I had no idea I had so many readers into graphics manipulation.
I used
Photoshop because I knew it pretty well although probably only at a superficial
level. Transparency, blurring, sizing, file size crushing and perspective correction occasionally.
I have Irfanview installed although for me it is always reluctant to install
Plug-Ins but I had entirely forgotten about RAW files
which I have used extensively in the past though not so much now. So special
thanks for that reminder and for all the other suggestions.
I object to 50% price increases. I thought only Thames Water did that - exactly
50% increase for me give or take a couple of pennies. I’m afraid I am buggering
them around so it will cost them plenty. They refuse to install a meter because
of their defective infrastructure and are asking me to pay more than twice my
combined electricity and gas bill. How is water use estimated on the number of
bedrooms? (Answer - They don’t know.)
I am tempted to leave the garden tap running continuously to make sure I am
getting my money’s worth.
Ahh, Bexley Council. I am supposed to write about them aren’t I? Yesterday I
used the Foots Cray recycling dump for only the second time in my 38 years in
the borough. I had collected together all the electronic gadgetry that is
totally out of date. I suspect there was about ten grand’s worth of old circuit
boards etc. A helpful man offered to take it from me and walk it to the
appropriate point. For some reason he seemed to be more interested in a handful
of old cables. Who uses SCSI, Parallel, Serial, VGA and SATA 1 cables any more?
I will probably need one next week.
If anyone
is still around they will probably have guessed that there have been disruptions to life
in these parts for several weeks. There are the ongoing health problems but the
big problems have been technology based.
One of the computers I made recently, the second of an identical pair, provided
me with all sorts of ‘interestingְ’ problems, on top of which my internet
connection has been behaving very oddly. Download speeds down to 20% of what they should
be (Upload barely 5%) and half, literally, of websites totally unobtainable, including Bonkers.
Firefox didn’t work at all, while Chrome and Edge struggled.
My home network is unnecessarily complicated because I used to do Beta testing
for a small ISP and it took ages and much tracing of long forgotten cables, to isolate where the problem was. The
simplistic answer was that something called Link Aggregation buried deep in the
router settings had become disabled - while a switch demanded it. All is well now, except that yesterday my
daughter announced she had wrecked a year old computer in a domestic accident.
I now have to build yet another!
Fortunately Bexley Council does not seem to have done very much recently.
The Leader’s report for next week’s Council meeting includes a little about
Transport. The Baroness is going on about
the SL3 Express bus diverting to
Bexley Village and the proposed SL11 from Abbey Wood to North Greenwich
diverting to Welling and being extended to Belvedere. Clearly the Leader has no
idea what an Express bus service is supposed to do.
For an alternative view read
Mr. Murky’s Depths.
The Leader also speaks of the Silvertown Tunnel. Last Tuesday I headed home
along the A13 late at night expecting to see a signposted slip road to the new
tunnel. Did I heck! It was a complicated route via about three sets of traffic
lights and a similar number of roundabouts and at least one unmarked fork in the road.
I considered myself lucky to see the tunnel portal ahead. I won’t be doing that again.
There has been total silence on our former two time
Mayor leaving the
Conservative Party nor have I again been pestered to sign a Gagging Order by
Reform UK. If someone wants me gagged does it not imply that I know something
about Reform UK that they are desperate to keep out of the public eye?
I have no intention of talking about it anyway but at times they do severely
test my patience and good will.
Despite Bonkers being somewhat subdued at present I fully intend to continue to
cover Council meetings because if I donְ’t Bexley Council will fulfill its
ambition to be a Secret Society. I really should start work on this year’s
Council Tax League Table too.
As part of the possible activity slow down I have refused to pay Adobeְ’s extortionate fee
for the use of PhotoShop. Up from £8·98 a month to £14·99. Maybe there will be
fewer photos on Bonkers but there is bound to be a free replacement somewhere.
The photo above is there for no very good reason. Taken today and reported by a
neighbour who takes a zero tolerance view of her drive being blocked, if only by a tiny amount.
When I have done the same nothing happens. Sometimes six or eight inches matters
and sometimes it doesn’t.
22 April - Bexley Council punishes teachers
Whilst the residents closest to Abbey Wood Station may be
rejoicing about the imposition of an Experimental CPZ (an ETMO), as was predicted, those living
in Elstree Gardens and further to the East are not.
All the houses nearest my own have off street parking places - though many don’t use them - but further afield they
are not so fortunate.
The mail Inbox says that no one living around the Eastern boundary of the
proposed ETMO is in favour of it, not a single one, but that will be because they
don’t see a problem at present. Once parking is effectively banned from 10 to 4 in the roads
nearest to Lesnes Abbey, the problem will move further East, to Elstee Gardens,
Kingswood Avenue and St. Augustine’s Road. Then those residents might change their minds.
A particular problem affects the staff at
St. Augustine’s School who park their
cars in the road. They can only use on site spaces by blocking each other
in with all the chaos that will cause. How will teachers be able to do their
job? They are not allowed to buy a permit.
One begins to understand why Bexley Council took so long to decide which
residents should be annoyed most. I imagine that hundreds of people being
forced to pay £132·50 a year would have been the deciding factor.
21 April - From Erith via Crayford and Southend to Runcorn
There will be a Parliamentary By-election in Runcorn and Helsby on 1st May because the former Labour MP engaged in a bit of late night fisticuffs with a constituent.
One of the candidates used to be a local man, he stood for election in
Erith & Thamesmead in 2015 and
in Bexleyheath in Crayford
(PDF) four years later when he said he lived in Erith.
After featuring him and including a newspaper report about him here he emailed
me on 8th December to say that if I did not remove the link to The
Independent Newspaper he would have me prosecuted. He notably failed to say that the report was untrue.
What is it about tin-pot election candidates
that make them so keen on hiding their past?
Although I
removed the blog for the sake of a quiet life I forgot to remove a YouTube
video which said much the same thing.
Everyone who follows Bexley Council’s antics will know that its Leader has
repeatedly complained about the unfair Government Grant Formula - or at least that is what she says. @tonyofsidcup
asked for the evidence (since 2021) that Bexley Council has argued its case that the
formula is unfair. For good measure Tony asked Bromley Council the same question.
Bromley Council provided the requested information backed by eight PDF files, but Bexley refused to do so.
Tony, as you might expect, complained to the Information Commissioner who ruled in
his favour. Bexley Council was ordered to provide the evidence that they had
complained on behalf of Bexley residents that they were being unfairly treated by the Funding Formula.
On 15th April Bexley Council came clean - one assumes - and said there was no documentary
evidence whatsoever that they had put its case to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
It would appear that either the Leader has been telling porkies or the FOI
response is merely continuing with the initial refusal to respond.
When it comes to politics, trust absolutely no one.
19 April - Like rats in a sack
The
Reform UK squabble escalated this week. Rupert Lowe who used to be their most
active MP by a very considerable margin is suing Nigel Farage & Co, for defamation. Click image for the full statement.
It made me wonder if Brett Wilson is the only solicitor known to Reform UK.
Use Public Transport they say, so I was returning from a
trip to Greenwich town centre where I had stayed for all of five minutes, two
hours and 21 minutes after leaving home (†) - thanks SouthEastern and Thameslink -
to find a small gaggle of neighbours out in the street celebrating the arrival
of a week old letter from Bexley Council. It confirms
what was said here
exactly two weeks ago. An Experimental CPZ will be introduced within the
area outlined below to be reviewed in about 18 months time to see what problems - or otherwise - it might cause.
The neighbours were pleased to see that the operational hours were
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to
Friday despite this meaning that locally the parking problems will continue over some
weekends due to activities at the Abbey. It is obviously not sensible for
weekend restrictions to operate over the whole area for a localized problem.
Residents in Elstree Gardens and other places where off road parking spaces are
at a premium may not be so happy with the £132·50 of extra taxes being imposed.
There was unfortunately no news on whether or not marked bays will be introduced
about which everyone was disappointed. Without them some roads may continue to
suffer although maybe rather less so in the middle of the day.
Why it took nearly ten months to come up with this plan remains a mystery.
Inefficiency and indecision presumably.
From Lesnes Abbey in the West to St. Augustine’s Road in the East.
† I can be on the platform of Abbey Wood Station within seven minutes of leaving home.
17 April - Who is the biggest StoryTeller?
@tonyofsidcup
asked Bexley Council how much they were owed by the liquidated
cinema in Sidcup and was told it amounted to £55,294·80; a figure that had
already been revealed by the liquidator.
The FOI response went on to say that a further £12,391·10 was paid out to keep
the cinema going last November and December. This is exactly the same figure that I had
heard about when I made
my own FOI on the same subject. The one that
Bexley
Council refused to answer. The only difference is that I was told that it
was much the same for four consecutive months.
@tony is rarely happy with FOI responses and knows better than most how they
are too often designed to hide the truth rather than reveal it. Tony would have
learned absolutely nothing new from the initial reply dated 11th April. He accordingly
asked another question. “Who is paying the staff now?”
It resulted in the following response.
Looks like Bexley Council was owed £55k when the company went bust and then paid out a further £12k (a month?) to keep the doors open.
Not bad for a Council that has no money. The figures sent to me included
additional sums bringing the total to nearer £17k a month.
Index to StoryTeller Blogs.
I used to think that the lack of affordable homes was the biggest social
problem faced by the country but maybe it is the cause of insufficient homes that is
nearer to the truth. Bexley’s Labour Councillors have been banging on about the
problem for ever whilst the Council itself appears to be content not to build or
enforce less expensive houses.
Today Bexley Labour distributed
a Press Release on the subject (PDF) which links to
a 28 page booklet (PDF) on the subject.
In it you will learn that families in Bexley might wait seven years to be
allocated social housing and most developments do not include a single affordable home.
I personally know of people who still have their 20 and 30 year old children
living in the parental home. Like so many things in Britain, it is simply unforgiveable.
15 April - Ripped off ticket. Rip off Britain
I
acquired a parking ticket at the weekend - blown into the garden by the wind.
The registration number indicated that it was issued to a neighbour, a neighbour
who gets at least one ticket every week, sometimes one every day.
I never report him because his parking predicament only arises because Bexley
Council failed to predict the coming of the Elizabeth line.
It was always reasonable to assume that he never paid any of the
tickets and my front garden litter would appear to confirm it.
Two years ago Bexley Council
wrote off £661,475 in uncollected parking fine revenue and foreign
registered vehicles formed a major component of it.
I have managed to avoid parking tickets but in 1958 my father was fined ten
shillings (50 pence) for parking on the wrong side of the road where the correct side
alternated day by day. The Bank of England’s inflation calculator says that
equates to a few pennies over ten pounds now. How did the penalty ever get to
rise to £140? Best part of a week’s income for someone on a state pension.
In Abbey Road a month or two ago a CEO told me that a wheel on a kerb is not an
offence because kerbs are regarded as part of the road, not the footpath, Last
week, and coincidentally in exactly the same place, another CEO took a different view.
Finally catching up with unreported webcasts, here’ְs the 60 minute Cabinet meeting for All Foolְ’s Day.
• There is likely to be a £2·898 million overspend by the end of the 2024/5
financial year which is £6,000 better than anticipated a month ago.
The usual culprits are Children’s Services at £5·8 million and the Adults’
£2·4 million. The Places Directorate has underspent on housing but Recycling
has earned more than anticipated. Expected savings fell short of target by
£1·868 million. The Dedicated Schools Grant has a £5·9 million deficit for
this year bringing the total to £12·8 million. {There must be some unstated
figures here because those quoted get nowhere near to adding up.]
• Cabinet Member David Leaf said that the challenging financial environment is driven
by increased demand and inflation.
• Cabinet Member Richard Diment said that while he was pleased to see the income from
Environmental Services increase despite the price for recyclables dropping and
far too much waste contamination. Together they represent a £210,000 hit. Eight
truck loads of waste went for incineration instead of recycling in January.
• Electricity costs are up by £50,000 a year.
• Bexley continues to be punished by the Ombudsman but the Council Officer said
they were few in number and those coming through now related to incidents two or
three years ago. “Lessons have been learned.”
• A 2050 Vision for Bexley has been developed within the past ten months. It is
supported by the Business Improvement District, Capita, Cory Group, the Housing
Associations, Rose Bruford College, the Fire Service and the Police among
others. The aim is to raise the profile of the borough and attract investment.
• Richard Diment said that Bexley has some of the worst performing bus services
in London. Every one of the low frequency buses is missing its performance target. “TfL
ought to listen to the Council to see what they should be doing to improve those
services.” [Surely if buses run late it must be the state of the roads which is the problem.
TfL has already made their views clear on that.]
• Richard made a plea for the Express bus service which runs
non-stop from Bexleyheath to Sidcup to be further delayed by a
diversion into Bexley. [Contrary to reports it does not usually run “within 100
yards of Bexley station”, I see it in Penhilll Road regularly which is a much more direct route to and from Sidcup.]
• The toll on Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels is an unacceptable burden on Bexley residents.
• Councillor Stefano Borella, who I don’t think is a driver, was the only Councillor who
had noticed that Welling, Sidcup, Bexleyheath and Erith are all effectively shut
by road closures. “It is a a big issue. Thames Water, I am not going to say what
I think about them…” [I am tempted to speak for him before long.]
• Missed bins are now down to 70 per 100,000 collected. (99·93%.)
13 April (Part 2) - Where the money goes
At last the summary of the Finance Scrutiny Committee meeting…
• Various aspects of Asset Management and Property Services have been combined
under a single “umbrella” which has necessitated the appointment of two new Heads of Service.
• The Deputy Director of Finance and Property who reorganised the Asset Management Team did not know how many buildings the
Council owned or their condition. (The Council’s
published Asset Register is three years out of date.)
• Councillor Bacon (Conservative, Sidcup) queried why two new property
specialists are required when the jobs have been previously done by existing staff.
The response was to the effect that the staff had been over-worked, hence the
need for more, and some were promoted which created new vacancies. In addition
several new specialist roles have been recruited, such as electricians.
• Another new recruit is a 'data implementer'. (Don’t ask.)
• Councillor Kurtis Christoforides (Conservative,
St. Mary’s & St. James) said we used to have
various teams to do all this work, we combined them and “recruited a load of
people and promoted those we already had”; how is that supposed to save money?
The Deputy Director went off on a brief tangent by which time she had forgotten
the question. Eventually she admitted that £500,000 had been set aside for
implementation and running costs would rise by about £80,000 a year but it would
“bear fruit” in the longer term.
• Councillor Read (Conservative, West Heath) asked if the staff were happy with
the changes and the Deputy Director said she thought they were because so many had been promoted.
• Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) said he was not enthusiastic about the
Council’s new slogan “Your life, your choice – working together towards the life you want”.
This is just one of five new slogans entitled “aspiration for our residents”.
• The cooling and heating system in the Civic Offices has failed and £100,000 has been spent on temporary generation facilities.
If anyone has misgivings about the competence of Bexley’s finance team and would
like to see them confirmed, listening to the webcast dated 26th March is highly recommended.
13 April (Part1 ) - Broken Bexley
The meetings page on the Council’s website has been broken for nearly a week. The Style Sheet is missing. A two minute job to link it back in.
12 April - Buses poor. Trains good
What happened at the Transport Users’ Sub-Committee on 25th March when I was
not well enough to attend? With no webcast the only way is to guess after reading the Agenda.
More often than not the police don’t bother to turn up and this time they didn’t
even bother to make a written report for the Agenda. They were supposed to
report on any road watching schemes that might be operating in Bexley but we
will never know if they did or not.
TfL did a lot better but were not the bearers of glad tidings. 17 bus routes kept people waiting longer than they
should; in some cases more than half an hour longer, the worst offender being
the SL3 which I have personally noted twice running a 28 minute interval. A further 18 routes
habitually run late or not at all. The 492 and 428 ran very late for a quarter of journeys.
There is a proposal and consultation on losing route 472 Abbey Wood to North Greenwich
and replacing it with a limited stop SuperLoop service.
I have become a frequent bus traveller and have every sympathy with the drivers
given the amount of inconsiderate parking, dangerous driving and disrupted roads there are in this borough.
South Eastern and Network Rail habitually provide an excellent presentation via
Zoom (or some such thing) but next to nothing in writing apart from
an interesting web link to train punctuality. With Abbey Wood being the
alphabetically most senior National Rail station that link will instantly show
that Abbey Wood provides a pretty good service.
Some road resurfacing has been completed but there is still no date
for Thames Road. A Zebra crossing in Bedonwell Road has been completed and
another in Bexley Road is awaiting installation as is yet another in Slade Green Road.
My local CPZ is now said to be awaiting installation but no one has told the
residents yet. The same is true of the proposed West Heath CPZ but the
Cabinet Member has still not been given any recommendations for a CPZ around Belvedere Station and Slade Green. It is now
nine months since residents were consulted
and left in total ignorance ever since. The only people I know in the Belvedere
area don’t see the need for a CPZ but probably they will change their
minds when the Abbey Wood one creates the obvious displacement problem.
11 April - Nothing but problems
Today should have seen the Finance Scrutiny meeting report
appear here but when I loaded up the audio file I found it ended after two and a
half minutes. In the past two weeks everything computer related has gone wrong -
along with several other things. I made myself
a new PC inside two days and my son asked if I would make one for him too. Much
the same but inside a much smaller box. That was the problem. A lot of kit in a
small space and no room to get a hand inside. At the last minute a disc drive
apparently failed and a complete disassembly was required to get at the
offending cable. After a two week struggle, as of an hour ago, I think it is now complete.
In the meantime I have accumulated 20 emails from Tony of Sidcup which are
unanswered and in some cases unread.
And then there are the usual household troubles. Thames Water and Octopus
Energy have both caused problems. Octopus fixed theirs in minutes with a phone call,
Thames Water took two weeks to reply and didn't answer any aspect of my enquiry.
Not one. I appreciate that they will be inundated with enquiries at the moment
but not reading the question is typical of that company’s idiocy. My water bill is now twice as high as my gas and electricity bills combined.
Anyway enough of that or the Finance meeting will never get reported.
Councillor Hunt is right isn’t he?
The roads in Bexley are perpetually bloody awful.
Currently Danson Park Road is closed in a southerly direction and as far as I
can ascertain this is to facilitate the building of a new development on the corner with Crook
Log. The result is total chaos. If you turn right out of Brampton Road intending to immediately
turn left into Danson Park Road there is no warning of the closure until you find the road on the left blocked.
This requires carrying straight on toward Welling. My lady visitor is not very
familiar with Bexleyְְְ’s poor road system and I was concerned that she would have
been forced to cross one of Wellingְ’s yellow box traps yesterday.
I told her of the alternative via Upton Road but that too involves traversing one of
Bexley’s most notorious yellow traps at the end of Avenue Road. It holds up
buses on a regular basis (several minutes at a time occasionally) which is presumably the intention. When Cabinet Member
Richard Diment complains at a Council meeting that the bus services in Bexley
are seriously below par - as he did at a recent Scrutiny meeting - remember that it is largely his fault. Most of his YBJs
are totally unnecessary and maliciously bigger than they need to be.
Lacking confidence that that Avenue Road trap would be successfully navigated by the aforesaid visitor I
acted as escort today and due to missing a turning off Upton Road we were in Penhill
Road before resuming the familiar route.
From there two buses took an hour and 25 minutes to get me back to Abbey Wood.
An advertised eleven minute wait for a 132 to Bexleyheath - but two came along
together - where a 301 was said to be due in a minute. It never showed up and the next was said to be 15 minutes
although it was rather less than that.
We then encountered Long Lane with three way traffic lights due to the same gas works which have been
on-going on and off for more than a year, Nearer to Knee Hill,
Pinewood Road was completely shut as it has been for weeks.
There are four bus routes running from Bexleyheath Clock Tower to Abbey Wood
Station which sounds like a lot of choice but it is not really because they depart from
four different bus stops. Only two of them are close enough to easily hope from
one to the other. So effectively only one bus; make your choice and hope for the best.
TfL. Every Journey Matters.
Was there anything interesting said at the Children’s Services Scrutiny meeting on 24th March? Let’s see…
• The Learning and Enterprise College Bexley has been given a Good (with
Outstanding aspects) rating by OFSTED. (The LECB is an Adult’s Further Education College
with an emphasis on the 19 to 25 year old age group.)
• Families will be supported by ‘hubs’ in the hope that the investment
in co-located services will reduce more
costly interventions later on. Attracting families in need is seen as a
potential problem by an enthusiastic team is in place.
Children’s Centres are in effect returning.
• Bexley Council claims to be a good employer of Social Workers and consequently
managed to retain their recruits.
Well that’s three hours I will never get back.
Various lame jokes and admissions that Councillors like the sound of their own
voices have been omitted. Same with countless
self-congratulatory comments.
Councillor James Hunt did well to absent himself from the meeting; or has the
Leader thrown him off the Committee?
Places Scrutiny meetings are sometimes quite interesting, will the one held on 19th March live up to its reputation? Unusually it was graced by police officers who were questioned throughout most of the meeting.
• Demonstrations in Central London have left local staff numbers depleted but the Neighbourhood Teams are protected except in extreme cases.
• There has been no knife crime in Bexley in the past 30 days but 55 incidents, some minor, some not, over the past year.
• Bexley has the lowest burglary rate in London although Councillor Bacon said that in Sidcup the perception is different.
• The night life in Bexley has grown to be one of the biggest in South East London and drink spiking is occasionally found but only at a low level.
Only one venue in Bexley has created concern.
• Stop and Searches are on a reducing trend but 32·9% are successful.
• Shoplifting is up by 64% in the past 12 months.
• Keyless car theft is a problem said to be made worse by Bexley residents buying more upmarket cars.
• Provision of speed cameras is paused and speed enforcement is not a priority.
• The Community Safety Survey had a very poor response, not much more than half the number last year and barely 20% of some recent years.
• Reports of Domestic Abuse are up by 3·2% compared to last year. Bexley ranks 18th in London.
Due to reluctance on the part of victims, on average, no action is taken until the 38th offence.
The police officers then left.
• The Bexley Survey produced a 0·17% response rate and even fewer from the North of the Borough.
• Councillor Cheryl Bacon confirmed that she will not stand for election in 2026.
• The last of the new litter bins are being installed in the Bexley Village area. 200 new ones in total across the borough.
• Small lamp post mounted bins are to be installed in Bexleyheath to hopefully meet the needs of gum chewers and smokers.
• A number of ideas for DNA tracking of fly tipped materials are being considered.
• The new CCTV system may be operational by July.
6 April (Part 2) - The catch up begins
Bexley Council inconsiderately held five meetings while I was hospitalized
and my reporting of them is now six meetings behind the times. I have listened to
five of them, one was not webcast, and time constraints demand that only the
briefest of commentary can be provided. Just the highlights if there were any.
Here we go with the Adult’s Services Scrutiny Committee meeting from 18th March. It was mainly about health issues.
• North Bexley suffers ‘Health Inequalitiesְ’ and lower than average cancer screening, 60% lower in the case of breast screening.
• Screening services include breast, cervical and bowel plus aortic aneurismsְ’.
• The poorest people have the lowest uptake and black people are particularly poor. Breast and Prostate
cancers got a special mention. Both are most
common; in women and men obviously.
• Black and Asian people suffer higher blood pressure - which is not unusual.
• Community volunteers, 562 of them, have been recruited to spread the word about screening programmes. People usually respond
positively to specific screening invitations.
• Neck cancer in men is becoming a problem and the recruitment of barbers to keep an eye on things is being considered. Greenwich already does it.
• Nail bars will be recruited for the ladies, specifically targeting mental health.
• Food banks will advocate healthy eating via recipe cards.
• Under 25s and Eastern Europeans are proving
difficult to contact. They only seem to be interested in Social Media where messages are too easily skipped through.
• About 50% of GP appointments in Bexley overall are delivered Face to Face.
An entirely different aside from a Council Officer asked that care staff be
given a free pass to park where they like.
I
thought they had one already called Kevin Taylor.
6 April (Part 1) - The man who knows too much
I spent most of yesterday and through the night wondering how Bonkers might
be closed down. Both the reasons for so doing and the technicalities involved in
possibly trying to retain some parts of it. Time is of course a consideration as all
sorts of arguably more interesting activities take a back seat to Bonkers but
the main reason is the stress delivered by the postman at regular intervals. I
am under constant threat of being sued for harassment over things I have written, even
though the complainant admits that it has been wholly supportive.
More than 100 blogs have been removed under legal threat many of them in 2019
when a Court case was factually reported without comment. Private Eye covered it
too but as far as I am aware they have not been asked to impound copies.
At the beginning of the year I removed around 50 entirely non-critical blogs but that was not
enough. I was told that I was uncooperative and needed to remove more. The
demands were somewhat vague but I removed some from Summer 2024 and asked for
more specific directions if that was not enough.
Worryingly I was also asked to sign a declaration that I would never disclose what I
know about the complainant who cannot be named. How does that work? Can my remaining
brain cells be wiped clean? Someone must be paranoid about my knowledge becoming public.
If it was not for recent developments it would have remained half forgotten
history. Who decided it was sensible to kick the hornet’s nest?
I went along with censoring Bonkers because most readers will not know who I
am talking about and care less, while those in the know are already well aware
of what the score is. They will probably not need a blog to remind them. I have never been accused of libel or defamation as
everything written has been scrupulously accurate but this person has a long
history of spending huge sums on solicitors, seven different ones by my count.
In one attack upon myself, for revealing the absolute truth, my solicitor
recommended offering never to harass this person which seemed to be fair enough
given that I never had and had no intention of changing course.
Now that undertaking is being used against me. Even the most mundane of
political reports is said to be harassment even when largely
supportive. Living in fear of the postman is no way to live, hence the thoughts of closing BiB.
Probably even telling you what has been going on is harassment by the new
definition. Fighting it off has, over the years, been very costly. I sometimes
think that the object is to deprive my Granddaughter of her inheritance and that I will never forgive.
Yesterday’s delivery by the postman looked very suspicious and had me
nervously shaking at the thought of opening yet more unreasonable demands and threats. It was
fully 24 hours before I summoned up the courage to open it. It was from my oncologist!
If Bonkers suddenly disappears it will be because a certain wicked individual
has demanded it. Me offering to comply with every unreasonable request will
probably be escalated further.
At least if Bonkers goes there will be time to write a book.
5 April - The sell off continues
It’s been two months since the last lot was auctioned but now Bexley is on course for four fewer social houses. Unlike most they look to be in decent condition.
Updated list with links.
30 Bourne Mead, Bexley
15 Marden Crescent, Bexley
34 Pengarth Road, Bexley
53 Pengarth Road, Bexley
Pengarth Road, Bexley (One bedroom flat)
20 Rye Close, Bexley
44 Stansted Crescent, Bexley
44 Stansted Crescent, Bexley (2nd sale attempt. Price reduced)
33 Oakhouse Road, Bexleyheath
Parkside Avenue, Bexleyheath
80 Pelham Road, Bexleyheath
Crayford Road, Crayford
Dale End, Crayford
Dale Road, Crayford
60 Heath Road, Crayford
83 Heath Road, Crayford
179 Iron Mill Lane, Crayford
187 Iron Mill Lane, Crayford
22B Iron Mill Lane, Crayford
235 Iron Mill Lane, Crayford
176 Maiden Lane, Crayford
206 Maiden Lane, Crayford
234 Maiden Lane, Crayford
4 Medway Road, Crayford
Russell Close, Crayford (Not on Street View)
20 Stour Road, Crayford
52 Jenningtree Road, Erith
22 Springhead Road, Erith
26-32 Burnham Road, Sidcup
11 Diana Close, Sidcup
204 Ellenburgh Road, Sidcup
63 Footscray Road, Sidcup
2-48 Heron Crescent, Sidcup
50 Mallard Walk, Sidcup
23 Maddocks Close, Sidcup
56 Maylands Drive, Sidcup (a flat)
56 Maylands Drive, Sidcup (2nd sale attempt. Price reduced)
Maylands Drive, Sidcup (Semi-detached)
17 Partridge Road, Sidcup
30 St. Andrews Road, Sidcup
29 Beal Close, Welling
19 Berwick Road, Welling
18 Burnell Avenue, Welling
39 Burnell Avenue, Welling
79 Darenth Road, Welling
47 Denton Road, Welling
17 Ridley Road, Welling
Rye Close, Welling
70 Tyrell Avenue, Welling
2 Wycliff Road, Welling
4 April - Their own worst enemy
Bexley Council really is its own worst enemy at times. It is nine months since
they consulted residents in the North West of the borough
about the parking problems caused by Elizabeth line commuters and I have heard
Councillors from both parties complaining that they are getting far too many
residents’ enquiries about what is going to be done about it and need a quick answer.
As recently as 10th March my own Councillor Jeremy Fosten told a neighbour
that he had that very day spoken to Cabinet Member Richard Diment and been
told that “a recommendation will be put to him formally in the next couple of
weeks”. However it took a random Council website search by
John Smith of MurkyDepths fame to stumble across the relevant document. It
is dated 27th February and effective from 7th March.
Can you believe anything that is said by Bexley Council? Why the secrecy on
a subject which they accept is of great interest to many residents?
No one would deny that the decision must have been a difficult one. The
Consultation covered a wide area with very different parking problems. Few
commuters park on Woolwich Road and wait 20 minutes for a 469 bus to Abbey Wood station but in my own
road, literally the closest to the existing Abbey Wood CPZ, is full every day
with often inconsiderately parked vehicles about which the Council does nothing
or even encourages
them. As such, opinions on the desirability of a CPZ varied widely.
Of the 1,453 addresses consulted 271 said they did not have a problem and 162 said they did.
Those most affected were in “Elstree Gardens, Abbey Road/, Coptefiled Road
(sic), Abbotswood Close, Raglan Road, Sampson Road, Carill Way, Mangold Way,
Heron Hill, Treetops, Woodland Way, Plympton Close, Laymarsh Close all citing
commuters”. Nine months to discover what is obvious to every Traffic Warden every day.
Bexley Council has chosen to implement a CPZ on an experimental basis (an ETMO)
for 18 months in Abbey Rd, Abbotswood Close, Beckett Close, Blakemore Way,
Bright Close, Carrill Way, Coptefield Drive, Elstree Gardens, Gilbert Road,
Hadley Road, Halifield Drive, Holcote Close, Kingswood Avenue, Laymarsh Close,
Plympton Close, Sampson Close, Shortlands Close, St. Augustine’s Road and Turnstock Way (sic).
Their document does not reveal the hours of operation or whether there will be
marked bays without which roads will continue to be obstructed. Will they really
install all the signs and road markings and be prepared to change then 18 months later?
I have come across an Experimental Traffic Management Order before when Newham
Council ran into 100% opposition to a CPZ and offered an ETMO and consult later to see if
it should be retained. As you would expect, the second consultation never came.
I suspect residents here will not allow Bexley to get away with anything like that.
You may wonder why no one at Bexley Council has bothered to keep residents
informed a month after the decision was made. I have been in touch with the
officer who made the recommendations more tyhan once. The answer as usual is all
Councils are useless and Bexley is no different.
Note: Picture above. The van arrived first, then the red car
parked so close that the van door cannot be opened and then the white car driver
did the same to him. Brain dead drivers and the Liz line appear to go hand in
hand. Both pictures taken today.
It
wasn’t Councillor Davey’s best joke ever, that must be the one about Sadiq Khan
being the worst thing to hit London since the Luftwaffe but suggesting that
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (the Iranian political
prisoner) should perhaps be sent back to Iran after her
understandable disdain for Boris Johnson led to her joining the Labour Party ran it a close second.
The Left flew into a rage and even issued a Press Release on the subject
when John was reinstated six months later. (PDF.)
Another bunch of humourless Lefties had removed John from
the Governors of Bedonwell
School. Schools are well known hotbeds of unbridled Socialism so that was not
unexpected but what was surprising is that Bexley Conservatives withdrew the
whip from Councillor Davey and then refused to say what had got up their collective noses.
BiB appears not to have made much of John Davey’s
readmittance to the
Conservative ranks which may indicate the degree of interest it had in this storm in a teacup.
Not for the first time @tonyofsidcup took a less relaxed view of Council
shenanigans than I did and submitted an FOI asking of what was John Davey accused. He got the usual brush off from Bexley Council and the same from the
Information Commissioner.
So off to Court @tony went.
The Tribunal’s judgment reveals that the Monitoring Officer decided
against referring Councillor Davey to the Code of Conduct Committee. That
decision in effect led to Councillor Davey being protected from public scrutiny and the
Localism Act does provide for such a thing when a complaint has no merit. Had
the complaint gone to the Code of Conduct Committee the Council would have been
obliged to publish its conclusion but the complaint did not reach that stage. Presumably because the Monitoring Officer believed it had no merit.
Two of the three judges therefore backed Bexley Council’s decision
that it could legitimately adopt its usual secretive position, but the
third felt that was unwise. He was of the opinion that an accusation of racism is so serious
that the correct decision would be to be open and transparent and thereby remove
the suspicions which Councillor Davey has suffered. However the Court ruled two
to one that
“processing is not necessary for the legitimate purpose of dispelling publicly circulated rumours”.
Can we conclude that Bexley Council would rather let one of their Members
continue to live under a cloud rather than see their procedures exposed to
public view? And which Tory clown ordered him out of the local party?