8 September - Where Bexley leads, Birmingham follows
Birmingham
City Council is on the brink of bankruptcy and has announced that it will have to cut services to statutory levels. This may not be an entirely
bad thing if there is less money to be spent on things like
woke street names, Low Traffic
Neighbourhoods and rarely used cycling routes.
They are not going to be spending money on
the Commonwealth Games again or
extending Clean Air Zones.
Get used to it Brummies, Here in Bexley the Council has not provided anything beyond the statutory services for ten years or more. All that is left in public hands is
Hall Place, management of which was
outsourced but found to cost more money than the in-house operation.
The few remaining leisure centres are privately run and little luxuries like splash parks, golf courses and
cinemas are all provided or paid for by private enterprise.
Bexley’s equivalent of The Birmingham Festival was last
held ten years ago and the borough is mercifully free of LTNs and cycle lanes.
It may be pretty much devoid of the nicer things in life and have almost the highest Council Tax in London but it is not yet bankrupt and looking at a 10% Council Tax rise like in Croydon.