired Inspector in Bexley immediately updated him on the long history of dishonest collusion between Council and Police. The warning may have paid off because the new Commander shunted Mick’s complaint to Greenwich police for investigation. They took it seriously.

Mick assembled evidence of widespread lying from three Labour Councillors and one Conservative along with every member of the public present at the mismanaged meeting. Bexley Council’s lies extended to sending false Press Releases to the News Shopper and preparing untruthful statements attributed to Council staff at least one of whom knew nothing about them. When police reports were found not to support the Councilְ’s case they asked them to make retrospective amendments to their CAD records. Mick managed to obtain both before and after copies.

Although Mick Barnbrook was the complainant and I was only a witness, Mick had by then moved house from Blackfen to Ramsgate and Greenwich police adopted me as their local contact. They sent a file to the CPS along with the written evidence from ten witnesses that several Bexley Council employees led by Will Tuckley had lied.

And there was no response.

A whole year later the investigating officer who was about to leave his job asked to see me in a secret location to explain what he had heard had happened.

If you read the report below you will know that prosecution of Tuckley would be extremely embarrassing to the Commissioners running Tower Hamlets so the prosecution had to be stopped. But how when the evidence of lying had come from Councillors from both ruling parties?

Fairly easily as it turned out. My Detective friend said that the CPS, unprecedented in his experience, took a very long time to prepare the way forward. It was to appoint an independent barrister to judge the case but strip his copy of the file of supporting evidence.

The unsuspecting independent barrister reported that the case was essentially Mick Barnbrook’s word against Tuckley’s and a successful prosecution was therefore unlikely.

Neither Mick nor I was ever able to get the CPS report out of Greenwich police in part because the investigating officer had moved overseas. Corruption had won. The establishment relies on ordinary people running out of time and energy to pursue injustice and bad people win. The result is all around us.

From ‘The Battle of Tower Hamlets’.

 

1 October (Part 2) - Ulose

A week ago I admitted to being too often defeated by the incredibly poor search facility on Bexley Council’s website and to reinforce my sense of inadequacy our old friend Dimitri, AKA @tonyofsidcup, has found an interesting page relating to Ulez on Bexley’s website.

It reveals that in a consultation ending last July 90% of Bexley residents were against the imposition of ULEZ across Outer London and that standing up for them has so far cost almost £100,000. Khan is an expense that 90% of Bexley residents do not want and will presumably remember that next May.

 

1 October (Part 1) - The minutiae of parking rules are complicated

There was a train strike yesterday which means that London bound travellers flock to the Elizabeth line and Abbey Wood’s parking misery extends to the weekend.

The roads within the CPZ which are usually kept reasonably clear thanks to the 11-1 time restriction become crowded on strike afflicted weekends because it only operates Monday to Friday.

Nearer to home, that is, just outside the CPZ, a few of my neighbours pick up parking tickets almost daily. They did on Thursday, could have had one on Friday but were miraculously spared and yesterday they were fined again after returning home and finding nowhere to park in their own road or any adjacent one.

The rebellious streak in me says they should park in the road and block it because then they would be outside the Council’s jurisdiction and there is little chance of the police getting off of their lazy arses. The only time I made a report of a blocked road a very rude and ignorant police woman (Officer 244CC) insisted that blocked roads are a Council responsibility.

For as long as Bexley Council chooses to do nothing to face up to the Liz line parking issues it failed to see coming it will probably be raised here from time to time.

In one of several conversations with an enforcement officer a neighbour asked in my presence what could be done about people parking across driveways. His question wasn’t from the usual angle, his interest arose from the fact that he is engaged in a long term building project and it is convenient for contractors and delivery vehicles to park across his dropped kerb.

It was explained to him that if the dropped kerb is registered with the Council, and very few are, any car in front of it would be ticketed on sight without reference as to who the vehicle might belong to.

On unregistered dropped kerbs, like the concerned neighbour’s, no ticket would ever be issued for the same reason - but in reverse. The assumption would be that the vehicle belonged to the home owner or in some way associated with him.

My neighbour was reassured that his builders were safe from penalties.

It was this information that formed the basis of a recent blog which caused a reader to draw my attention to the Council’s dropped kerb guidance.

My drive is registered because it is only one car wide and is for my use only. Next door and the house beyond it have a double width dropped kerb with the complication that part of it goes around a right angled bend.

It does not qualify as a shared drive because the requirement of “usually wide enough for single vehicle access by two or more residents” excludes it. It is wider than “single vehicle access”.

As such the assumption is that it cannot be registered for parking enforcement but thanks to Bexley Council’s stupid road planning that may be arguable.

The kerb guidance goes on to say that a PCN can be issued to any vehicle parked in front of a shared or pedestrian dropped kerb, the latter being street corners etc. But next door the drives are not strictly shared by virtue of their width although the unusable bit around the right angled bend makes sharing a necessity.

The final guidance paragraph is more useful. As the CEO said to my neighbour and me they will not routinely ticket a car in front of a residential dropped kerb because it may be there with the permission of the home owner but they might do so on receipt of a report from the resident.

One wonders how the reporting source might be identified but the BiB reader’s contention that action might be taken against single access drive blocking looks to be correct. However the fact remains that Bexley Council more than once refused to help my immediate neighbour.