31 December - Good riddance to 2024

I have lived through too many Socialist Governments. Clement Atlee (sweet rationing), Harold Wilson (the pound in your pocket), James Callaghan (Crisis, what crisis?), Anthony Blair (unlimited immigration and the Iraq War), Gordon Brown (financial crisis and that bigoted woman), David Cameron (Heir to Blair) and Rishi Sunak (highest taxes for 70 years). What could be worse?

When Labour came to power on the back of a catalogue of lies barely six months ago I was certain they would be a disaster for the UK and we were due a once in a generation reminder of just how bad Labour can be. Naively I was unprepared for a Government which could hate such a high proportion of its population and be willing to punish them, restrict their freedom under the threat of imprisonment or knowingly condemn some to death. That in the past 80 years is completely unprecedented.

Being only too well aware of how the minutiae of law making is so easily forgotten I decided to keep a record of things that most people will regard as wrong-headed or utterly stupid.

Probably I missed a few but my list is now 110 items long; an open goal for the Leader of the Conservative Party. Where is she by the way?

 

30 December - The outlook is gloomy

If you thought the weather over the past three months has been bloody awful you would be right. My solar panels which have been recording their power generation every 15 minutes since January 2011 show that October this year was the worst performing October since 2020 when output was 20% lower. In every other year October 2024 was beaten by between 20 and 50%.

November and December have been far worse than any other by a considerable margin, even the next worst December (2021) beats 2024 by 25% and 2024 was two and a half times behind the best, 2014.

November was much the same. Beaten by every one of the previous 13 years by between 25 and 55%. In practice I have had to pay Octopus Energy for electricity that could have come from the sun and lost around £100 of Feed In Tariff. Maybe I should have applied for a Bexley Box. (That is supposed to be a joke by the way!)

 

28 December - Big Man flies to China. Little Man flees from reality

While visiting the family business entrepreneur over Christmas I asked him what impact the Rachel from Complaints budget has had on a small limited company. The answer was a surprising “nothing really”. If 1·2% on National Insurance contributions is critical then you pay the staff 1% less than you had in mind for the next pay increase.

The “real killer” he says, is the Conservative’s mad decision to raise Corporation Tax from 19% to 25% which has just landed him with a bill five figures higher than it was last year. A business man who will not be supporting the Conservatives any time soon.

Trying desperately to comment on local matters requires a return to Sadiq Khan’s idiotic decision to adopt HGV safety regulations for London that differ from Ncap and the rest of Europe. The aforesaid son and his team of engineers seems to have cornered the market in vehicle safety consultancy with contracts with each of what he called “the Big Seven” and the European Union. The latest is that he has been engaged by manufacturers in both China and Japan, who unlike our hopeless Mayor are keen to adopt Euro Ncap standards.

“Will this mean Chinese and Japanese lorries on our roads?” I asked. The answer of course was “yes eventually”. They have done it with cars and to some extent with buses. Now it is HGV’s turn. Will Khan have been persuaded to stop ploughing a different furrow by then?

Note: Big Seven. DAF, Iveco, MAN, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Scania, Volvo.

 

23 December - Just a trifle? In the park and in the Budget

Almost two months ago @tonyofsidcup famously won his battle with Bexley Council after a Judge ruled that his FOIs were not vexatious and were performing a public service when reported here. However it did not cover an Appeal against a refusal to answer which was at that time lodged with the Information Commissioner.

The latter was an enquiry about the contract placed by Bexley Council with a company called City Events which turned out to be a bit of a fly by night. Not long established and and not lasting very long.

@tony smelled a nepotistic rat although I had been given assurances that that was without foundation.

City Events had been contracted in something of a rush to run the Party in the Park which was intended to thank the Covid volunteers. Now that the Information Commissioner has ruled in @tony’s favour, Bexley Council has been forced to release the correspondence file.

Maybe @tony has spotted something that I have missed but it looks to me that just over three weeks to fix up a party in the park only confirms that there was an element of lastminute.com about it and the worst that can be levelled at Bexley Council is that they should have got their act together sooner and dallying may have impacted on value for money.

Once again one must wonder why Bexley Council’s reaction to most things is to attempt to hide the facts. To that end @tony provides a useful service.

(Note: I subsequently noticed that I had been misled by the emails not being filed chronologically. The earliest supplied is dated 1st June and clearly not the first. The last was dated 5th July, a month before the date of the Party. ‘Just over three weeks to fix up a party’ becomes five. If what @tony has uncovered is the whole story it might be a storm in a teacup but how did City Events get to know about the party? One can only guess.)

He had a minor success with another enquiry too. As the parent of a young child he took far more interest in the contraction of the Children’s Centres which was planned to save £396,000 than I did.

The decision was eventually confirmed in September 2021 after Cabinet debated the issue at length. There was a question in Council on the same subject in November 2022.

Thanks to @tony’s FOI we now know how much Bexley Council has been spending on Children’s Centres. £464,000 in 2019/20. £484,000 in 2020/21 and £342,000, £359,000 and £363,000 in subsequent years.

One might therefore deduce that the cut backs in 2022 saved around £100,000 a year, somewhat short of the near £400,000 which Councillor Perfect (Labour, Northumberland Heath) queried in 2021. Press Release. (PDF)

However the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services has said this is not comparing like for like because the services provided to the very youngest - one and two year olds - has been massively improved and because the service now concentrates on the most deprived areas.

 

22 December - Freezing this Christmas

You will be aware that a song parodying the Prime Minister has topped the downloads charts or whatever it is that has replaced Alan Freeman and Top of the Pops on the BBC Light Programme. However that is just the tip of the iceberg if that is not too bad a pun.

YouTube’s algorithms, having learned my interest in this disastrous Labour Government, presented me with 15 similar songs earlier today, some of them much better than the dirge that has hit the headlines.

Have you ever known a Government that has garnered so much hatred?

Before the election I was of the opinion that every generation should be made to learn the hard way that voting Labour is always a bad idea and took a little delight in looking forward to the discomfort that would be wreaked upon them because they would deserve it. But not what has been delivered, that can only be the work of malevolent incompetents and no one deserves that.

I also forecast that Starmer would last no more than 18 months but my reasoning was entirely wrong. I thought right of centre policies (Starmer fooled me too) would not be appreciated by the hard left Momentum. In fact it is much more likely that Labour Councillors and MPs will rebel over the probable loss of their jobs.

Not that that is good news. If Starmer goes who can take his place? Rayner, Reeves, Cooper, Lammy and anyone who says Streeting should give their head a wobble.

Happy Christmas and a Preposterous New Year to you all.

 

21 December - French’s letter

An anonymous submission from a Welling resident who goes by the unlikely name of Fluke provides me with Louie French’s proud boasts for the achievements of 2024. Please note he does not claim any to be his own and is content to fall back on the Royal We.

The accompanying comment suggests I am supposed to analyse the list and comment critically but I am not so very sure Louie has strayed far from the truth; not by political standards anyway.

I know nothing of a Diagnostics Centre in Sidcup as my references are always to QEH Woolwich. From what I have seen there recently I would imagine £9·6 million doesn’t go very far in the NHS.

Louie headed up the political group seeking the restoration of the Loop Line trains which his own Government caused to be cancelled. From what I have heard Southeastern people say at the Transport Users’ Sub-Committee meetings local politicians did help to turn their minds towards restoring the services and now that a few extra are timetabled (from last Monday) they do seem quite keen to bring back more when passenger numbers justify it; and they have been improving recently.

Contrary to what you may have read on another local website, Louie is right to have said that off-peak services should return soon. Southeastern managers got as close as they dared to promising it at the last Transport Users’ meeting.

At Council meetings Teresa Oְ’Neill has claimed to have led the campaign for one of the first banking hubs. She made no mention of Louie but maybe that is not significant.

Step free access to Bexley station was delivered using Conservative Government funds but if Network Rail is to be believed Bexley was favoured simply because it reached the top of their own priority list. If the decision was anything much to do with local politics then surely Erith station would have become step free many years ago. The disabled cannot even get a direct train to London from Erith. Maybe they are supposed to think that rush hour Loop Line trains are a good enough substitute.

The new pedestrian crossing is a strange one. As recently as November 2022 Bexley Council stated publicly that there was no justification for installing one outside Bexley Church of England Primary School. “A review of the safety record did not indicate a need to act as a priority over other work”.

According to @atonyofsidcup’s enquiries to head teachers the school wasn’t asked for an opinion. Maybe a new political broom put his shoulder to the wheel.

The tennis courts were funded by the Lawn Tennis Association. Bexley Council is quite good at getting other people to pay for their schemes and claiming the credit for themselves. I am looking at one right now. It is called Lesnes Abbey Park and most of the money came from the Lottery.

For balance I must now compare Louie with my own MP’s achievements.

Err…

Well that was easy. I am genuinely not aware of any.

Note: For the benefit of out-of-town readers, I should explain what the Loop Line is. There are three railway lines from London to Dartford and they all go through the borough of Bexley. North, Middle and South.  It is possible to run London to London trains in a ‘Loop’ which is very useful in a borough with an unfriendly North/South road pattern. The trains used to run every 30 minutes throughout the day. I think we now have four at peak hours. Better than none.

 

20 December (Part 2) - The Wrong ’Un

I hitched a lift to Crook Log with the intention of catching the first bus into Bexleyheath. A 96 approached and the timetable said it was only 26 minutes to Bluewater so there was a quick change of plan. Unusually I sat in the front seat upstairs to enjoy the view. It was the most uncomfortable journey imaginable as the front wheels dropped into a multitude of potholes. I shall revert to sitting in a middle seat in future which will even out the bumps. Simple physics!

A short traffic queue at the top of Gravel Hill and a very slow trip through Dartford stretched 26 minutes to 42. Bus drivers must have the patience of Saints.

Half an hour in Bluewater and £30 lighter I was back waiting for a bus home. Three 96s arrived in quick succession and after a short delay the second of them opened its doors. By the time it approached Bexleyheath it was nearly four o’clock and the bus was crammed full of mainly standing school children.

After going nowhere for five of ten minutes the elderly lady sitting next to me. complete with shopping trolley and unable to see a window began to panic. “Is this Clocktower” she asked.”

“No, we are approaching the Civic Offices; two more stops.” When we finally got to the roundabout the reason for the hold up became clear. A succession of pedestrians was setting the traffic lights to red every few seconds and the traffic queue extended back over the roundabout impeding progress in every direction. I watched three cycles of the lights on Erith Road before the bus was able to force its way on to the roundabout after which it had a clear run into Market Square.

On recent Thursday evenings I have been meeting like minded residents in a pub in Bexleyheath. An SL3 would be the preferred bus to Lion Road (Councillor Davey please note) but over the last four weeks the shortest wait has been 28 minutes. (According to the TfL Bus App because apparently the Elizabeth line terminus does not justify a departure board.)

I drank nothing in the pub because I ration myself to a maximum of two pints a week and I had already reached that limit.

While there I was recognised and the conversation moved from bus delays to road congestion by design and from there the knockout punch. “Why do you think Bexley’s Highways Department is based on lies and incompetence?” (As if the latter is not obvious to all.)

I trotted out the old story about Andrew Bashford using Transport Research Laboratory reports to justify making Abbey Road more dangerous than it was before but I was met with scepticism if not total disbelief. At this stage I began to think the lady was Andrew Bashford’s sister or something. I said I would send her the evidence which I would except that I do not have any contact details. So here’s something that has not been published before…

23rd July 2009.

That of course was before he knew that my son was Technical Lead of the Department that published it and at the time Co-Chairman of the European Union’s Committee on road transport related things.

For obvious copyright reasons I cannot publish TRL’s reports and the best that can be done to prove I have read them is show you the two front covers.

The accompanying reply said that Bexley Council’s response to my complaints was “meaningless”. I, along with most Bexley residents, may have been successfully blinded by Bexley’s science but not the report authors.

The reply did not come until the 28th due to duties in Brussels.

For a more recent example of idiocy which every Bexley driver will have experienced I refer readers back to the 96 bus trip from Bluewater to Bexleyheath. In March 2018, soon after those traffic lights began their reign of terror over Watling Street, Labour Leader Stefano Borella voiced his concerns.

Andrew Bashford defended his madcap idea by saying that the lights didn’t hold up traffic for long, forgetting that any one of the four going red holds up traffic on all four entry and exit points.

I wonder if there is a TRL report on that too?

Note: Readers unfamiliar with Bexleyheath may wish to know that The Wrong ’Un is a Wetherspoons pub and the SL3 not-so Express bus stops right outside.

 

20 December (Part 1) - Liz line commuters go green

I have not seen this before. Dumped outside my house around nine yesterday morning until early evening.

Where’s the nearest Santander Docking Station?

(Bin left over from last Friday.)

I suppose I should own up to a mistake. I make it a rule not to report bad parking by neighbours inconvenienced by Liz line commuters because it is a problem wholly caused by Bexley Council. Why should they profit from their own lack of foresight?

However the BMW ticketed four days ago belonged to a visitor to my immediate neighbour. A new occupant in a house sold to a Nigerian landlord in 2006. He told me he would only rent to Nigerians and he has been as good as his word. There must have been ten or more in 18 years. Is that legal?

How was I to know it was a visitor? Why didnְְ’t the visitor use the empty drive?

The last family moved out in August and I have yet to see the new occupants. They moved to Lincolnshire and sent me an enormous Christmas hamper. I am not expecting to get one from their replacements.

 

19 December - Simply despicable

This is a screenshot I have been holding on to for the past seven weeks. It shows the scene in Parliament soon after the moment Rachel from Accounts confirmed she would deprive old people of their heating allowance and allow 4,000 of them, on Labour’s own assessment, to succumb to hypothermia. Some already have.

If you look carefully you will see that one of the ghouls relishing the possible death of your mother is the new MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford. Interesting to see that the only exception is Diane Abbott.

I would like to think that the very few local Labour people I have got to know over recent years don’t really support freezing their mothers but I fear I might be wrong.

Gathering together the various comments that have come my way from Conservative sources since the Bexley Box arrived on the scene I think I can be pretty sure of the following…

The Box idea came from Council Leader Teresa O’Neill OBE (and whatever other awards she may have persuaded Boris Johnson to bestow upon her since I stopped counting). If the scheme is a thoroughly good one she will take the credit. If there is a suggestion that it might not be perfect and could be improved she will point out that it was devised in conjunction with Age Concern and woolly socks, gloves and porridge oats have their full support.

If it was down to me I would have asked Age Concern to identify the most needy and pay their Winter electricity or gas bill up to a maximum of £200.

All Councillors were asked to donate and at least some of the Conservatives did so with three figure sums. I suspect that they all dug deep or their selection for 2026 (being made right now) might be in jeopardy.

In my opinion, donations have been badly handled, no individual donation has been acknowledged and even Councillors have noticed and commented on the same. Every single Labour Councillor refused to put their hand into a pocket (information from two well known Tories) leaving us to suppose that they are all as keen to see old people freeze as their erstwhile colleague Daniel Francis.

Even if they have misgivings about the withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Allowance, brainless tribal loyalty to the party leader must take precedence over protecting the most vulnerable in society. Heartless.

I suspect that Daniel Francis will not be re-elected when this worst ever Government finally falls apart. In this week alone I have socialized with a total of 15 different people of pensionable age and the hatred for Starmer and his bunch of incompetent traitors knows no bounds.

Now they have reneged on their promise to compensate the WASPI women too. Labour appears not only to have a death wish for elderly people but a death wish on their own electoral prospects too. Idiots led by bigger idiots.

 

18 December - Well done Jeremy

Within a couple of hours of taking the Mickey out of the local Labour Councillors’ Facebook banner yesterday they had fixed it.

To be fair it is very easy to overlook such things and I have previously noted horribly out of date Conservative web pages and about one month in three I forget to update the ‘This month’, ‘Last month’ entry on the Bonkers’ menu.

Getting rid of the stray white text at the bottom of the banner is a 20 second PhotoShop job. Maybe Jeremy will find the time at the weekend. If not I will send him a copy.

 

17 December - Oh! Jeremy Fosten

Many of the ward boundaries in Bexley were changed in 2018 and my own lost a bit of Thamesmead and the slightly posher areas to the South. It gained ground further to the dilapidated East. As such the ward cannot be described as Labour since time began but it has been for ten years, more in some parts.

If I can think of anything tangible that has been achieved in those years I will let you know but I shouldn’t feel all that unkind in saying that because its newest Councillor Jeremy Fosten thinks there is plenty to do and has been charging around in an effort to improve things.

One bee in his bonnet is installing CCTV and he somehow found four police officers for a publicity shot in Nuxley Road. In a ward that doesn’t appear to have a functioning Police Panel.

What have his fellow Councillors been doing? Jeremy implies ‘Not a lot’.

Something he could do is go to this image on his Facebook page and raise his sights just a little bit. To the banner headline. (See below.)

Is it really a good idea for Jeremy to remind his voters that Belvedere was once represented by a Grannie Freezer?

And when he has fixed the Facebook banner maybe he will turn his attention to his email Inbox. No Belvedere Councillor responded to the cry for help that came from Methuen Road.

Screenshot taken today.

 

16 December (Part 2) - Thank you Bexley Council, again

Facebook is not my favourite place, full of lost cats and Moaning Minnies is too often the case. They were out in force yesterday. Bexley Council is ‘Disgusting’ for trying to do a little something to counteract the Labour Party’s determination to freeze an estimated 4,000 people to death this year.

‘Disgusting’ and absolutely disgusting was not the opinion of just one isolated, err, I am searching for a more appropriate word but moron is probably going to have to do. To add to Disgusting we had Insulting, Laughable, Appalling and a Bad Joke.

One suggestion was to complain to one’s Councillor. Fat lot of good that would do me. My Councillor works for the MP who thought it was a good idea to risk bumping off old people.

Several Conservative Councillors attempted to defend the scheme, among them James Hunt, Philip Read, John Davey, Sue Gower and the wife of Councillor Peter Reader.

With hindsight I would agree the scheme now looks a bit rushed and a small electric foot blanket might be more beneficial than hats, gloves and porridge but the negativity was beyond belief with some nit pickers complaining that the volunteer delivery drivers might be breaking the terms of their car insurance policies and shouldnְ’t do it.

Why are these Minnies moaning rather than digging into their own pockets, if not to help fund Bexley’s Box scheme but to make sure the old people in their own lives are kept warm?

As James Hunt said, you do something to help and you get complaints. You do nothing and the same people complain.

It’s not perfect but to fully fund the loss of the Fuel Allowance in Bexley would top seven million. Instead we have Conservative Councillors making significant personal donations,

Out of curiosity I asked if I was eligible for a Box and found I was which maybe indicates a weakness in the scheme, but one must not forget that Bexley’s Conservative Councillors did at least take the initiative to counteract the actions of the MPs for Bexleyheath & Crayford and Erith & Thamesmead.

Now that pair really are disgusting.

Presumably no Labour activist or Councillor disagrees with that assessment; none found their way to Facebook to explain why they think old people should freeze. Fortunately the Facebook Moderator quickly came to their rescue by switching off comments. Former Councillor and Facebook Moderator Danny Hackett told me long ago why that might be.

Barking, Haringey, Kingston, Richmond and Wandsworth Councils are offering real money to those who just miss out on receiving what remains of the Winter Fuel Allowance. Meeting the eligibility criteria might be difficult.

 

16 December (Part 1) - Thank you Bexley Council

I have not made a bad parking report to Bexley Council since last August - until today that is.

Came around to thinking it was a waste of time. They won’t take action against the end on parking which can block the road and makes access to No. 2 near impossible and sometimes they don’t turn up at all.

I don’t report pavement parkers because the alternative is usually a blocked road about which Bexley Council is not interested. One might say sometimes encourages.

Then this BMW showed up around 10 a.m. this morning. Completely blocked access to No. 4 and I could only get out by driving left into the spaces belonging to the flats opposite, turn around there and squeeze through the narrow gap. Reported at around 11 a.m. and a well deserved ticket 20 minutes later.

It is odd that Bexley Council has done nothing to help residents here and ignored the result of the July consultation, but just one report of a theoretical obstruction in Methuen Road has the painters out in next to no time.

There is something very suspicious about Methuen Road. Residents’ wishes overruled and not a single Councillor has shown any interest.

Note: The uncollected bin (Photo 2) is not really part of the 0·01% missed that Richard Diment has been bragging about. It was put out about 20 seconds after the dustmen called and they didn’t come back for it. Doubt they even saw it.

 

15 December - Court in the act

A year ago a Judge sitting in Bromley County Court awarded @tonyofsidcup £1,500 against a builder who had badly let him down. Costs brought the sum owed to £2,324 and it was the fifth award against the same company in just a handful of months.

The builder responded by saying he was £98,000 in debt but he would “personally deliver it to @tony and his family”.

On 11th July the builder’s van was video’d opposite @tony’s home and coincidentally an enormous builder’s hammer came flying through his window and landed on his daughter’s favourite chair.

The police took very little interest until a well known local figure whose identity @tony wishes to protect (no idea why!) lent support and even then the case only merited the attention of a part time copper. However six weeks ago a file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service who are perfectly capable of prosecuting truth tellers within a day or two of their alleged offence. Nothing for @tony yet from the CPS.

 

12 December - This and that

As of this late Thursday afternoon I can see no Bexley related news this side of Christmas so it’s yet another fall back on brief snippets. If I don’t see you within the next two weeks, then Happy Christmas to you all.

Lessons will be learned
With news headlines once again reporting the appalling death of a young girl at the hands of a parent and Social Workers bleating on the radio that they are too overworked to heed the constant reports of screaming made by neighbours, maybe it is time to remind ourselves that similar things have happened here in Bexley.

It is an oversimplification but nevertheless true that Bexley Council ignored medical notifications and reports that Rhys Lawrie was attending school covered in bruises and one of the Council’s excuses was that it was the Christmas party season and they would look into the situation after the holidays in January.

By then Rhys was dead.

The post-mortem revealed 39 separate injuries. The police said they were caused by natural childhood playfulness, falling off a sofa etc. The blood on the wall was of no interest to them.

Something is very wrong with child care arrangements nationally and on past performance, nothing will be done about it.

Broken refuse bin
A quick return to a recurrent theme. The bin that has been without a working lid for several years causes huge expense and Bexley Council simply doesn’t care.

The bent hinge could be fairly easily fixed and maybe the brakes could be looked at too so that Storm Darragh does not blow it down the street.

Methuen Road
The residents of Methuen Road have received an answer to their Freedom of Information request as to why their road was singled out for double yellow lines on their only junction.

“We will listen to our residents” said the Tory election candidates. (Photo 1)

Were residents in favour? No, they were twelve to one against.

Had Country Style complained of access for their refuse trucks being difficult? No, not even once. It was however suggested that an ambulance might not be able to get through. Another act of desperation was that pedestrians could more safely cross the road which is debatable to say the least given that traffic will have been slightly speeded up.

Who was consulted? Everyone on Methuen Road so the Council said but of the group I met all but three residents denied they were given any warning. Would I believe a word that the Highways Manager says? Answers on a postcard…

Two of the pictures above are of the junction nearest to the busy Abbey Wood station. No double yellow lines. What’s different to Methuen Road?

Bexley Box
I have been on the receiving end of emails from within Bexley Council on the operation of the Bexley Box scheme. Some disquiet is expressed; I wouldn’t put it stronger than that but I too am beginning to harbour suspicions.

Council Leader O’Neill has been trumpeting its success with references to the donations from her favoured businesses. That is difficult to criticise although the Council insider does. Why is there little or no observance of charity law and what does Capita expect from their £10,000 donation after they made it public knowledge?

How many ordinary Bexley residents donated? Not even in general terms has the Baroness thanked them, only businesses and similar groupings. I don’t know how much each Box is worth but I would hope that my own donation might pay for a dozen or maybe twenty.

Cabinet Members know about it; I didn’t expect thanks as such, but an acknowledgement might have been nice. They could have claimed the income tax back if they had any sense and that is something the Council insider is worried about too.

Is it just a political stunt to get one over our two ‘wicked’ (© Peter Craske) MPs?

I don’t regret sending the money, but I wouldn’t do it again.

’Tis the Season to be Merry
Two celebratory meals with friends this week.

Christmas Dinner booked well in advance in the Woolwich Beefeater. No turkey or roast potatoes or Brussels sprouts available. Only grills, steaks and fish and chips except that they had no chips either. I waited one hour and 54 minutes for my meal to arrive. Nice but tiny.

Impromptu meal in Dartford Wetherspoons earlier today. Served in six minutes, two thirds the price of Beefeater, much bigger serving and a pint of beer thrown in. The Beefeater had run out of orange juice too. Why did they agree to take the booking? Never again.

Octopus Energy
I have several times moaned about Octopus Energy wanting to debit me £172 a month when only once in the several years I have been with them has the total gas and electricity bill gone into three figures - and that was before I took steps to get the total down. I ignored their recommendation and paid only £25 a month all year round which builds a Summer surplus and is just about enough to see me through the Winter. Last week I moved to a slightly cheaper tariff - from Octopus Go to Octopus Intelligent Go - and whether coincidence or not I do not know, but the phone app changed slightly and now it recommends £25. Electricity is charged at only 7·5 pence a unit overnight. I use almost none during peak hours.

Apart from that single issue Octopus has been very good.

 

11 December - Now what?

Drip, drip, drip. It started at 238 Woolwich Road six years ago. Bexley Council’s Tory supporting friend of the Planning Committee Chairman’s wife built a concrete edifice in the rear garden of a house he had bought earlier the same year. Well not quite in; according to Bexley it slightly encroached on to Lesnes Abbey Woods. No planning permission obviously but in Bexley that may not matter a great deal if you know your way around the system. After ping-ponging through the Planning Committee a few times permission was granted retrospectively for what neighbours had described as a nuclear bunker.

Its construction required the felling of several trees, not only in the garden of 238 but also next door at number 240. The residents there were deceived into thinking they would get some free landscaping from their new friend. It became such an eyesore that they decided that the only way to escape it was to sell up and move away. Unfortunately no one wanted to buy into such destruction and the only option was to sell to the owner of 238.

The whole story is Indexed here. Extensions have been allowed and now more of the garden is to be developed. A 45 by 30 foot garden shed. One in each garden apparently although the drawings are both labelled 238.

No ordinary shed, this is to be a gymnasium, art room, music room, cinema etc. Anything that takes the owner’s fancy.

 

10 December - Who is the nosiest of them all?

Fresh from his release from Vexatiousness Prison, @tonyofsidcup has returned to asking questions. Sometimes rather niche and obscure ones.

He may not agree but this one looks like an attempt to see which of our Councillors is the most curious about what the Council does with our money. Or maybe he simply wanted to identify the apparently lazy.

It will come as no surprise at all that Cabinet Member David Leaf tops the nosy parker list; how else would he always be so well informed when faced with a question by an opposition Councillor?

If you click here and scroll to the bottom of the list you will discover that the Independent Councillor for Crayford does least to justify his £10k a year and Councillor Craske is not a lot better.

Labour Councillors occupy six of the top nine positions and Caroline Newton is the lowest ranking Cabinet Member.

No real surprises but maybe Esther Amaning (Labour, Belvedere) beating Richard Diment (Conservative, Sidcup) was not what I expected to see.

Actually it is @tony who is the nosiest of all.

 

8 December - The Methuen Road mystery

After three readers alerted me to newspaper reports on the situation covered here on 18th November with the implied question, why have you ignored it? I thought I had better explain why.

The initial plan was to wait for Bexley Council to answer the Freedom of Information request first submitted in July and resubmitted in October after Bexley Council lost the original and tear it apart if I could. For that everyone is still waiting.

The other reason is that the News Shopper report was in my opinion a dreadful piece of one sided journalism of the type one might expect from an organisation with a contract to publish Bexley Council’s Public Notices. If you search this website thoroughly you can read how investigative journalists were moved to non-jobs for going into too much detail about a dishonest Bexley Council.

The Methuen Road story went on to be repeated in the Daily Mail and more recently in The Sun from which the photo above is ‘stolen’. Despite the credit to SWNS, the photo is mine, taken last Sunday.

Before delving further into this story I think it is important that readers should know that Poplar Mount is a cul-de-sac and as such does not suffer through traffic. A Google Earth roof count suggests that there are 25 houses on the left hand (East) side and 18 on the right. Also on the right is Methuen Road, another cul-de-sac with another 18 houses approximately. So a close community of about 60 households who manage their parking requirements amicably together.

My real interest is not in their parking issues but whether Bexley Council has been engaging its dirty tricks department as they did back in 2009 when my interest in their activities was first aroused.

Long term readers may safely skip this four paragraph reminder.

The Council narrowed Abbey Road, Belvedere and slightly reduced clear sight lines for drivers on a road which on their own admission did not have a record of accidents. The object was to put a cycle lane on a widened footpath but not at bus stops where cyclists were redirected on to the road.

There are about 20 roads and cul-de-sacs to the North of Abbey Road, the residents of which can only access the outside world via the narrowed section of Abbey Road. Only four of them were consulted along with a fifth road to the South which has alternative exits. The process was handled by Mr. Andrew Bashford (Team Leader Traffic Projects). I argued with him at length and along the way discovered that (then) Cabinet Member Craske had dismissed every single objection to Bashford’s scheme.

Eventually Mr. Bashford got fed up with me and pulled his master stroke. He said that his scheme was fully compliant with Transport Research Laboratory reports numbered 641 and 661 which specified how roads might be safely narrowed. At £175 a copy he had my arguments well and truly scuppered didn’t he?

Except that he didn’t. My son was the senior consultant in the department that published those reports and he came to look at Abbey Road. A recipe for head on collisions was his verdict and so it has proved. Fatalities too. Mr. Bashford had proved that he was prepared to seriously stretch the truth in support of Bexley Council and exactly the sort of chap they are looking for. Mr. Bashford is now Head of Highways in Bexley and the man behind most of Bexley’s traffic problems - and Methuen Road.

Why did he pick the piffling little junction between Poplar Mount and Methuen Road for the double yellow treatment? He has of course got the Highway Code going for him because it deprecates parking within ten metres of a junction but it took me and my neighbours a very long time to get double yellows installed in our roads and within half a mile of Methuen Road there are literally dozens of piffling little junctions and some not so piffling that are devoid of any yellow paint. What is special about Methuen Road?

The 90 residents who signed the Methuen Road petition think that they have one resident who hates cars and has admitted as much. It is alleged that that single resident asked for yellow lines to be installed and Bexley Council for reasons as yet unknown decided to make lining their junction a top priority. The result is a reduction in parking spaces in a road where the situation is already difficult. Only the nearest three residents admit to being notified of the Council’s intention and just one notice was affixed to a lamp post - positioned such that in a cul-de-sac fewer that 20 households would ever pass it by.

By the time the residents got organised it was too late to stop it. The announcement went up on 31st October but Cabinet Member Diment had been asked to sign the order on 10th October. Why the haste? Why the lack of warning? How is it that only three residents admit to knowing what was coming?

It is almost as if Bexley Council is pulling stunts to do someone a favour. It sounds far fetched but 15 years of dealing with Bexley Council doesn’t let me rule it out. Why has not one local Councillor replied to enquiries?

The petition could not be submitted until 11th November. Nevertheless it was answered.

Mr. Bashford falls back on the Highway Code argument but does not explain why Methuen Road needs special treatment while dozens of others do not and correctly claims that improved sight lines improve safety. Presumably not by much where vehicles are unlikely to be exceeding 5 m.p.h. It is however pleasing to see how he has changed his mind since Abbey Road in 2009 when he was keen to facilitate head on collisions.

He also favours the extra manouevering space provided by a reduction in parking space which is a complete reversal on Bexley Council’s policy of narrowing roads wherever possible.

He claims to have been pressurised by road users in the plural which some may doubt and says that several site visits were made to assess the situation. This from a Council which only a couple of weeks ago said it did not have the resources to progress its proposed CPZ schemes.

It is stated that the Cabinet Member was made aware of views both for and against the scheme but the document put before him (PDF) includes nothing other than resident’s objections and his department’s rejections. Is Richard Diment not part of the Listening Council?

In 2009 I concluded that ‘Ae n – d r oo   b AE sh f or d’ (for that is how he asks us to address him) could be a stranger to the truth and he has not yet convinced me that I am wrong.

Maybe when he answers the Freedom of Information request I will change my mind.

Methuen Road residents turn out for their photoshoot in the rain.

 

7 December (Part 3) - Probably untrue then. Definitely not true now

Bexley Council used to brag that its residents were the happiest in London although it is several years since BiB last noted them doing it. Bad they may be in 2024 but not nearly as dishonest as in days gone by.

These Happiness Surveys are not what one might call scientific but in Bexley that is pretty much the norm, so why not another?

This one is the work of estate agents Rightmove who say that Bexley is close to being bottom of its nationwide list.

Whatever happened to the proud boast that Bexley was, if not top dog, at least one of the better boroughs in London?

Perhaps it will teach them embroidering the truth when there are residents with long memories is not a good idea.

This item came from such a resident who accompanies his news with the comment “I think we know why. Traffic. Parking. Dictatorship. Poor policing. Useless Council. Closed shops. Poor trains.”

Is that all?

How come the Socialist Republic of Greenwich doesn’t make the list?

 

7 December (Part 2) - When is a Consultation not a Consultation? (When it gives the wrong answer!)

For 35 years Bexley Council ignored the parking problems they engineered into my road and others nearby. Planning approval was gained in the middle 1980s and it included designated parking areas but they were never marked out. Occasionally that created an access problem but more often it created a danger on a blind bend and the following photos may give you an idea of what was going on. Some drivers have never read the Highway Code.

Old photos. No yellow lines.

Bexley Council simply didn’t care and refused to put yellow lines on minor residential junctions. I suppose they had their reasons; there are probably hundreds of them and the likelihood of them providing a decent PCN income is pretty much zero. (Go on Google Earth and browse around your area as I have just done. Most corners are not embellished with double yellow lines, sometimes not even where minor roads meet a main road.)

And then the Elizabeth line came along and made what had always been bad, far worse.

But still Bexley Council did nothing; not even when I sent them pictures of their own refuse trucks which couldn’t get through. Acknowledge my existence? No, don’t be silly.

But one day the police couldn’t get through and on another no one could get through at all and Councillor Hinkley began to take an interest. Eventually yellow lines were painted on corners and most of our problems went away, unless of course Kelly Wilkinson was visiting.

Best part of a year later, in response to continued complaints, Bexley Council sent out a Consultation document to see if residents would prefer a Controlled Parking Zone. Note that the Council called it a Consultation because now that the results are not what they were hoping for it is merely an informal survey. An informal survey so unimportant that it was sent to every address in the area by Royal Mail at 80 pence a go.

Nothing much has been heard of it since. There were off the record comments at the Transport Users’ Sub-Committee that the Lesnes Abbey CPZ would go ahead and residents would be informed by the end of November but adjacent CPZ areas might not. I understand that the Belvedere CPZ was not so popular. Lesnes houses mainly have off road parking areas while that is more of a rarity in Belvedere,

There was some indirect news buried in the Agenda of the recent Cabinet meeting. While recording mitigations against the financial squeeze it said this…

In Place [Directorate], it [mitigation] relates mainly to Parking, where use of Felixstowe [Road] car park is lower than anticipated, controlled parking zones no longer going ahead or where there is insufficient resource to deliver the review of on and off-street parking spaces.

What does that mean apart from Bexley Council acknowledging that charging £16 a day to park when next door Sainsbury’s with a more easily accessible car park will let you stay 7 to 11 for a fiver is the sort of damn fool thing to be expected of Bexley Council? Does it mean that the CPZ cash cow is in jeopardy? If so does that mean the old ones where residents rejected longer hours or the new ones too? Are they so short of staff that everything has ground to a halt?

If the Lesnes CPZ goes ahead by popular demand as informally stated at the Transport meeting but Belvedere’s, for example, does not there will be some unfortunate displacement effects as Liz line commuters jockey for position.

Maybe I could rent out my own drive?

 

7 December (Part 1) - Stef is very happy. David may not be

The missing Cabinet meeting webcast limped on line last Tuesday - sorry, too busy to report since then - and I immediately checked its running time to judge how long it might take to summarise. Good news, only 53 minutes and even better news, the first six minutes and the last two were nothing but video of Councillors shuffling papers etc. Despite the Leader saying that “A heavy session lies ahead of us tonight” it did not prove to be anything out of the ordinary.

As usual it was mainly about money.

The Baroness said the Council was still under “ontinued pressure despite constant mitigations”

To everyone’s relief Deputy Director of Finance said she has spent £4·l705 million more than budgeted by September, up by £1·733 million from the previous month. As usual, locking after children got the blame for almost all of it. £45.7 million is going on Capital expenditure in Places. (Neighbourhoods? I wish they would make up their mind what to call it.) There has been a shift from twn to twelve monthly installments on Council Tax payments which defers income but it should come back on target by the end of the year.

Cabinet Member Leaf uncharacteristically said he didn’t have much to add. And to everyone’s relief he didn’t!

Cabinet Member Seymour said the withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Allowance by “an out of touch Labour Government” was “causing untold hardship to elderly residents” and “the demands on the Council are unprecedented”.

Councillor Borella (Labour Leader) was concerned that the overspends would come out of reserves while the Auditor had said they should be replenished. “What are the risks?” he asked. He was told that there are “lots of mitigations going on” but the situation is “difficult” and the Council is “very mindful of it”. The tone was entirely pessimistic and the Governmentְ’s dithering is not helping.

Ominously, the Council Leader spoke of no account yet being taken of the relaxation of Council Tax limits. Next year’s funding settlement will not be known until 19th December.

Councillor Leaf provided an alarming summary on how a failing Labour Government is going to hit Councils in the pocket.

• Their promise of “a cash increase for Local Authorities may not necessarily translate into a real terms increase for some Authorities”.
• The schools uplift per pupil appears to be up by 2·18% which is below the current rate of inflation. Schools will also have to pay more National Insurance contributions.
• The Chancellor has admitted that her budget will suppress future growth rates and interest rates will be higher for longer. Both of these will adversely impact the Council and the OBR report “makes for grim reading”.
• The Employment Rights Bill “comes with a big price tag. The care sector alone will pay an extra billion pounds much of it falling on local authorities”.
• The Government has failed so far to say if Councils will be offered any relief from the increased National Insurance contributions.
• The Homelessness Prevention Grant, Social Care funding, Discretionary Housing Payments and Household Support funding are all either unknowns or been cut back.

Cabinet Member for Place Shaping, Cafer Munur, said his contribution towards financial mitigations would to to appoint a Deputy Director of Transformation early next year. (As if no senior manager ever thinks of improving things in the normal course of events.)

Cabinet Member Richard Diment said that despite the Government’s attacks on, well most working people really, none of the services provided by his Directorate will be reduced. Bins, road cleaning and grass cutting would carry on as usual while the performance standards continue to improve. Missed bins are now down to 0·1% and recycling rates are back over 50%. The pedestrian crossing programme will be extended to Labour wards, the next one will be constructed, subject to Consultation, in Slade Green Road.

Councillor Borella said he “was very happy” to see “the problems your Government created over 14 years” being addressed especially Living and Minimum wage rates being increased and everyone “having more money in their pockets because residents in our borough will be able to spend it here and it should be welcomed after years of strikes and an NHS that has been falling apart and the National Insurance increases will deal with those issues. I am very happy with my Prime Minister and very happy with the Cabinet. I am not ashamed of being a Labour politician.”

Cabinet Member Leaf reminded Councillor Borella that the National Living Wage rise is exactly in line with the formula devised by the previous Conservative Government which in turn is based on the Minimum wage formula. If the Government does not cover the extra costs imposed on the Council they must come from local resources. Where were Labour’s “fully costed Manifesto promises”? They instead imposed £40 billion of tax increases. “He may be happy with the Prime Minister but I don’t think many of the people of this country are.”

 

2 December - CPZ. Consultation Passed-by Zone

There is still no webcast Cabinet meeting on line so probably that will be another victim of Bexley Council’s incompetence and what may have been said there will for ever remain a secret. Just like the tree that falls in the woods with no one there is said not to make a sound, was Councillor Leaf’s well rehearsed long speech effectively muted?

While driving along Lower Road Belvedere I spotted Poplar Mount which is the scene of Bexley Council once more trampling over residents' wishes. I found a gap in the line of cars and stopped to take a look. It is a quiet little cul-de-sac devoid of through traffic where people lived happily together until someone with an admitted grudge against cars asked the Council to paint some yellow lines.

In my own road we had to ask over several years and get the police and local Councillors involved before Bexley Council was stirred into yellow line action but not in Poplar Mount. A very few people were consulted and a single notice was strapped to a lamp post which in a cul-de-sac fewer than half the residents would have passed by.

Before they knew it. Cabinet Member Richard Diment had thoughtlessly signed an order into law.

Once back home and thinking that their newest Councillor Jeremy Fosten might like to make a name for himself, I asked my informant if she had tried to get her three Councillors involved. She said she had but none of them had replied to her email. Not one!

I think at this stage the residents will be lumbered by a cunning Council which knows exactly how to nobble a consultation, they did it in Abbey Road 17 years ago, but they are not likely to go down without a fight.

The publicly available Consultation document (PDF) lists only four objections all summarily dismissed by Bexley Council with none in favour. Someone needs to ask more questions designed to discover why Poplar Mount/Methuen Road was on the Council’s hit list in the first place.

The area is also on Bexley Council’s hit list for a full blown CPZ, same as that proposed for my address last July but about which there is no further news.

 

1 December - Bexley Council fails again - and again!

Cabinot
The only blog that is always planned in advance is the one scheduled for the first day of the month. Today it was supposed to be a report on last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting.

I was not able to go in person because I had another engagement and in the event didn’t go to either or even listen on line; that is because a nasty sneezing cold came out of nowhere and hit me for six. It is a bit better now but not a lot.

Nevermind, there is always the webcast, except that over the past few months they have become very unreliable. The cameras focus on the wrong person and sometimes there is a total failure to broadcast anything - which is what happened last week.

Not much of a public meeting and a perfect opportunity to hide bad news.

Idiocy
This is my nearest big paper bin. A week ago it was marked ‘Contaminated’ because someone had dumped plastic bottles in it. A shame because it was well filled with thick cardboard and paper. A week later it is definitely very contaminated and I haven’t any idea who does it, but I do know how it gets to be contaminated.

The lid has been broken since before CountryStyle took over the recycling contract.

It is just a case of a twisted hinge and probably repairable by anyone prepared to apply a bit of force to it.

But no, Bexley Council would rather have a contaminated bin and pay for it to be incinerated than apply a bit of common sense.