7 November - My first hybrid Full Council meeting
I decided to attend last night’s Full Council meeting in person after
speaking to the Mayor six weeks ago; I think I may have promised her that I
would do so. Jeremy Fosten’s arrival as my new ward Councillor was a further
incentive and in recent days the Question from Mr. Shvorob to which the answer should have been interesting.
But it wasn’t very.
If
you listen to the audio clip you will realise that the Leader made no attempt
to explain why Bromley and Greenwich fare better and when Dimitri asked her to
provide a more complete answer the Mayor subsequently ruled that his interjection was his
Supplementary Question which quite clearly it was not. It seemed to be
an uncharacteristically mean spirited intervention but it became clear later that
the Mayor was trying to save time whenever possible on what was predicted to be an
over-long meeting.
Nevertheless it could be interpreted as another example of Bexley Council provoking follow up questions by not answering properly at the first opportunity; something
Dimitri
has publicly complained about before.
Teresa O’Neill dodging the question.
Dimitri had a second question lined up which was about fly tipping in the
Market Parade area of Sidcup High Street. Unfortunately Cabinet Member Richard
Diment did not have the requested statistics but offered some others of interest.
In the High Street as a whole, twelve fixed penalty notices for minor fly tipping
offences have been issued in the past twelve months and in the same period 231
penalties for littering. Mr. Shvorob was allowed to ask a Supplementary Question this time.
“Would the chances of solving the problems be higher if Sidcup ward Councillors
actually lived in Sidcup and encountered the problems for themselves?” (Only one Sidcup Councillor lives there.)
Councillor Diment refused to answer the question. “Not appropriate.”
After Councillors asked questions - about which more later - Motions was next on
the Agenda and provided a perfect example of the procedures being imperfect,
Councillor Cameron Smith produced one on ULEZ which had been sitting in the Motions queue for 18 months.
He had considered withdrawing it but instead chose to highlight the innumerable
problems that Sadiq Khan has imposed on local residents. Having produced a new
rabbit from his hat the Labour Group rightly complained that they had not seen
it before and needed time to formulate an amendment and the Mayor agreed. She authorised an adjournment.
Motions can be boring at the best of times and I wasn’t going to sit around for
half an hour doing nothing. I packed the recorder and camera away and headed for
the door but not before I was intercepted by most of the ‘friendly’ Councillors who
had not bothered to acknowledge my email following
the extortion of money with menaces.
I am inclined to have words with them about that rather that let it fester.
Thanks to evening parking becoming ever more difficult necessitating a ten
minute walk to the car and the temporary traffic lights in Long Lane it was best
part of half an hour before I got home and tuned into the webcast on my phone.
Then I cast it to the TV screen and watched the entire performance in relative
comfort. The Adjournment actually lasted 25 minutes.
For the record I thought my new Councillor did pretty well despite the Council Leader’s attempt to put him in his place.
Note: This report dodges around the Agenda in a
non-chronological way. This is
mainly for reasons of time. Councillors’ questions come next.