31 January - It is true what they say about BMW drivers. ⚓
Over-paid
Southeastern train drivers were on strike yesterday so the Elizabeth line was
more than usually busy. From across Kent and Outer South East London everyone flocked to Abbey Wood.
The traffic was queued along Abbey Road from the station back to Lesnes Abbey
and people like me who merely wished to head out towards Greenwich were delayed by 15 minutes.
Parking issues were not an awful lot worse than normal because even on
non-strike days every single space is occupied with a small overflow on to
residents only private bays but there is always a total idiot eager to give £65 to Bexley Council.
Idiots of this magnitude do not have sufficient brain power to be allowed behind a steering wheel. There is
parking available at Sainsbury’s for a fiver a day
and if the occupancy at four thirty is any guide a lot of people did that.
GJ66 MDN. What a moron!
30 January - Where’s the evidence?
Yesterday evening I considered deleting
that day’s blog because what did it
say? It did not directly accuse anyone currently at Bexley Council of wrong
doing and degenerated into a re-run of what it was like when it would rather
employ paedophiles than whistleblowers, protect senior managers with a long
track record of failure in Children’s Services and when forced by law to
investigate, employ an old mate to do the job. Bexley Council being crooked a
decade or so ago is not really news any more.
An undercurrent of paedophilia in Bexley was however something different and
questions remain. The manager of the Thames Innovations Centre - now Engine House -
was not sacked until he went to prison and
the abuse in the Hoblands childrenְ’s home has been officially hushed up for another 50 years. Is
Bexley like my workplace in the 1970s and 80s where a huge
proportion of the junior staff was gay? The word had got around that it was a safe
place for such people to work. Maybe Councils and Social Services attract a certain sort of person too.
Then the following email arrived to which the straight answer is No, the redacted
name is not Rory Patterson. Firstly it is too long for the blackout and four
lines down it offers the only clue. The name is female.
The four redactions are of only one name.
While
searching the web for anything useful I stumbled across the comment that
was published here in 2013. At the time I tracked down the author and discovered
that her son had been snatched by Bexley Social Services and she was understandably very annoyed about it.
The mother claimed that Bexley Council was funding illegal activity and she had had a Super
Injunction placed upon her when she tried to reveal it and its Irish staffְ’s links to the IRA. For refusing to give up fighting
Bexley Council she was Sectioned and put in what she called “The Nut House”.
One of her emails includes the word ‘chokey’ which may provide a clue to the source of yesterday’s email.
Perhaps the corrected typo is significant too.
Anonymous messages such as these are a minefield and I took the precaution of
checking the source IP addresses of both. They were different but owned by the
same ISP so it is possible they share an author. But if so why did the
second message ask for the redacted name if the same author had written the first one too?
The correspondence with the author of the comments about Suffolk University came
to an abrupt end when I refused to publish her allegations about Bexley
Council without supporting evidence for which I was called a Fuckwit and worse.
Having a child stolen by a Council may well cause rage which escalates to the
verge of insanity but there can be little doubt that Bexley Council was involved in child abuse
and neglect scandals in the past and some
of it has appeared on these pages but evidence is paramount. Allegations are not
enough and without it BiB must find a new subject.
A link to the the High Court order would be a start.
As stated many times before, anonymous messages are a mixed blessing
especially when they ask direct questions. I could perhaps answer the latest one in a simplistic way. Yes I do know who
the
two people alluded to in a recent blog are and No there was no suggestion that any paedophilia was involved in the CCTV case. It was an
unjustified allegation of child neglect rather than abuse and I spent several
days writing up a complex case and hours poring over Bexleyְ’s CCTV distribution
schematics to prove their case for sacking a CCTV operative was a pack of
improbable lies as practically everything was in Bexley a dozen years ago.
Unfortunately the sacked CCTV employee got cold feet, fearing further persecution if the story
was published and withdrew permission. The false allegations had nothing to do
with the more recent events described in the email below about which I knew
nothing until Google intervened. They are sufficiently serious for the names to
be blocked while no hard evidence exists. Readers would certainly recognise them.
The sacker of the CCTV operative can be linked to several stupid decisions including one that caused
an old lady to die alone
but none involved children, that dubious honour must go to Sheila Murphy who was
in charge when three year old Rhys was murdered.
She appointed a former boss
to
conduct the Serious Case Review, both with Irish
connections (see below), but maybe that is irrelevant. That same boss had been
with several Councils before and after Bexley and been the subject of several
anonymous messages to BiB, particularly about what went on in Thurrock - none of
them complimentary. The same name came up when
abuse victims discussed their experiences in Southwark.
The suggestion being that at the very least blind eyes were turned. Worrying stuff.
Various
stories circulated as to how Ms. Murphy remained in post after
OFSTED found Bexleyְ’s Children’s Care Services to be Inadequate on all five
measures while all around her minions were losing their jobs; but she stayed in Bexley
for
33 years until 2016. The allegation was that she had close friends in all the right
places. Eventually she took up a similar position with Sunderland Council
which may have been duped into thinking they had made a good decision.
There is however no very obvious link with current long serving members of
staff in Bexley as alleged below but if I allowed my imagination to run away with
me the unexpurgated email might explain why
Deputy Leader Campbell
chose to sack a whistleblower when allegations were made of a paedophile
working for the Council. He remained in post until charged and convicted in
Court. Maybe it would also explain why the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services
refused to answer a public question about Sheila Murphy’s relationship with her boss.
Allegations without evidence are not a lot of use.
I had no idea who the individuals named here are until Google educated me and
I assume Hoxing is a typo.
Angela Power Disney. Maybe a divisive character who has her critics but
clearly with knowledge of child sexual abuse with Irish connections.
Wilfred Wong from Anglesey. Jailed for kidnap and satanic child abuse.
Sabine McNeill. Jailed for stalking those falsely accused of satanic abuse.
A proven fantasist. Maybe there are more.
Over several years there have been three emails from inmates of
the former Hobland’s Children’s home in Sidcup and one was published in full three years
ago. A Google for ‘sidcup children’s home abuse’ will find a different
one, Hollies, which was run by Southwark Council. How many coincidences are we expected to accept?
The story of the sacked CCTV operator is not easily available on BiB
at present and all that remains of it is a reference in the footnote of
October 2012. The boss who did the sacking is the same one took
the Link Line decisions which led to the
lonely death of the old lady. Fortunately long gone along with a whole load of managerial incompetents.
Following on from Railway Matters a lady from TfL
updated the Committee on buses. The most recent statistics available were from
the June/September period of last year when route 51 was
badly affected for most of the time by temporary traffic lights in Orpington.
482, 286 and 469 weren’ְt good either because of road closures. Route 160
performed poorly towards the end of that period.
At the previous meeting TfL had been asked to provide Bexley specific ULEZ scrappage data but they were
reluctant to make the numbers publicly available. (For Councillors only.) Councillor Hinkley admitted
to being one of the beneficiaries albeit after rather too many delays and “chase-ups”.
A study is being made into whether road casualties are linked to deprivation
but the web link was only given to Committee Members - and they call it a Public meeting!
Chairman June asked if there were any road casualty statistics available with
direct links to buses but as one might guess the TfL lady was only able to make
enquiries on behalf of Councillor Slaughter and get back to her.
Councillor Patrick Adams asked for more details about the proposed DLR
extension to Thamesmead. “Is there a predicted completion date?” He was given an
immediate “No”. The extended explanation revealed only that the Government had approved the business case.
Highways Manager Andrew Bashford regretted that ULEZ cameras were being placed
on top of traffic lights with the result that traffic lights are out of use for
days (particularly in Bromley) when the ULEZ vandals cut the poles. Have separate
ULEZ poles been considered? Another question to be taken away and “discussed
off-line by email!” TfL are really not keen on openness and transparency are they?
Dylan from the Youth Council appears to be a cycling enthusiast as well as
railway enthusiast. “Are there any plans for protected bicycle lanes to be
extended into Bexley?” Another one that TfL will come back on to say what is
being considered. Mr. Bashford said nothing and cycle lanes require borough
co-operation so maybe the answer is “none”.
The Chairman diplomatically said that the TfL input was “very helpful” and moved on to police matters.
A few locations had been identified as the site of multiple collisions. One was
Bexley High Street. The police officer had looked into an allegations of speeding between
the Cob roundabout and
the Morgan pub (Bronze Age Way to Eastern Avenue) which is a short section
of dual carriageway including a bus stop and a light controlled pedestrian
crossing but found little evidence of it. This may have been due to the
complainant believing that a 30 m.p.h. limit was
imposed when in fact it is 50. Both the police officer and the Highways Manager
put forward convincing cases for why that is reasonable.
Where has all the traffic gone?
Vacant cob site on the right. Notorious Morgan so called
restaurant centre left. Yarnton Way to Abbey Wood, bottom left.
Westbound bus stop in lay-by hidden by trees.
The police were then dismissed and Mr. Bashford took centre stage.
Cycle training numbers are good, 1,400 children trained last year with a small
drop in adult numbers after the bumper Covid years.
100 new electric vehicle charging points are to be rolled out within the
next couple of months, mainly on lighting columns or associated nearby posts.
The Council is not making a significant financial contribution and does not
expect to make much money out of them unless they prove to be very heavily used.
“We have resurfaced 23 roads this year” (2023 presumably)
and there are more in the pipeline. £275,000 funding has been provided to fix
potholes in the remainder of this year “and we will do our best to spend it” and
a further £275,000 for next year.
Road casualty numbers are steady with children up slightly and pedal cyclists down.
A collapsed culvert in Bronze Age Way may cause it to be closed southbound for three
months in the Summer. Road gritting has been “quiet” this Winter. Councillor
Hunt said that Winter road maintenance had been “superb” this year but maybe
communications could be improved as residents seemed not to be aware of it.
Mr. Heywood, the cycling representative, then made
his previously reported complaint
about things discussed at public meetings which never actually reach the public domain.
Offers to answer later or discuss privately are not very helpful. The Chairman said “it is a fair point”.
Dylan on behalf of the Youth Council said that there were no
zig-zags or barriers to protect SEN pupils attending
Cornerstone school. Mr. Bashford said that SEN pupils are usually dropped off
inside the school and do not use the road outside. There had been no
representations but he will look into it.
Dylan was also concerned about flooding in Pickford Lane but it was explained
that some of the oldest drainage systems rely on soakaways and
short-term flooding can occur.
The Chairman asked Mr. Heywood why the Albion Road cycle lane was so rarely used. He went over
the same ground as he did in 2020 when he told a Transport Committee that
it was dangerous with a very coarse and uncomfortable surface and had already put six cyclists in hospital.
Councillor Hinkley asked if the £275,000 for potholes could be carried into the
next financial year as so little time had been allowed to spend it. Mr. Bashford
hoped it would be as resurfacing larger areas to gobble up the money more quickly was not very sensible.
And with that Councillor Slaughter resumed her hunt for an earring which made its
escape when she removed her scarf. (Eagle eyed Sally found it.)
I think the Transport Users’ meeting could be described as the June Slaughter show because most of the questions came from her,
from memory, only one each from Councillors Adams, Hinkley and Hunt.
Probably that is doing Dylan from the Youth Council an injustice.
The format is that on-line guests from the transport
companies report on their subject of interest and open themselves up
to questioning. Here’s what happened last Tuesday…
Unusually Councillor Slaughter opened proceedings with a question. Why has
Southeastern decided not to take advantage of the new minimum services levels
legislation on strike days? I regarded the response as a bit of a
non-answer but
not wishing to be judgmental it is repeated verbatim below.
Turning to the strikes, there is at the moment, it is true to say that it is not
a dispute with Southeastern or other operators. The RMT, there’s been progress
in negotiations there. They are not currently undertaking strike action. The
third and final union ASLEF is still in dispute with Southeastern and the rest
of the industry so there will be strike action from ASLEF and they represent the train drivers and when the train drivers go on strike
we can’t run any services at all whereas with the RMT when they are on
strike we can run some services so there is a difference in impact and the
next strike action is on the 30th next Tuesday and between the 30th and the
5th of February. so it’s Tuesday to Tuesday, there will be strikes on other
train companies so if your are planning to travel on another train company
you might find there is disruption or complete closure of the network because of strike action.
There is also an overtime ban between the 29th of January and 6th of February which means
that drivers will not book on journey time shifts if there is a need to fill a
gap if a driver is ill or whatever but we are intending to run a full service
on those days so hopefully that won’t cause too much disruption.
On the minimum service levels, the legislation
is now in place but Southeastern and all other train operators decided that
it would not be right to implement this at this time but that does not rule
out implementing it in the future. It is a judgment call by each train
company and it is a judgment call on whether it is right to implement that and whether it can
be implemented safely so it could be implemented in the future.
Councillor Slaughter may have been as unimpressed as I was because she tried to
identify the real reason, “Is it safety?”
There are various reasons, safety is one of them. If our Directors make an
unsafe decision they can be prosecuted. It would be the first time the
legislation was implemented in the UK and we need more time to prepare and we
have not yet had time to plan how it could be done effectively and safely.
Note: Unlike the previous quoted response, this one is abbreviated.
Also from Southeastern; performance levels have improved across the board over
the past twelve months although the storms of the last few weeks have not
helped. Several trains were damaged by fallen trees. Staff are being
recruited with the intention of keeping “gatelines” open later. Albany Park,
Bexley, Bexleyheath and Falconwood were specifically mentioned as getting
10 p.m. closures instead of 8. This is to address revenue and
anti-social behaviour issues.
Albany Park services will be increased. Direct services from Gravesend to
Victoria via Bexley will be introduced. Sidcup ‘rounders’ could be
reintroduced by December 2024 but requires DfT approval and funding. The number
of old Networker units is now reduced to 161. (Whilst the word units was used
the context suggested that the number referred to daily services.)
Dylan asked for a Bexleyheath to Sidcup ‘rounder’. (Has there ever been one? As
a North Kent line user it would have made no impact on me.)
North Kent line for Abbey Wood, top left. To Bexleyheath bottom left. To Dartford top right. To Crayford bottom right.
The Southeastern man was unsure of the route availability. Maybe, like me, he thought the Bexleyheath line trains
used to turn back towards Slade Green and not Crayford. He could only offer to provide
an answer later. Dylan added that unlike Bromley, Bexley borough was no longer
served by any long distance trains at all which caused would-be passengers to
travel into London before coming back out again.
“Trains are provided to serve the most travelled route. If you compare the
number travelling from Bexleyheath to the numbers from Bromley it would be very
small.” (If there is no service, people cannot use it. I found the same chicken
and egg problem routing international telephone traffic during my time with BT.)
Dylan repeated his question emphasising the fact that he was talking about long
distance journeys to Rochester and the coast etc. and not trips to London or
Bromley. Providing the service might create a demand. At the moment there are no
Southeastern trains beyond Dartford on the North Kent line.
Southeastern accepted that Dylan had made “some good points”. I have no wish to
be condescending but how is it that a schoolboy has more ideas on how to improve
the railway than the professionals?
Moving from the Southeastern input to Network Rail and
as reported earlier,
Slade Green and Abbey Wood are incident hotspots. Trespassers are a major
problem and caused 18,000 minutes of train delays in the South East last year. Drones are increasingly used to locate them.
Lewisham station is being looked at with a view to a redesign including the DLR platforms. Bexley station
access improvements are expected to be operational from about April after UK Power
Networks encountered a problem supplying power to the lifts. The cost was about
£6 million. A rather more complex scheme will be implemented at Hither Green.
Councillor Slaughter asked a question. One about drones and another about Slade
Green. It has a trespass and vandalism problem. Councillor Hinkley asked about
the possibility of improving access to the platforms at Sidcup, Erith and
Crayford. The lengthy answer could perhaps be summarised as “Don’t hold your breath.”
Dylan asked if the access works at Bexley station would cause any further line
closures but the answer was No.
Like buses themselves, the Bus Services report is going to run later than
timetabled. Railways have taken up far too much time already!
26 January (Part 2) - Stop the war
By
far the most approachable of my local political activists -
not a Councillor any more because
Labour can be a bit stupid - is Dave Putson; so when I spotted him
outside Abbey Wood’s Community Centre (†) I crossed the road to say hello. However
he wasn’t there waiting for a bus but to promote his commitment to a ceasefire in Gaza.
For the second time in not much over a month the Erith & Thamesmead Labour Party was meeting
in Abbey Wood; not the AGM this time but to debate Motions calling for a Palestinian
ceasefire from the Thamesmead East, Abbey Wood and Shooter’s Hill branches. This time no one had
called in seven police officers to
control two elderly gents handing out leaflets.
Presumably Abena Oppong-Asare
was not intending to put in an appearance; who but an MP would have the pull to get
seven coppers in the same place at the same time?
Dave told me that there had been pressure to formalise the local call for a ceasefire at the
December meeting but that was not appropriate at an AGM. From a position some
distance to the right of Dave the Abbey Wood branch’s Motion in particular
looked to be entirely reasonable to me.
A call to Dave this morning provided a bit more information. The three Motions,
Shooter’s Hillְ’s being just a single line of text, were all passed unanimously
at a well attended meeting. Councillors Anne Marie Cousins (Abbey Wood) and
Zainab Asunramu (Thamesmead East) showed up but as expected, no MP. The two
pensioners were not admitted to the meeting, they are no longer members,
but their leaflet distribution was not seen as a threat this time around.
While writing this piece I found myself wondering if non-Councillor Dave was
getting more mentions here than the elected ward Councillors but a check revealed ‘not quite’.
Daniel Francis - 16 blogs since January 2023, Dave Putson - 11 , Sally Hinkley - 10 and Esther Amaning - 2.
The Abbey Wood and Thamesmead East Motions
may be read here. (PDF.)
† Not entirely coincidental, I had heard a whisper.
26 January (Part 1) - Keep Bexley UnTidy
My
neighbour’s green bin stood out on the pavement
for two weeks presumably because the collection crew had defective eyesight.
Inevitably it became overfilled with the lid left open - and the rain came.
Yesterday when I transferred the excess rubbish to my own bin because I didn’t want to
see it left behind for another two weeks, the accumulated water made the bin ridiculously heavy.
However the good news was that the bin collectors had had their eyes seen to
over the past fortnight and both my bin and next door’s were emptied.
Not such good news is that the Lazy Dump Them Anywhere Lot were doing this
week's blue lidded bins. In the top left corner of the photograph a third bin is
dumped. Who it belongs to I have no idea because there are no houses on the right hand side of the road.
Haphazard dumping has unfortunate consequences. Next door at No. 4 has a green
bin marked No. 18 which is smaller than their own and arguably responsible for the
overfilling. If I had not moved some of their rubbish to my bin it might not
have been emptied at all and that injustice would have been entirely due to Country Style’s failure to do their job properly.
Extensive searches for green bin No. 4 have failed to locate it.
25 January - They got there in the end
The wait is over.
Bexley Council’s audited accounts (PDF) for the year ending March 2022 (Twenty Two!) are
now available for all to see. The document frequently uses the words weakness
and risk and highlights where systems may be open to fraud however the auditor
concludes that various reviews are satisfactorily controlling the situation.
Given the financial difficulties which have been and continue to be widespread
it would be unrealistic to expect a totally clean bill of health.
The delay in signing off the accounts of well over a year are not explained.
24 January - A spoke in their works
Last night’s Transport Usersְ’ Sub-Committee was not the most interesting that I have
attended but it was memorable for different reasons. Regular Chairman Cameron
Smith had found a very good reason not to be there and the reins were taken up
by June Slaughter. It is not a difficult meeting to Chair, the attendees are
usually a friendly bunch, even more so with James Hunt muscling in on a
Transport Users’ meeting for the first time ever.
I didn’t expect to be reporting on the guest Members from the Youth Council or
the cycling lobbyist as, to my mind, they rarely come up with anything of wide interest but
there is a first time for everything.
The young man concerned put the Southeastern railways representative on the spot
more than once. I think we have a railway expert to rival Stefano Borella.
Mr. Heywood, the man on the bike, made the point that when rail or bus representatives are unable to
answer a question they offer to send Members a response later . Mr. H said it was
supposed to be a Public Meeting and very diplomatically added that the public should
not be excluded from the answers. I have often felt the same but Councillor Slaughter took the
point on board and suggested how the complaint might be addressed.
Whilst I have not yet trawled through the two hours of audio recording the
following items may be worth an immediate airing.
• There will be Southeastern strikes from 30th January through to 5th February.
• Reintroduction of the loop line trains to Abbey Wood is being considered but requires DfT permission and the best possible date would be December 2024.
• The North Kent line (Abbey Wood, Erith etc.) will have its Dartford services extended to Gravesend.
• Slade Green is the worst station locally for suffering serious incidents (13
in six months) with Abbey Wood close on its heels (12).
• There will be a six week consultation on extending the DLR from Beckton to
Thamesmead starting on 5th February.
23 January - Electrical waste of time
Bexley
Council has been wittering on about collecting electrical waste for several
years now and I really wish they would do something about it. I am reluctant to
throw redundant electrical items away because many of them contain valuable
metals and rather too many have accumulated in my roof space and a couple in the garage.
I retired my 1986 vintage CD player at the weekend (Sony CDP555Es RRP £999 for
anyone interested) because I convinced myself that its audio quality was not as
good as my blu-ray player and the thing weighs just over 31 pounds.
(The blu-ray player is an inconvenient and inflexible CD player.)
I was therefore more than a little interested to see this X message yesterday. I
can recycle a load of expensive copper! Brilliant!
But No.
The linked web page
requests my address and directs me to my electrical recycling centre. Nathan Way in the borough of Greenwich. What Bright Spark at
Bexley Council thought that was a good idea?
My daughter-in-law who has a way with words lectured me only a week ago about
the need to clear my roof of all the clutter, like magazines going back to the 1950s.
Plus miscellaneous electrical items such as failing VHS recorders, a video tape editing
device, a DAB radio, two DVD recorders and some loudspeaker chassis from the
1960s. “I do not want to have to do it” she told me. The correct response to that is to cut
her from my will so that she doesn’t have to get off her arse to cash in on my demise. Cheeky Madam!
Note: The CDP555Es was the first hi-fi device to include a digital output (SPDIF -
Sony Philips Digital Interface) complete with a warning in the manual that it
was an experimental interface that might not be supported by future models. It
was more than fifteen years before I had anything that would accept digital
inputs.
22 January - Prepare to dig deep
We are approaching the time of the year when Bexley Council will be attempting to
retain its reputation for being the highest taxing Conservative borough in
London. Last year’s hole has been plugged with cuts and reserves and the trick must be repeated next
year with an increased Budget Gap of £29·676 million and getting rapidly worse.
As always it is Social Services which is doing the big damage.
Click for expanded view.
Maybe the forthcoming Cabinet meeting will explain the numbers better than I can.
21 January (Part 2) - Chinese laws take precedence in St. Pancras
If you are still in doubt about the lack of intelligence among our police maybe
this video will show you the error of your ways. The video may not be there for very long so I shall describe it.
Performing in front of a video camera a pianist entertains passers-by at St. Pancras railway station while a group of
Chinese business people waving CCCP flags may be seen in the background. One of
them politely asks not to be filmed quoting Chinese law that no one may be
filmed in public without their permission to which the reply is that he is in
the UK now. A young Chinese man becomes very aggressive insisting that filming
must stop and goes on to accuse the pianist of touching a female member of his party. Fortunately the video
camera captures every moment.
The British Transport Police turn up and the female constable takes the side of
the Chinaman believing that his wish not to be filmed must be respected. The
correct response would have been to tell the Chinese party to bugger off to
another part of the station and hope that the CCTV system there is out of order.
Unbelievably the police woman objects to being filmed and tries to block the
camera with her hand. She does however admit to filming the pianist herself. Not the same thing apparently.
It has been said that the Metropolitan Police palm off their rejects to the BTP. Maybe that is true.
The video whilst 37 minutes long manages to retain its entertainment value and
the pianist remains calm throughout.
P.S. The video no longer works.
Try this link.
21 January (Part 1) - Every journey matters
Don’t
go anywhere. Elizabeth line closed for maintenance work. No Docklands Light
Railway to Woolwich. Blackwall Tunnel shut all weekend.
Who is the spendthrift Chairman of Transport for London?
20 January - We have bins (and pots!)
The
news is that Bexley Council has begun to distribute
replacement kitchen waste
bins more than two months after they allowed their stock to run out. It is
said that they - or at least one - are of the old flimsy design of which the foxes are especially appreciative.
Another report says that Bexley is Pothole Central and provides a link to
the
News Shopper’s virtually unreadable website to support the claim. The comments
section of that purveyor of non-news says that Greenwich deals with the problem more effectively
than Bexley and that I am responsible for the situation because I drive an electric car (which is 1078
kilograms lighter than a Land Rover Defender).
I am not aware of any big pothole in Bexley but then I am not particularly well
travelled within the borough. The bottom end of Knee Hill where it joins Abbey
Road and Wilton Road leading to the Liz Line station takes a pounding partly
because of the 90 degree bend and something like 64 buses an hour. It has been a mess for years, patched
occasionally and is half in Greenwich. The two Councils should get together and fix it properly.
Note: Replacement bin is not as pictured, that is my original issue, never used and retrieved
from the roof space specially for its photographic debut. For the record,
my neighbour’s missed bin
is now overfilled and still standing forlornly on the footpath eight days later and awaiting its
red tag for no longer having a closed lid.
19 January - The open reach of BiB
One of several BiB rants in recent weeks was about BT at first
refusing to transfer an 8310 phone number rented by an elderly lady for more
than 50 years to the other side of Yarnton Way and later finding themselves
unable to do so because of what
may have been an Openreach cock-up or maybe
simply a system that works at a snail’s pace.
It should have been a run-of-the-mill five minute job.
Fortunately a reader (thanks Roger) mentioned the problem to a BT manager who lives locally who
called me for more details. He thought the situation was as ridiculous as I did
and said he would do his best to pull some internal strings. The lady had no
phone over Christmas and New Year but on 8th January a
new connection was provided; by the sound of things a digital connection delivered
via fibre to the premises but with a different number.
Today that has been rectified and the number has been successfully reverted to
what it used to be thereby saving the old lady the hassle of notifying a life-time’s
collection of contacts.
Everyone involved is extremely grateful to the manager who worked his magic
inside the monolith that is BT but I do wonder about what we
have done to this country through centralisation and computerisation. (Don’t mention Fujitsu!)
BT appears to have a single country-wide unit dealing with number transfers from one of their isolated ivory towers.
Is that really better than having a couple of blokes inside the exchange taking
local customer calls on 151 (or ENG when I first started) and going to fix faults
straight away? I personally changed a phone number during my GPO training when I was
19 years old. The job took a few minutes with a soldering iron; abandoned not
long afterwards in favour of tight wire wrapping.
Is it really cheaper to centralise the operation and potentially annoy so many customers who have the freedom to
take their business elsewhere?
Could it be symptomatic of why the productivity in this country is abysmal?
I had a feeling that computers were going to be a mixed blessing when they first began to take over.
I, and with no one to help out, did all the programming of the first
computers monitoring International telephone traffic. Circa 1988 and soon after the
system went live, I was asked by one of the more senior people how many calls had
been made from call boxes with Guildford phone numbers to the USA over whatever
the required period was.
I replied “Give me 30 minutes to run the data and I will let you know” and the
boss man got quite shirty about having to wait. I said “Graham you would not
have dared ask that question a few months ago and you would have probably got along well
enough without those numbers”.
I feared that computers would bog us down with numbers and bury us in paper. Was I wrong?
I finished assembling another new computer from standard components earlier today.
The prices are getting to be a bit silly but I can’t seem to keep away from them.
18 January - Crooked accounting
A small number of this month’s readers’ questions and tip offs have not reached these pages and maybe I should say why as I do not wish to discourage them - although this one might be an exception.
Hi, Do you order items from Amazon?
Err… Not any more. They increased their Prime membership price by 33% so I cancelled
it. After buying well over 200 items from Amazon last year there have been no
orders from me in 2024. Not one, and yesterday computer components priced at
£770·95 which could have come from Amazon did not. Such huge price increases should not be tolerated
from anyone. Sainsbury’s tins of rice pudding suddenly becoming only half full
of rice is fortunately for them far too off topic to be mentioned.
So back to Bexley.
L&Q, the housing association suspected of
flogging off social housing across the
borough is said to have been forced to raise a £245 million loan from Barclays
using tenants’ houses as security. Anonymous messages have a track record of
being 100% true but this rather peculiar transaction has eluded all efforts to
find it on line. So believe it if you like…
A reference to
an eight year old web page featuring the words of two senior Bexley Council
officers whose salaries we fortunately no longer have to pay is just a bit too long in
the tooth even for BiB. In summary the Director of HR was boasting of how he was
curtailing the use of Agency staff in Bexley and thereby keeping costs low. Now
he is on LinkedIn looking for a new position backed by a reference from his former
subordinate. Cutting Agency staff worked out well didn’t it? Bexley limps along
on the backs of expensive Agency staff.
The temporary Chief Executive has had a chequered history being associated with
far too many financial failures; in Barnet, Newham and OneSource all of which have
been documented here. One of Bexley’s many mischief makers sent me a seven
year old document which says that the Acting CEO, along with three colleagues, reviewed the
financial arrangements at Thurrock Council. They made eight recommendations - and
now Thurrock is effectively bankrupt.
It has to be said that Bexley’s man dissociated himself
from all his former
employers rather a long time ago which might make him a skilled strategist or just
plain lucky. In Bexley he has, if I might judge from a very few Councillors’
comments, been a little divisive which is not always a bad thing and so far
Bexley has not gone broke despite the best efforts of our Conservative government.
Beating the two seven plus year old reports by a considerable margin was one
that implied that Bexley Council is full of fraudsters but my interest waned
somewhat when it led me to
an old News Shopper page from when the NS was a newspaper. That’s 2007! It revealed how a
Bexley Council accountant nicked a quarter of a million under the nose of the
Director of Finance. I had better not mention how
much the same happened to our
new CEO when he was the finance boss in Barnet. Now the External Auditors won’t
authorise the publication of Bexley’s accounts.
Something odd must be going on in Bexley. It most certainly is in Thurrock right now where
their Accountant is under investigation.
An obscure news website called
London World has listed 446 London based pubs
which may be at risk of closure because the owner based in the Cayman Islands
has rather a lot of debt to refinance. £2·5 billion of it!
Here’s a list of those not very far away.
Abbey Arms, Wilton Road, Abbey Wood
Albany Hotel, Steynton Avenue, Bexley
Birchwood, Grovebury Road, Abbey Wood
Danson Stables, Danson Park, Bexleyheath
George Staples, Blackfen Road, Sidcup
Golden Lion, Broadway, Bexleyheath
Hill Top Tap, Elm Parade, Sidcup
Prince of Wales, Woolwich Road, Belvedere
Red Barn, Barnehurst Road, Bexleyheath
Rose & Crown, Welling High Street, Welling
Royal Oak, Mount Road, Bexleyheath
Running Horses, Erith High Street, Erith
Sydney Arms, Old Perry Street, Chislehurst
The Volunteer, Plumstead High Street, Plumstead
White Cross, North Cray Road, Sidcup
If a financial saviour does not appear there will be several local boozers that might be added to the list that reads Drayman, Belvoir Tavern,
Leather Bottle, Great Harry etc.
16 January - Another unauthorised building start
The Drayman pub was
first mentioned here in 2016 and was noted as being part of Kulvinder Singh’s Balmonza empire in
both 2018
and 2020.
In 2013 permission was granted to build eight flats and a small house on the
site. (12/01607/FUL01.) It included a minor reprimand for starting work before
formal permission had been granted and various amendments were requested and approved through to
2016 since when all has been quiet. Until last Wednesday.
Under Mr. Singh’s name a retrospective application has been made for an
additional three dwellings to be squeezed on to the site.
I suppose that if you enjoy
a really really close relationship with Bexley
Council, starting a job without Planning permission is not much of a risk.
24/00110/FUL.
15 January (Part 2) - No one cares
It is self evident that the political classes do not give a damn for the
people, hence Mr. Alan Bates and Maggie Oliver hitting the headlines after 20
years of battling a corrupt system, but unfortunately poor service examples have
filtered down to many businesses. “Your call is very important to us” as you
wait 30 minutes in a queue before being cut off. Not just Coutts Bank lying about Nigel Farage but right down to run of the mill businesses and you and me.
On quiet days I have highlighted a few here. My neighbour’s bin, missed last
Friday, is still waiting patiently on the footpath. A month ago a party of 18 had their
worst meal and service ever at The Morgan, Belvedere and Marston’s did
not respond at all. I suppose they have nothing to gain, none of us will ever go there again.
BT made a complete mess - but see footnote - of
transferring a 50 year old phone
number to another address on the opposite side of the same road. Their Twitter
team did nothing beyond passing me from pillar to unhelpful post and Metro Bank couldn’t
care less about sending me someone else’s bank statements for the past five years.
Note: The blog dated 19th December was read by a BT manager who lives locally and he was able to contact me for more details and refer the case to the appropriate department. He is hopeful that the earlier mistakes can be rectified and the elderly lady will not have to notify 50 year’s worth of contacts of the new number.
15 January (Part 1) - They took their time
A mere seven years ago Bexley Council said they were going to build 136 two
bedroom apartments and 17 three bedroom houses on Bursted Woods. A site they
owned but which had been used by the NHS. Last Thursday they got around to
submitting a Planning Application on behalf of their own development company
BexleyCo for “117 new dwellings comprising 28 x 1 bed, 74 x 2 bed, and 7 x 3 bed
flats and 8 x 3 bed dwelling houses”.
It would appear that their ambitions have been watered down somewhat in the
intervening years. As usual, negligible ‘affordable’ units.
Reference 23/03414/FULM.
PS. I decided that the images within the application were not very interesting but
Murky Depths found a couple.
12 January - The vagaries of a bin man’s mind
It֜’s back to bins and not quite
another rant.
I was told that the bin lorry couldn’t get down my road this morning due to an
end-on parked van. When I looked I would rate it ‘difficult’ rather than
impossible but to serve only a short cul-de-sac the manoeuvre might be judged not worth the risk.
Whether that partly explains the haphazard collections this morning is
impossible to say, but my green bin was emptied whilst my immediate neighbours
was not. (They were not adjacent at collection time.)
Further along another household was missed but the food waste this time. It’s usually their green.
Evidently some notoriety is setting in because a month ago one of the bin men
told me the resident frequently complained that his bin is missed. Well that will be
because they don’t always empty it! The implication was that he put it out late.
I use that neighbour’s bin as my Thursday evening cue to put mine out as it is the only one I
can easily see from my front door. I have no idea why he is invisible, I have
not suffered a bin problem for months - probably years.
Nothing more from BiB this weekend - busy with other things. You can
let Hugh Neal fill in your local history knowledge instead.
The 1991 train crash at Cannon Street this Sunday. I wasn’t directly affected as
I was always into the office early but I remember
the after-effects well enough. I had a friend killed in a train crash (Great Western somewhere
near Slough) and it was a long time before I sat over the bogey again.
Similarly another friend had the side of his carriage peeled away like a
sardine can when another train tried to join his track at a junction. (Southern
near Raynes Park.) I stopped taking window seats! I knew someone who was caught up in the infamous Lewisham
viaduct crash too but not until long after the event. Probably I should warn my friends against travelling by train.
11 January - We are well and truly stuffed
It took 20 years and a four part ITV series to prove to most people that the
institutions and people who rule us are fundamentally incompetent, corrupt
cover-up merchants. It took four Channel 4 programmes and a public enquiry to prove to
everyone who was interested that the Metropolitan Police and the Hampshire
Constabulary are Institutionally Corrupt but that took 34 years so I suppose it
could be argued that things are getting better.
The venal Paula Vennels was given a CBE for services to the Post Office long
after the Sub-Postmaster injustices came to light which doesn’t surprise me at
all. When I was a manager in the GPO I was compelled to put forward names for
OBEs whether anyone was deserving of a gong or not. Basically middle ranking
managers were given awards for not falling down on the job too badly.
incompetence rules. I spent four of my GPO years clearing up the neglect of
a predecessor who subsequently rose to the top of NHS management and somehow or other the police too. All
the right boxes ticked and another CBE awarded.
Such things have been going on all around us for years and few have been interested up until now.
Why, for example, is the Leader of Bexley Council a Baroness? I am tempted to say
it is for services to blind eyes. Need I remind you that she refused to report a
Councillor thief to the police and re-appointed Craske to her Cabinet knowing
full well what he had definitely done? Then, running short of talent, she
appointed a Crown Court perjurer. Documentary details on request.
Literally no one knows what Teresa O’Neill did to justify her Baronetcy and one is
left to assume it is for being Chief Poodle to Boris Johnson.
Councillor James Hunt spends his time nurturing young people, notably in theatre and the thousands of South London scouts. Councillor Ahmet Dourmoush organised 40 truckloads
of relief supplies for last year’s Turkish earthquake victims. They get nothing
but I don’t think either of them are arse-lickers.
The whole system is crooked. Mick Barnbrook and @tonyofsidcup both declared
vexatious for asking too many questions. In Mick’s case the Acting Chief
Executive wrote a presumably libellous letter to the ICO and went on to be CEO
in Southend and then CEO of London Councils, There is no way one can reach such
positions in possession of an average number of scruples. Am I back to Paula Vennels again?
It is probably barely worth noting that liars are promoted. The Bexley Council Officer
who assured me that his road designs fully conformed to Transport Research Laboratory
reports Numbered 641 and 661 was promoted to be Head of Highways after the author
of those reports personally assured me the road involved did not even begin to
conform to the TRL recommendations. When you are next snarled up in an
unnecessary Bexley traffic jam you should give a thought to the competence of the Council’s promotion procedures.
I suppose the immediate sacking of a Bexley employee who reported her boss’s
paedophilia in a vain attempt to protect the children on the premises is relative chicken feed. (He was
later convicted in Woolwich Crown Court). What about the use of CCTV to track
someone wrongly suspected of child abuse and the sacking of the CCTV operator who
prevented the evidence from being destroyed? Maybe it is time I returned to the bigger fish.
While another Bexley CEO was climbing the greasy pole to Tower Hamlets he was
under investigation for Misconduct in a Public Office. I wrote to the Government
Commissioners running Tower Hamlets after its elected Mayor was suspended but
was dismissed as a malicious blogger spreading nonsense when all they needed to do
was phone Greenwich police to confirm that every word was true. The CPS
managed to lose all the evidence after the investigating officer had
retired. Convenient that! The same CEO later failed to report a housing fraud to the police. Honesty in Government? Forget it.
Police cover-ups are the norm. When a three year old
boy died following total neglect by Bexley Council social services the police maintained that he accidently rolled off a
sofa. Darenth Hospital said he died from 39 separate injuries and if you look
hard enough you can find a photograph on Bonkers of a lifeless black and blue
body. Published with his family’s permission I might add.
Thanks to a less than honest police force Bexley Council’s Baby R never became as
famous as Haringey’s Baby P.
When Bexley Council employed singleton night staff
too fond of the hard stuff Bexley Council indulged in a whole load of dirty tricks
in an attempt to hide the fact that their poor decision making caused an elderly lady
to die alone. It took a year for the information to leak out when two
ex-members of staff with
active consciences provided BiB with the details and documentary evidence. One
had been given a fat pay off and a Non-Disclosure Agreement. (I didn’t use that
evidence because it only confirmed what the colleague had said. He didn’t get a
pay-off.)
Returning to the infamous Craske case where the only honest comment emanating
from Bexley Police was “the investigation has been crippled by political
interference” Elwyn Bryant and I later stood in my MP’s office in Portcullis
House and a Scotland Yard Officer put his arm around Elwyn’s shoulder and said
“I am going to get a result for you on this” and went on to tell me that as many
as eight Bexley Police Officers could find themselves dismissed. When his report
came out it was a 16 page description of wrong doing and a final page of “nobody did
anything wrong”. I can only assume that the investigating officer was so annoyed
with his bent bosses that he decided not to amend his report to suit their
crooked verdict. I sent the file to what was then called the Independent Police
Complaints Commission and they refused to accept it.
Institutionally Corrupt not just in London but Kent too. I have
the evidence obtained by my former MP that they protect their own and their
former Bexley Councillor Police Commissioner must know it.
I can’t finish without mentioning Sadiq Khan’s promise not to extend ULEZ to
Outer London. Who knew that London Mayors lie?
Allison Pearson, the Daily Telegraph contributor said in today’s issue that “some
people need shooting” and maybe that would prove to be an effective way forward. The Conservatives
have been absolutely bloody awful since the scamdemic began and steadily getting worse with successive
Prime Ministers. Labour is shifty, untrustworthy and well and truly into
bargepole territory and the LibDems; least said the better and not just because
of Ed Davey and the Post Office.
Did someone mention Reform UK? Another bunch of charlatans. A limited company
owned by Richard Tice and Nigel Farage and not a proper political party. In
favour of compulsory vaccination and busy recruiting poisonous trash for General Election candidates.
It’s enough to make me consider voting Conservative again. Seriously, the others are so scarily awful!
But so are the Tories. What can one do?
Enough ranting for one day. I spent most of it with Mick Barnbrook in a Margate
hospice. It is perhaps fortunate that he is no longer well enough to have
strong political opinions but said he was going to vote Reform at the GE. Not a
bad ambition for a bloke given a week to live on 7th December. He’ll probably make it too!
10 January - Another £65 reduction to our Council Tax bill
There is no doubt that
painting double yellows around corners locally has dramatically improved access to
my road and those nearby. End on parking frequently prevents the refuse truck
getting through and I am guilty of driving on the footpath occasionally but
probably that will never be tackled.
However nothing can cure total idiocy. What goes through the tiny mind of those
content to block access to several parking spaces with just one act of selfish
laziness? Even the CEO who was on the case within about 15 minutes of my online
report expressed a degree of incredulity.
DT16 KUC was there for about seven hours. It could have been more because I was not up
and about very early this morning.
The interest in Bexley’s rogue property developer and
his Council friends rarely dies down for long, the assumption of the
latest one (below), anonymous unfortunately, if I want to be
ultra-pedantic, is wrong on both counts. I don’t think Mr. Singh acted in a
manner contrary to the permission originally granted or is now seeking to make a change.
It looks to me that he made the change and was rewarded with an enforcement notice.
The new request is for that enforcement order to be rescinded.
To combat anti-social behaviour at the entrance to the residents’ car park he
moved the barrier. For reasons that won’t be clear to anyone unfamiliar with
the site it has caused the number of parking spaces to fall below the agreed
number and vehicles to block the access road for the time it takes for the automatic barrier to lift.
The access road is a minor cul-de-sac.
To be fair, the application does not look too unreasonable to me.
The resident who loses his parking space may not agree.
I may be the only one around here who has not seen the ITV drama
Mr. Bates vs The Post Office. I’ve not seen a live TV
programme at home since February 2017 and don’t give TV a thought. No subscription to
any streaming service either - I ditched Amazon Prime when they announced their
33% price increase - but I am tempted to sign up to ITV Hub to see what everyone seems to be talking about.
Despite not seeing the ITV drama I am not entirely unaware of the disgraceful attitude of PO CEO Paula Vennels and her dishonesty has been known
to everyone who follows the news for several years. Only a fool or a criminal would dismiss
the coincidence of a few dozen previously honest people all getting the thieving habit at the same time.
Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey is in trouble for dismissing Alan Bates’ concerns
25 days after the 2010 General Election and his appointment as coalition Post Office Minister. He now says he was
“misled by Post Office bosses”.
Probably he was and he was not the first Minister to assume that his minions would always tell the truth.
Sixty two days after being elected in 1997, Home Secretary Jack Straw assured Daniel Morgan’s brother’s MP that the 1987 axe murder had been
“fully investigated by the Metropolitan Police and the Hampshire Constabulary” and there was no truth in the allegation of police involvement.
It took another 24 years for the truth to be revealed and both the Metropolitan Police AND the Hampshire Constabulary to be officially designated “Institutionally
Corrupt” by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel.
Realistically Jack Straw could not be expected to re-investigate the Morgan murder himself
and therefore short of meeting the Morgan family personally to hear of their concerns
there was little he could do. But the Post Office case was much easier to
understand and Ed Davey really should have called Alan Bates in for a meeting. His failure to show any common
decency is unfortunately what one has come to expect from politicians. He has no legitimate excuse.
The Daniel Morgan Panel was set up by the much maligned Theresa May who met Daniel Morgan’s
mother in person and was more impressed by her than the senior police officers present.
I have no evidence to support my theory but I have often wondered if Mrs. May’s personal insight into the Morgan murder may have influenced
her lecture to the Police Federation a year later.
6 January - Depreciating assets
If
you flip back to
9th November and click on the second of the two images you will see that 4
Medway Road Crayford was due to be auctioned on 21st November by a Housing
Association with a Guide Price of £270,000. Obviously no one wanted to buy their
down beaten property because it is now back on the market at a suggested £225,000.
There was
a £26,000 reduction in Crayford in October too.
I think the Housing Association For Sale list now looks like this…
34 Pengarth Road, Bexley
53 Pengarth Road, Bexley
Crayford Road, Crayford
235 Iron Mill Lane, Crayford
234 Maiden Lane, Crayford
4 Medway 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
There was only one comment about @tonyofsidcupְ’s
series of essays and it was about
Councillors withholding
their addresses from the public record.
I first inspected the Register of Interests in May 2011 when it was necessary
to visit the Council Offices to view them by appointment under supervision. Elwyn Bryant and I
laboriously copied them into a note book and none of the Councillor’s property interests
were hidden. The following day Councillor Peter Craske blogged that Elwyn and I
had engaged in homosexual activities in that tiny office under the nose of his
invigilator but that is another story.
The subject came to the fore later the same year when eleven Councillors
suddenly claimed that their lives were in danger and their addresses were
withdrawn from public view. It required the agreement of a compliant Monitoring
Officer but compliance is a prerequisite for being a Bexley M.O. It was newsworthy at the time
because the other 31 London Councils combined
could only muster four
threatened Councillors. It was reasonable to assume that Bexley was indulging in
some sort of fiddle because that was its standard operating mode twelve years ago.
But it is no longer 2011 and politicians are more vulnerable than they used to
be. When I had an MP who would talk to me I knew that she was constantly
threatened by miscellaneous nutters and gradually I have changed my mind about
the Section 32 exemption.
Why do we need to know where a Councillor lives? I once delivered a package to
one of my Councillors and briefly stepped inside his front door. I know more or
less where another lives because of the excessive number of election posters
that appear in her window every four years but when they are not there I am not
sure exactly which house is hers. I haven’t a clue where the third one lives and
it really doesn’t matter.
It might be more sensible if the law said that all property interests should be
declared except the home address but as the law stands now the Monitoring
Officer must be persuaded to grant an exemption before it can be hidden.
I think @tony’s interest arises not from his desire to send Christmas cards but
from wanting to know what sort of reasons are being used to justify the exemptions. I will imagine some!
• My house backs on to an open space which is ripe for development but I don’t
want anyone to know that I am being given special treatment.
• I don’t actually live in the borough but I lied on the nomination paper.
• My estranged partner is inclined to violence.
• @tony is out to get me.
What are the Monitoring Officerְ’s thought processes when deciding whether to
allow an exemption or not;
or is no thought involved at all?
I doubt @tony wants to know the where Councillors live, basically he wants to
know if the current Monitoring Officer is as dishonest as all her predecessors,
and that is why Bexley Council has taken the cowardly way out by declaring him vexatious.
4 January (Part 2) - Where are we now?
Not a lot further forward. We now know what some have suspected, that the two Woolwich Road
addresses (Numbers 95 and 238)
that have featured here fairly regularly and the third in nearby West Heath Road all link back
via a variety of family and company names to the very same place.
One reader confirmed the relationships indicated yesterday and Belvedere
Councillor Daniel Francis reminded me of his nearly four year old
Facebook comment. He did not see fit to correct what has appeared here over
the past two days which may be further proof that it is all correct.
As
well as knowing who is behind the many contentious planning applications we know
that the people concerned can call upon Bexley Conservatives to pose in support of their causes and
present them with awards occasionally and the Conservatives can in turn call
upon their property developing friends to use their home, both inside and outside, for electoral publicity shots.
But we can only speculate as to how everyone came to be so closely associated and why
Bexley Council exerts pressure on planning objectors.
You may also speculate on the intelligence of people who go out of their way to encourage such unsavoury conclusions to be
inferred.
4 January (Part 1) - Please Fix My Council
I
stumbled across these two year old Fix My Street images of New Road which is
only a couple of minutes from home so I took my camera for a walk.
The footpath report had been rejected because it meets Bexley Council’s standards
and the dump was “Nothing to do with us guv”.
As you can see from the five photographs taken yesterday, the footpath is even more cracked now and the rat’s nest has not changed a lot.
For good measure three more photos taken nearby.
The white canvas directing visitors
to the shops (final photo) while they were disrupted by Crossrail construction has been flapping around since 2016.
Not bad though, just around the corner is a ‘New Road Layout’ sign erected in 2007.
3 January (Part 2) - What’s the missing link?
I think my look into the links between Bexley Council and the Singh family
will soon reach the end of the road and it is doubtful that the reason for that
uncomfortably close relationship will ever be known. No one expects transparency
from Bexley Council under the Conservatives but if you are expecting to stumble
across a trail leading to a brown envelope then best forget the idea.
From left to right of those who agreed to pose for a Conservative publicity photo
in 2022 we have Kulvinder Singh at No. 2, then Conservatives Viny Poon, Christine Bishop,
David Leaf, John Davey and Felix di Netimah (now Independent). Bypassing one
turban clad gentleman there is another Conservative, their whip Aaron Newbury
if I am not mistaken next to Planning Committee Chairman Brian Bishop and Tarsem Singh who accused me of photographing his grandchildren; so that probably makes him Kulvinder’s father.
An anonymous contributor says that the lady on the left is Kulvinder’s sister,
former shareholder in Kulvinder’s company and wife of Inderjit who wants to
develop 2 West Heath Road, the property about which Bexley’s Planning Officers
don’t want to hear any objections. Obviously if my informant is not correct, this paragraph can be corrected.
Peculiar though this situation appears to be the only people that might be in
the wrong here are the Councillors and Officers who may be susceptible to pressure.
If Balmonza Limited can operate within the law and become successful then they
are guilty of nothing more than being good Conservative businessmen.
Successful enough to be able to put up £790,000 in cash for Ye Olde Leather Bottle
(plus £149,500 from another family owned company).
Land Registry document.
3 January (Part 1) - Bin waiting a long time
The
reader and fairly close neighbour
who lost his bin when it suffered more
abuse than it could take took advantage of the offer in the Winter 2023 Bexley
Magazine and asked for a replacement bin on 11th November. His order disappeared
into a black hole so after a month he chased it up by telephone. “We haven’t got any.”
He is still binless.
I notified our Labour Councillor and Sally Hinkley checked the story with Mr. Binless
and made suitable enquiries within the Environmental Services department.
The holidays will have got in the way of course but she has at last been given
an answer of sorts. It remains “We haven’t got any” but there is hope. There may
be a small emergency supply available in mid-January.
The
delay was caused by the regular supplier extending his delivery lead time
from the usual 4 to 6 weeks to 10 weeks and then allowing it to slip to 20 weeks.
I’m not sure that excuses keeping residents in the dark about the
non-delivery of their bins for nearly eight weeks -
and counting - but at least Belvedere residents have Sally to fall back on.
The X message was issued on 2nd January 2024.
And now it is back to work with a whole month to fill in before the next webcast Council meeting.
I promised myself that I would use the time freed up by
letting @tonyofsidcup have his say by trying to
establish a link between Mr. Inderjit Khun Khun’s
application to develop 2 West Heath Road
(download Council website PDF) which would lead all the way back to
Mr. Singh’s demolition of Ye Olde Leather Bottle, my interest being aroused by
Councillor Davey being persuaded to withdraw his objection at the eleventh hour.
It may not by itself be absolute proof, and my knowledge of Indian family names
is limited, but Companies House reveals that Baljinder Kaur Khun Khun was one
of the five shareholders in Kulvinder Singh’s company Balmonza Limited and the company
registered to 2 West Heath Road has bought into The Leather Bottle.
Land Registry document.
It would therefore seem that there is almost certainly a family link between Baljinder and Inderjit Khun Khun; not that there
is anything wrong with that of course but with several interesting planning
situations in the North of the borough all leading back to the same people who
have such very close links to the local Conservative group, to the extent of being
photographed for publicity purposes inside their main residence, there must be every reason to keep on digging.
Why did Councillor Davey withdraw his objections? Who twisted his arm during the
planning meeting break? Adding to the concerns is that my postbag now includes a message
from a reader clearly stating that he too was leaned upon by Bexley
Council officials to withdraw objections to one of Mr. Singh’s applications.
1 January - Whatever happened to No. 2?
The second installment of @tony’s ten part saga of Bexley Council’s dubious shenanigans that is.
I didn’t like it but that in itself is not a good reason to silence him. I didn’t
agree with much of his ULEZ stuff either. But
part two went beyond upsetting me or Bexley Council, it would have upset the local Scout movement too and the
Vice-President of SE London Scouts has been a good friend to BiB over many
years. I asked him to comment on @tony֜’s implication that they had rigged the
Civic Awards process and he did but I chickened out of publishing it thinking there was no need to go there at all really.
I may slip in a cut down version of it all one day but BiB exists mainly to expose Council wrong doing and in this case I don’t believe there is any.
