28 February - Thames Water; what a shower!
Everyone is telling me about the horrendous bills Thames
Water have been sending out, 40% increases according to Thames Water’s own website.
My bill has not yet arrived.
I am one of a minority who does not have
a water meter and I have two close
friends in the same situation. All single people with a three bedroom house or a
two bedroom flat. For reasons that don’t make any sense at all, singletons
living alone without a water meter are assessed according to the number of
bedrooms they have. Few things could be more illogical but that is what Thames Water does.
The brains of a tadpole.
The flat dweller paid less than I did last year and the house dweller more
than twice as much. Their questions caused me to search TW’s website which led me
to believe that I have been paying too much. The flat dweller has no meter
because it is a Greenwich Council house and the shared services do not lend themselves easily to a metered supply.
I have no meter because the incoming pipework outside was fitted in a non-standard way
by the house builder and Thames Water correctly decided that they couldn’t fit
one internally because it would take over the space occupied by the washing
machine and there is nowhere else to put it. I thought that was reasonable at
the time and agreed to pay the average of single occupiers. (The Assessed Rate.)
The other friend has much the same situation. There is no provision for a meter
under the pavement outside as is the norm and the only space available inside
would involve diverting pipes and destroying
her food cupboard which she obviously could not agree to.
However instead of putting the lady on the Assessed tariff like TW did for me
they kept her on the old Ratable Value Tariff. Hence her paying twice as much as
I am. When she queried it all with Thames Water earlier this month she was told that the only way
out of this situation - apart from losing her pantry - is to pay Thames Water
for the cost of restoring their broken infrastructure and fitting a pavement
meter like they should have provided in the first place. Several hundreds of pounds,
Fortunately the lady is a fighter so she has cancelled her Direct Debit and told
Thames Water that she will only pay the Assessed Rate as I do until they fix
their problem. It is most definitely their problem but they expect their customer to pay for it.
There have been several Thames Water stories on Bonkers over the years including
Bexley Council labelling them
the most “difficult” utility that they have to
deal with. If I can find time to search for the links, I will do so. (Done.
There is another story I could dig out but it is a bit long in the tooth now.)
This will be a difficult blog to write and maybe I should not be writing it at all and just hibernate BiB for a while;
but that will very likely provoke questions. So here’s the brief and incomplete explanation…
I have unfortunately broken my 63 year record of not being an inpatient in an NHS facility. Whether I can maintain
some semblance of normality on BiB I do not know but I have prepared a few blogs in advance that I may be able to release remotely and cover a few days.
I am not in a local hospital as there are only two in the country that can deal with the situation. Distance will mean no visitors but I may be allowed out once or
twice before treatment is completed.
26 February (Part 2) - Richard’s Rails
If you go to Geoff Marshall’s excellent transport channel on YouTube you will
see a Southeastern Class 465 train at Charing Cross dressed up in Network
South East livery from 30 years ago.
The highlight occurs at six minutes and nine seconds into the video when Cabinet Member Richard Diment can be seen trying to scratch the paintwork - or something.
The Baroness had been given
an invitation to go and see the repainted train but maybe she had £361 to
collect just a little further down the road.
As always with YouTube on BiB, it is best to click the Full Screen button.
26 February (Part 1) - Boxing clever
Half
a dozen or more people had asked me to submit an FOI on the Bexley Box scheme,
at least one from within Bexley Council. On Monday I started to draft one out
but before I got very far in came an email from @tonyofsidcup. He had asked questions
a whole month ago and had some answers.
This is what we learned.
770 boxes were distributed to people mainly if not entirely chosen by GPs; the criteria
being over age 65 and housebound. The cost to the Council was zero and the value
of the included purchased contents was £19,593·16. Amazon and
local shops were the suppliers. The value of donated items could not be assessed and
is not included in the £19k, that being the amount raised from monetary donations
only.
Distribution was by volunteers, often Conservative Councillors. Labour refused to help.
My question would have included the division between commercial donations and
those from private individuals but it is probably not worth asking retrospectively.
I began by thinking the Boxes were a very good initiative but became a little
lukewarm later because donors were left in ignorance of what was going on, but an initiative that cost taxpayers nothing and
benefited 770 residents who had been hit hard by Labour’s mean spirited decision
cannot reasonably be criticised. Our caring MPs in both Crayford and Thamesmead
voted for Granny freezing. Shame on them both
and something to be remembered for the rest of time.
A newspaper report a few days ago which I failed to make a note of said that
elderly people in hospital this winter numbered 31,000 and last year only 17,000.
After paying the additional NHS costs, the amount of money WFA withdrawal has allowed to be sent to the poor living
in warmer climes probably does not amount to much.
25 February (Part 2) - Another massive eyesore
It is hard to keep up, but a week after a planning application went in for a 9·3 x 14·2 metre studio in
the back garden of 238 Woolwich Road another
(25/00315/LDCP) went in for the next door plot numbered 240.
The actual dimensions of this latest eyesore have not been found
within the application but apparently the new ‘shed’ takes up 100 square metres out of the plot’s 485 square metres.
I remember
visiting 240 when the owners were at their wit’s end with the
activities of their new neighbour. They lost a load of money but it was a wise decision to move away and let Kulvinder buy their home.
25 February (Part 1) - Brown stuff
In connection with Caroline Holland attending
her last Financial Scrutiny meeting I vaguely remember the name of Ross cropping up as her
replacement Director of Finance. Prompted by a reader I thought I had better check up on who
replaced her from yesterday. His name is Ross Brown and Bexley Council appears
to have chosen wisely. As far as I can tell he has no history of allowing frauds
to take place under his nose or choosing the wrong software packages and most importantly he has experience of
declaring a Council to be effectively bankrupt.
Ross only lasted two years in Labour run Nottingham and is on the record as having had slanging matches
with Labour Councillors who apparently had no concept of his legal position.
24 February - The last financial knockings
I have been reviewing the final few minutes of
the recent Finance Scrutiny
meeting. There is very little more to report.
Microsoft’s IT licences (†) are costing far too much. “Crippling.” Some of the assets (buildings) are crumbling, BexleyCo is “being given £157 million” according to a Councillor.
Cabinet Member David Leaf suggested it is far more complicated than that “and we get more out than we put in”.
Councillor Leaf managed to dig up a further bit of information about what he
clearly regards as a thoroughly disreputable Government. They have reduced the
Household Support Fund nationally by 13·5% and no one has bothered to inform
Councils of their individual share. Bexley’s share may go down or pigs may fly.
David rashly looked back on the previous day being the 50th anniversary of
Mrs. Thatcher’s day succession to the leadership of the Conservative party, thus provoking a very brief disagreement with the local Labour party leader.
It was the “excellent” Ms. Holland’s (Interim Director for Finance and Corporate Services) last appearance before the
Committee and a new man is due to take over on 24th February.
† The computer on which BiB is produced is very nearly eight years old and I have been looking at making a replacement.
The component costs for something similar have more than doubled. Nearer two and
a half times actually.
When too many of Bexley’s Councillors were old people supplementing their pensions,
Gareth Bacon stood out from the crowd. He earned himself a certain reputation
for holding down five or six public service jobs for which he was
featured in The Evening Standard but on the whole he was pretty good at his job(s).
Now that Gareth is MP for Orpington I keep half an eye on what he gets up to mainly
because a friend in Bromley is very nearly his constituent. Her back garden fence is part of the constituency boundary.
I am one of his 1,800 YouTube subscribers. The videos are reasonably well produced but
do not get many views. On local issues anything from fewer than one hundred to
going on towards 1,000. His Parliamentary performances on national issues occasionally get far more.
Now we know why his videos are decently done. They are produced by
former BBC
journalist Ray Sadri who typically charges Gareth £500 a day and a video takes about two days to put together.
Democracy comes at a price. I haven’t a clue what my MP does.
22 February - Conspiracy theories?
As expected, the test email to Amy,
BiB’s tame Facebook investigator, failed after bouncing around gmail for more than 24 hours. Anonymous
Amy is back today with more
revelations and she is not keen on Labour supporters undermining democracy by
taking over, as she believes, the local Facebook groups. Why is she surprised by that; they have
infiltrated education, the police, the judiciary, all the Quangos and everything
right down to local Community Centres where Labour has held all the
important posts? Not that anyone would suggest the Belvedere Centre was badly run and
without Labour support it would probably have folded years ago. Unfortunately it has now
run out of money and likely to close anyway. What happened to Cory
who
used to keep it afloat? Is Daniel Francis’ departure a factor?
But back to Amy and her theories…
Labour
bots are moving for the Borough rather than just Sidcup and Bexleyheath.
I’ve just seen these two notifications on Facebook about the
non-Labour
unofficial Labour supporter run group. Looks like they no longer want to
take over just Sidcup and Bexleyheath but now want to be Borough wide.
“Views” is a funny one. Anyone posts a “view” are told to provide
evidence like it is in a court room. Pro-Labour views do not need evidence.
(No Harvard reference needed.)
If anyone posts a post they don’t see as a fact it is rejected!! And people have said comments have been deleted… Joke
of a group. Needs to be shut down. Wonder how many of the 25·5k members are
the same person though! Amy
Labour MP Daniel Francis once told me that Bonkers is a third
conspiracy theories. Unfortunately recent history has shown that most conspiracies come true.
Who would believe that a democratically elected government would think it
acceptable to collect your fingerprint or face image from your phone log in
screen?
And an awful lot
worse than that.
Apologies for the clickbait headline but a Councillor has been plying me with
beer all afternoon and I am not good with beer. It’s the best headline I can do right now. I will have to be extra careful with what follows.
Over the years I have made friends with a fair number of Councillors and while
not real friends in the regular close mates sense, I have come to like and respect them all.
In recent days I have chatted
via various channels to most of them and found myself the piggy in the middle of
a group which appears to be less united than used to
be the case. It is an uncomfortable position and in order to isolate one from the
other I have had to tell a few minor fibs. I really do not like that and I’m now
hoping to keep a low profile. However I fear that I am already in the mire for
reasons I cannot fully understand - because I have not been a witness to anything.
I am not unused to awkward messages, the most difficult of which are from whistleblowers
and people who think that Bexley-is-Bonkers is a branch of Bexley Council
and able to right wrongs.
Whistleblowers are next to impossible to deal with. All one can do is salt the
information away and hope it can be used in some discrete manner at a future
date. Charging straight in would likely get somebody the sack. What if the
information comes from one of a small team? Probably they would be able to point
the finger at the man or woman with a conscience.
The other category usually requires a reference to a helpful Councillor. In the
most recent cases Sue Gower (Conservative, Bexleyheath) and Chris Ball (Labour,
Erith) did a sterling job of attending to the issues. Thanks both.
In both cases I got a going over from the resident for breaking confidences. What
else was I supposed to do?
Right! I am away to sober up.
20 February (Part 2) - You’re wrong!
While browsing around the Bexley and Sidcup Facebook Group I stumbled across this bit of nonsense. (See below.) Maybe Rachel is a resident of Sidcup and unfamiliar with the geography of the boroughְ’s northern outpost. The potholes of which she complains are indeed atrocious but they are all in Greenwich. Bexley filled its similar nearby potholes, resurfaced the entire road actually, in July 2024.
The Royal Borough has done sweet FA about theirs and the photos (1 and 2) being more than
seven months old you may imagine how much worse the holes are now. 30 buses an
hour pound that piece of road as do all the commuters heading for the Liz line.
If possible I will add an up to date photo later today. (Done! Photos 3 and 4. Note Bexleyְ’s smooth surface at the bottom of Photo 3.)
20 February (Part 1) - You’re banned!
I thought Bonkers was slowly dying out but yesterday I had six different
politicians contact me (phone, email, WhatsApp, X DM) and a lady who goes by
the name of Amy Anon several times (via the Contact form). I assumed her messages
were from a fake email address (because it includes the word anonymous) but maybe I was
wrong. I sent a test message early this morning and it has not bounced back yet.
Amy seems to know a lot more about Facebook than I do - which would not be
difficult. She has been digging into the Bexley and Sidcup News and Views Group
which I had never heard of until this week. (See yesterday’s blog.)
This is what Amy said…
Are Labour supporters running the asylum?
Most of the [Bexley and Sidcup] posts are by or approved by Gen Brown or Lou F. Is Gen Brown a bot?
Well they have little public information on their profiles. What they do have is a profile
pic from 28/2/24. Strangely enough that’s the same date they were made Admin of the group.
A quick Google image search on the photo doesn’t pull anything up however the fact they have three friends might.
Who else? Lou Filey. Well again a bit strange. Doesn’t show any friends however they have a small digital foot print.
Three videos of Will Young supporting Labour. Then a profile picture and header pulled from
Google (Google reverse image search).
I thought Labour was all about transparency? Apparently the group is all down to someone called Caroline. Well there’s
an Admin called Caroline Gilbey. That profile looks more “real” but has only been
Admin since 5th May 2024. Non story maybe but fun playing catfish.
I confess to being biased. My experience of Facebook Admins is not good. Under a different Administrator
I had my posts deleted from the SE2 Group for being a lone voice in support of
a local taxi company that was getting an unfair slagging. Former Councillor
Danny Hackett told me - albeit some years ago - that the Bexleyheath Group was
in effect run by Labour and if you take note of the names of local Labour
Committee Members you will see them on Facebook quite often. Danny was himself a
Labour Councillor Administering the Bexleyheath Group at the time so presumably
knew what he was talking about.
I daren’t tell you who Administered a long abandoned Group called Bexley is
Bonkers. Clue: It wasn’t me.
Being a Facebook Administrator seems to bring out the worst in people. I was
banished from an electric car group of which I was a founder member for saying
Octopus Energy was not perfect. The Admin was making a fortune from their
referral scheme and saw me as a threat to his income. I was banned from a local history group that was using photos I
had taken in the 1950s; which didn’t bother me at all. However one was claimed
by the Administrator to be his own work. Someone commented on a detail of the photo
which was not very clear and I went back to the original negative and posted a
high resolution extract. I didn’t say the photo was mine but that would be
obvious to anyone who thought about it. Result - instant ban.
Power corrupts etc…
19 February (Part 3) - Best to keep quiet right now
I had expected to be commenting again on
the overnight developments concerning Councillor James Hunt and I am sad to see him go
but I have read so much conflicting comment not only from him but also from people I have long regarded equally highly
such that I am not sure what to think.
Comments from Labour supporters who I have had the misfortune to encounter
before I would take with a huge pinch of salt but it is obvious that the
Conservatives must be going for each other hammer and tongs too. I have seen direct contradictions
about what happened at the selection panel and while I do not know the truth I will offer no comment.
With thanks to Anonymous Amy for guiding me to some interesting
on-line comment.
It might be much more interesting to learn why Nigel Betts is no longer a Conservative Councillor.
19 February (Part 2) - Diment delivers
Surely
no Cabinet position puts a Councillor more in the public eye than Neigbourhoods,
Places or Public Realm or whatever the title claimed by Councillor Richard Diment is today.
Bins to empty and potholes to
fix and ever more yellow paint to pay for them makes his responsibilities known to everyone.
But credit where it’s due, Richard responded quickly and positively to
@tony’s complaint and this nasty bus destroyong hole is as good as new.
19 February (Part 1) - James Hunted
Councillor Hunt messaged me yesterday evening to say he had been drummed out
of the Conservative Group on Bexley Council and whilst remaining a Conservative
Party Member he would henceforth be an Independent Member of Bexley Council. It
came as a complete surprise; I was expecting Councillor Dourmoush to leave and
I knew another who was going to stand down in 2026 for personal reasons, but
never suspected that James was in the firing line.
James has been an occasional BiB correspondent since 2011, not as a
tittle-tattler but
a supporter through difficult times; like when the recent Reform UK candidate
had me charged with Harassment for reporting her disagreement with Bexley
Council over a house sale and the infamous libel case. Then more recently when
she demanded £4,800 damages after I briefly mentioned her in the run up to the election.
That will be an impediment if he ever thinks of switching parties. James knows too much.
Why someone who served as Mayor twice in recent years has suddenly fallen into
disfavour I am unsure. Presumably the Leader has something to do with it. The
Leader who refused to take action against her predecessor who misappropriated
Council funds, the Leader who was in favour of appointing a candidate with a
police record and the Leader who the Police Borough Commander told me asked for
certain favours to protect her colleagues.
I know for certain that some Labour supporters are extraordinarily disreputable
individuals who will stoop to any low level to discredit anyone they see as the
opposition and it would be surprising if the Conservative Party did not harbour
similar people, although they may well be more expert at hiding it.
Two weeks ago I received a phone call from a ‘ֹPrivate Number’ and it was clearly
from a Council source. It made derogatory comments about James Hunt although
that was not the prime purpose of the call. I dismissed the comments about James
and made no notes about what was said, although I did about the other things mentioned.
I have been referred to the Bexley and Sidcup News and Views Facebook Group but I
immediately stumbled upon names which I know to be Labour activists
spreading poison making their views known. To my mind
their opinions are barely worth reading. Labour Party members are pretty good at
manipulating Facebook Groups and that is a reference back to the days of Danny
Hackett being my local Councillor. He was at one time a Moderator and personally
signed me up to a Group while we were both sitting in a pub one day.
Bexley Tories are making a habit of losing Councillors and probably the Leader
and her supporters are the common factor.
Councillor Felix
di Netimah when he resigned said “The Leader of the group and I clashed on a great many
things. She won and I lost. That’s it.”
No doubt this story has further to run but blogging at a quarter past midnight is probably not a good idea.
18 February - 25% Council Tax increase for the not well off
Continuing the Finance Committee report, a discomforted Cabinet Member David Leaf spoke of his Council Tax Reduction scheme whereby
people of working age on low incomes pay less Council Tax. How much less is a
decision for individual Councils and there is no Nationally imposed formula.
Councillor Leaf had fallen back on a
Consultation which asked questions ranging over several different levels of less
generous support with the alternative of making no change. Each of them received similar levels of
support - around 20% in favour of reductions - with the ‘do nothing’ְ option attracting 50% support.
The Labour Group
had submitted an objection which was disregarded. Councillor Chris Ball (Erith) thought the decision was “fundamentally wrong. Some people will
be paying around a third more. Some people are earning less than a Councillor
receives as an allowance are being asked to pay an extra sixty to one hundred
pounds a year”. [This paragraph is an amalgam of several comments made at various times.]
Councillor Leaf had decided reluctantly “that everyone on the scheme will need to pay 5%
more in terms of their Council Tax”. This translates to those with between £151
and £201 a week of disposable income go from paying 20% of Council Tax to paying
25%; an increase of 25% to their level of taxation. It is disappointing that we
have a Cabinet Member for Resources with such a poor grasp of numeracy. (The
percentage increase varies in line with income but never falls below 7%.)
His excuse that the National Living Wage had been increased will probably not
cut much ice with those affected.
Residents with an income between £201 and £251 a week after basic deductions who used to pay nothing
will now be on the 5% rate. Around £110 for Band D at the 2025/26 rate.
Councillor Steven Hall (Conservative, East Wickham) asked Councillor Leaf to identify the mitigations to
which he had referred in his report. He came up with the indexation of
various benefit payments and free child care. I think it is fair to say that a
less than happy Cabinet Member was floundering and not unaware of the hurt his decision will
inflict. The lost Council Tax amounted to about £9 million.
Council June Slaughter (Conservative, Sidcup) asked what other Councils had
done. Councillor Leaf only knew that many London Councils had consulted and Greenwich was set
to impose a considerably bigger reduction in support than Bexley.
Councillor Ball asked why the number of claimants was falling and why the
Consultation response which was “overwhelmingly against change” was ignored.
“Why does the Cabinet Member think he is right and everyone else wrong? [While
acknowledging the slightly provocative shorthand…] Why does he know best?”
He was told that higher earning led to fewer claims and the Covid peak had
reduced. The Council could not afford to give away £9 million.
Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour, Slade Green) thought it was unfair that compensation
paid to military veterans was treated as income and might push recipients into
paying more Council Tax. The Cabinet Member said that was not a change.
Stefano revealed that there were only 73 respondents to the Consultation and a
lot more could have been done to inform residents. Cabinet Member Leaf said it
was not practical or cost effective to notify all Council Tax Payers and people
tended to ignore Council emails.
This will mean nothing to readers but today represents a big milestone for me and BiB. Rather more than six years
ago I messed up this website big time. I accidentally applied an edit intended for a
single page to the whole site. The number 1901 got changed to 2001 and I didn’t
notice. Then I repeated the mistake by changing 1501 to 1502. The effect on the
site was calamitous with images galore disappearing and umpteen internal links
being broken. I have forgotten why the backup didn’t save me; left it too long probably.
I thought of a rescue operation but it merely made things worse so I took the
decision to take everything before 2020 off line and laboriously go back to 2009
checking each blog individually, improving the image quality, making sure pages were mobile compatible and fixing links.
It has taken ages, especially the hunting down of original images for reprocessing,
although as I progressed through the years it became easier as the pages were
more modern anyway - but broken links were never ending.
Today I updated the very last page from 2019 so they are all done.
The opportunity was taken to reduce the abrasive tone of some of the earliest
blogs (Fat Controller and Purple Pygmy have all gone) although I still cannot believe how dishonest Bexley Council has been.
Many things I had entirely forgotten.
A few blogs were omitted for a variety of reasons and where appropriate replaced by an
explanatory note. Leaving blanks risks more broken links. The original entry is carefully archived ‘just in case’.
There are still things that I am not happy with but they are all of a technical
nature which should not affect the reader experience too much.
There are 40,250 files on Bonkers, 123,801 hyperlinks of which 33,668 are
internal to the website. That was one helluver lot of checking.
16 February - Talking intelligently?
The
Finance Overview and Scrutiny meeting met last week Chaired by Councillor Ahmet
Dourmoush. He alone seems able to start a webcast at exactly the right moment
(his clerk?) but then reads out the warning about members of the public taking
photos when none are present, but I am nitpicking again. He is an OK Chairman.
Labour Leader Stefano Borella asked what the Director of Finance meant by ‘prudent level’ in her
Minimum Revenue Provision Policy Statement. She said “we have set aside
sufficient and then we have set aside an additional amount”.
Councillor Andrew Curtois (Conservative, Falconwood & Welling) thought it was brave to assess the interest rate while “the
venerable Rachel Reeves” is in charge. Cabinet Member Leaf agreed that “it was a
calamitous budget”. He has read all the Bank of England and Treasury reports and
making decisions is a fine judgment call on interest rates etc. The Council has
recently borrowed an additional £10 million. The Finance Director added that the
loan was at 4·89% over five years.
Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) referred to Rachel Reeves “fixing the foundations - or
whatever the briefing note tells me to say at this point”. Chris queried
BexleyCo’s finances and the Cabinet Member told him that “borrowing might be higher than the
limit but the profile of the borrowing and the way it is paid back may
mean that we never get to that £125 million limit for 25/26. It is regularly reviewed.”
The Committee then looked at Information and Communication Technology and
Artificial Intelligence. Once again Councillor Borella was first off the starting block.
He was concerned about the application of AI to personal issues.
He was told that there were proposals to apply AI to all
EHCPs so that “every
single one could be reviewed and identify which needed the most work allowing
staff to prioritise work. At the moment we have not got the capacity to quality assure every single one.ְ”
“Minute taking is another area where AI could be applied. Not yet a replacement for the minute taker
but it can produce a draft from the transcript. Some authorities have got rid of
the minute taker and Bexley could follow if it can get the rules right. This
will allow staff to concentrate on meeting interactions rather than the note taking.”
Several Councillors asked about data security but not all systems use cloud
storage.
Its network security software should detect any unusual activity which might
indicate a cyber-attack. Bexley will be cautious and
will not lead with AI, preferring to learn from experiences elsewhere.
Maybe when Bexley Council has found some AI software which is good enough for
them I will be able to find something that summarises webcasts. I have already
spent nearly three hours listening to this meeting and I am not yet half way through it.
Probably you have read enough anyway.
To be continued, the subject being Council Tax and Financial Plans.
15 February - Bexley’s Childrenְ’s Care providers are “verging on the criminal”
The Children’s Services Scrutiny meeting Chaired by
Councillor Lisa Moore (Conservative, Longlands) is never wildly exciting but maybe occasionally
interesting to the parents of SEND Children who have to fight Bexley’s
£160,000
barristers at Tribunals and the like because of Bexley Council’s maladministration
habit.
Speaking of which the Chairman began by referring to “the recent Ombudsman’s
report against the Council” but moved straight on and no Committee Member
commented. The Agenda revealed that there were three adverse Ombudsman’s
reports between April and October 2024. Two relating to Social Care and one to Education.
The Committee heard that the Covid inspired rise in referrals of vulnerable
children (Child Protection Plans) has now fallen back to near 2019 levels.
Staffing levels have been adjusted. 54 agency workers in
mid-2023 are now down to 20.
Labour Councillor Asunramu (Thamesmead East) asked a number of questions about
school exclusions but answers were few. The total number had declined
significantly since last year. Exclusions tend to go hand in hand with schools
given poor OFSTED ratings and too often are drug related. Primary schools are
not unaffected by exclusions. The Council offers its support to both Academy and
non-Academy schools.
The new Shenstone School is “progressing really well and very impressive” and will open in September.
Cabinet Member David Leaf was present as “a special guest” and the Chairman
wisely said he was allowed only two minutes to address her Committee. He said
that the new Government had reduced Bexley’s share of “the National Pot” and a
grant relating more directly to Children’s Services had been increased by less
than the rate of inflation. (Two minutes exactly!)
Councillor Nick O’Hare (Conservative, Blendon & Penhill) asked how contractors having to pay thousands if not millions
in additional National Insurance Contributions might impact the Council.
Councillor Leaf said that about £5 million had been set aside for contract
inflation and the Council will have to pay an extra £1 million in NIC for its
own staff, the reduction in the threshold to £5,000 being particularly
impactful. He does not yet know the effect of the 200 different contractors’ NICs on prices.
The Government has provided a £1·6 million compensation package which will
go some way towards covering the costs but the Employment Rights Bill is also
loading significant extra costs on to the Council.
Councillor Leaf said he was concerned that if the Statutory Override [a
temporary change to accounting practices that allows local authorities to
deviate from normal accounting rules] is not
extended beyond March 2026 the Council’s financial position will be at risk but
he “was excited” to hear the Local Government Minister announce on 17th December
that he would be helping Councils to manage their finances and would set out his
future plans for the Statutory Override. However on the following day and ever since
the same Minister has done nothing but “kick it into the long grass”.
David has yet to hear “what strings might be attached” to various grants.
Councillor Asunramu posed a question about
the high cost of some ECH Plans and “the profiteering of care providers”
which led to 27 minutes of Officer and Cabinet Member discussion on “rocketing
costs” and Social Worker pay rates. There was little that stood out apart from
some individual children in care costing half a million pounds per year and
Bexley doing rather well with Foster Parent recruitment. The discussion stirred
a couple of Councillors into expressing their dissatisfaction with the situation.
Councillor Kurtis Christoforides (Conservative, St. Mary’s & St. James) was particularly concerned
about the half million pound children and informed us that the money spent on SEND transport (£9m.) was twice the road
resurfacing and pothole budget. (£4·8m.) “Is it time we made some really hard and unpleasant decisions?”
Councillor James Hunt (Conservative, Blackfen & Lamorbey) said he used to work for one of the care providers and
with their business units. “They take a figure and basically triple it.” He went on to
indicate that a half million pound fee is “ridiculously over-inflated”
by a factor in the region of four. “They have business units, not education units and they are simply designed to
boost profits. They call themselves charities but they have shareholders. It is verging on criminal.”
Note: This report is not in strict chronological sequence
but has combined similar subjects for reasons of presentational simplicity.
14 February - … and they will take a mile
This week’s Scrutiny meeting reports are being deferred to the weekend when
there looks to be a hole in the BiB schedule and today I am keen to see if I can simply fix the
coding error that has crept into several thousands of pages.
When I said it was
preventing editing, I meant the styling and presentation rather than content. Meanwhile I find myself getting more and more annoyed by Bexley Council
having done nothing to address
the Liz line parking issues. Not an official
word for the past seven months.
Two weeks ago the issue was Bexley’s inconsistent approach to parking in front of dropped kerbs. I
posted images, all taken fewer than 100 metres from home, which Bexley Council
had refused to ticket and others where they had.
It was the same again today. A small incursion into where no vehicle should be
is overlooked and drivers are once again encouraged to take just a little bit more next time. Where does it end?
I have submitted an FOI (call me @tony) to see what Bexley Council’s rules are. When does a minor
indiscretion trip over into £120 PCN territory?
While reporting this one I noted that
the web reporting interface has changed
and I went through the routine twice to make sure I was not seeing - or not
seeing - things. On both occasions it asked if I wished to upload a photo and
after checking ‘Yes’ it simply tripped into the next page without going through
the upload routine. I found that by independently finding the photo in my Android Phone
Gallery and selecting it, Bexley’s webpage accepted it, but it was equally
possible to not upload the photo without creating an error message for checking ‘Yes’ and not doing so.
Thanks to Bexley Council’s inaction and inconsistencies I have now clocked up
eleven FOIs but how else can you get an occasionally straight answer out of them?
13 February - Under Labour there is no money. Not yet anyway
I was on my way home from Bexleyheath
this afternoon sitting in the front seat of a bus and staring at my phone like a
teenager and became aware that the bus had stopped. Not at a stop and with no traffic
in front of it. A moment later the reason became clear. The driver eased his bus
into what must have been an enormous pothole and as he did so there was a loud
bang. Several passengers cried out in alarm as the front of the bus dropped into the hole.
It was on Brampton Road just before the Knee Hill traffic lights and presumably a Greenwich Council responsibility.
Definitely in Bexley, or Sidcup to be more precise is a similar hole which is a
month or more old. A resident (@tony again) sent the picture to his Councillor and Richard Diment replied as follows.
Despite the claims being made by the Labour Party, the council has still not
been given final details of the settlement for road maintenance for 2025/26.
The total does not appear to be materially more than was allocated by the
previous Government for 2024/25 but all councils have been told that 25% of
the money will be held back and only released if performance criteria have
been met. The details of those performance criteria have not, or at least
certainly hadn’t up to a couple of days ago, been given to councils. The
other point I would make is that any money for the 2025/26 settlement will
not be released until after 1 April so is not yet available for spending.
I heard exactly the same message from the Highways Manager. Despite the Labour Government’s
doorstep campaign message (Click to expand image 2) there is as yet no money
available for pothole fixing. Greenwich is likely to be in the same boat. Maybe literally after rain.
Note: BiB has a couple of problems at present which are
taking up too much time. The Litigious Liar is on the prowl again and not
unconnected is that I discovered a coding problem affecting nearly 4,000 pages.
It won’t affect readers - won’t be seen at all - but it does stop me editing
them. The pedant in me wants to see those pages fixed sooner rather than later.
I have an idea for a quick fix. It may work, but it may not!
12 February - India rubber man
It’s
only a few days since Mr. Singh had his ‘permitted development’ְ request
(24/02900/LDCP) at 238 Woolwich Road rejected but he has bounced straight back with a
proper application (5/00209/LDCP). It’s for an art studio and gym in the back
garden. 9·3 x 14·2 metres.
The barren landscape of 238 is from Google Earth.
If at first you don’t succeed…
He will get there eventually.
Photo 3. ‘Nuclear bunker’ under construction in 2019.
Index.
11 February - A barrier to progress
Apologies, today is one of those days when there is no spare time.
The associated photo is of a cycleway near Robin Hood Lane in
Belvedere. It is presumably designed to be a barrier to motorcycles and larger
vehicles but stops most push bikes too. Anything with a shopping basket or child
seat attached is unable to get through.
The cyclist who sent me the picture presumably thinks that Bexley Council will do something sensible if
the situation is brought to their attention but regular readers will know that that is wishful thinking.
The subject has been aired here many times since BiB was created and clearly, as
with most things, Bexley Council doesn’t care. Wheelchair users are frequently defeated too.
Finding the old complaints is too much of a needle in the haystack job on a day
with no spare time, but this is the earliest I have found so far.
15 years ago!
10 February - Nine months to answer an FOI honestly. (One assumes)
With
WhatDoTheyKnow back on line it is has been possible to poke around to see
what else Bexley Council does not want us to know about. @tonyofsidcup may be
pleased to know his are not the only questions to be dodged.
In May last year a lady asked how much Bexley Council had spent on legal fees
over the past five years defending themselves at SEND Tribunals following poor
EHCP decisions. How many solicitors do they have working against dissatisfied parents etc. Bexley did
nothing for two months and then gave her the run-around.
Eventually they came up with a figure of £66,231 but admitted that it was not
the whole story. The figure did not include Admin costs or the cost of hiring
external lawyers. The lady did not give up. How much had they really spent
defending the largely indefensible? With the threat of an ICO reference hanging
over them, Bexley Council came up with the figure they had sought to miss out.
In November 2024 it was revealed that in addition to their internal costs of more than £66,000 our incompetent Council spent
another £102,000 on barristers.
And still the parents beat them in nearly every case.
The lady questioner also picked up a minor fib buried within Bexley’s email trail
and she sought clarification on it. The issue was not resolved until last week.
The whole saga may be read here.
9 February - £5 garden waste hike was tolerated last year so the reward is £10 this year and next
The Places Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting along with
its Sub Group dedicated to Transport Users
is probably the most interesting of Bexley’s public meetings because they usually have something for everyone.
Councillor Cameron Smith (Conservative, St. Mary’s & St. James) makes a good job of chairing both.
Last Tuesday ‘Places’ was mainly about price increases and the need to balance the budget with unpopular ones.
Councillor Philip Read (Conservative, West Heath) asked the first question having spotted on Page 17 of the
Draft Budget Report the note that Parking Enforcement had overspent by
£447,000 and issued 4,933 tickets in November 2024. The figure that concerned
Philip was that the figure for tickets per patrolling hour had reduced compared to
the previous month by 0·07. He said it was “significant. Has the cause been identified?”
He was also concerned about an increase in the number of reports of domestic abuse. 64%
more victims had been rated as being at serious risk. It transpired that the 64% was over
nearly six years so it was easiest to blame Covid, “but the figures have not dipped since”.
The PCN answer was that the figures are always “volatile” month by month. The
Council’s emphasis was on trying to get the contractor out on the road more often.
Cabinet Member Richard Diment
(Conservative, Sidcup) was proud to announce that Bexley has the lowest
rate of successful Adjudicator Appeals in London.
Responding to a question from Councillor June Slaughter
(Conservative, Sidcup) about Planning Department job
vacancies Deputy Director Jane Richardson said that the Labour Government is
planning to introduce a very “considerable” hike to planning fees.
Councillor Slaughter also asked about the increasing cost of running the
Highways Department and was told it was very difficult to recruit good Highways
engineers. Everyone who rides around the borough will be able to vouch for that.
Councillor Anna Day (Labour, Slade Green & Northend) asked why some parking charges were going up far in excess
of the inflation rate. There was no answer.
Councillor Mabel Ogundayo (Labour, Thamesmead East) said that Bexley was the only London borough with no
housing stock which was also underspending its housing budget. “How does that
ensure that residents don’t end up homeless? Is there going to be increased
housing for Ukrainian and Afghanistan refugees?”
She was told that the underspend comes about by trying to avoid emergency
accommodation. Helping people with rent arrears is a cheaper option. The Ukrainians
refugees figure was not available but “it is measured in hundreds”, The number
of Afghan families is small but they are looking for six, seven or eight bedroom
houses so they will generally go outside of London.
Mabel said that the cost of the garden waste service is increasing by another tenner and
surrounding boroughs are cheaper except Bromley by £1 but unlike Bexley their
price is not increasing in April. “How is that justified?”
There was an unconvincing response from the Waste Manager about the other
boroughs having “different collection methodologies” . Bexley has fewer missed
collections and she was “confident that the new position [on price] would be very positive”.
Cabinet Member Diment came to her rescue by saying that different Councils operate in different ways.
Greenwich is massively increasing CPZ charges, Bromley is taking away Blue Badge
parking concessions and in Bexley the gardeners are to be hammered. [Not an
exact quotation.] It doesn’t help, he said, that the Labour Government has awarded Greenwich twice the level of
National Insurance contribution support than for Bexley. Punished for being Conservative.
Deputy Leader Leaf had something to say about this too. Additionally, after
years of suffering under a disadvantageous Government Grant formula the new
Government has announced that it is to be made worse for Bexley. Its share is going down.
If gardeners were not attacked it would have to be someone else and after it was
announced last year that prices would be raised for as long as residents continued to
meekly pay up. Most continued to do so. (Not me!)
A fiver last year, a tenner this year. Residents effectively asked to be mugged.
Ominously Councillor Diment implied it will go up by another £10 in 2026.
I was pleased to note that Councillor Diment
did not repeat the lie that
Bexley’s brown bin tax is “among the lowest in London”. Not easy to repeat when the
meeting Agenda helpfully included a table which showed that of London’s 32 boroughs
only nine are more expensive than Bexley. The majority remain free. Next
year the figures will be worse.
Councillor Sally Hinkley asked about improving food caddy collection rates in
flats in particular and the Waste Manager came up with her usual complacent
waffle about being “confident” and “ahead of the game” and the answer lies in recruiting more managers.
The waste vehicle fleet is coming up for replacement and the options are being
examined. Refurbishment, electric, the balance between different vehicle
collection types, etcetera. The cost could be in the region of £8 million.
8 February - A BlasT from the PasT
All the local blogs,
Murky,
Maggoty and
Greenwich Wire have evolved their own
unique styles as has Bonkers but BiB is I think the only one that is built on
hand crafted code; which can be both a pain and a pleasure. It also relies much
more heavily on references back to ancient history which sometimes prove very
hard to find among well over 7,000 blogs. While making such a search a few days ago I stumbled across
a blog covering something I had long ago forgotten and it served to illustrate
just how big a loss Teresa Pearce was to Erith and Thamesmead when she decided
to step down from Parliament in 2019 thus disproving the old adage that all
political careers end in failure.
It was a
technically complicated story so maybe I should try a simplified version here.
I became aware that my BT landline (8310 on the Thamesmead exchange) had an
intermittent fault and began to take note of the source of the affected calls.
My conclusion was that it affected only certain exchanges and only at busy
times, which provided me with enough clues as to what might be happening.
It probably couldn’t be done now but I managed to interest a BT engineer in Brighton who
took my conclusions seriously and my hunch proved to be correct. When BT’s
system was busy, calls from much of the South of England would use an overflow
route which involved a direct Portsmouth to Thamesmead link. Someone in
Thamesmead had set up the Portsmouth incoming switches incorrectly which
reversed the effect of the 141 WITHHELD toggle. Hence no number display at peak times.
The problem went away for a long time and then it returned. BT said it was a
known fault and asked me to be patient. Six months later BT called to say
they had fixed the fault but I saw no sign that they had. When I tried to tell BT they
dismissed my concerns on the grounds that my 1960s telephone training counted
for nothing now. True, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t see an obvious fault.
I checked my little used 8311 number and it was the same as the 8310 and then came the
thought that the whole of Thamesmead probably had the same problem. I told my MP about it.
Teresa is a bright lady and saw the call pattern straight away and on behalf of all
her Thamesmead constituents she wrote to BT’s Chairman. A
week later I received a call from his secretary to tell me I was talking rot and my
friends and family must have banded together to drive me mad by randomly prefixing
their calls with 141. I kid you not. The very rude lady told me that the
Chairman was not interested in my problem and there would be no further contact.
Undefeated, Teresa went to OFCOM to complain and they insisted that BT check things out.
Eventually a contrite BT Secretary returned with an apology. They had found the
problem. Something to do with a new type of fibre equipment being installed at
the smaller exchanges being incompatible with CLID in London exchanges.
A good MP works unsung behind the scenes without expecting praise for the
benefit of all constituents. A poor one is mainly interested in photo
opportunities and their own supporters. I am not aware that my current MP has ever done anything worthwhile.
Note: BlasT (BT). PasT (Pearce Teresa). Sorry, the best punning
headline I could think of.
7 February - Build ’em, neglect ’em, junk them
Bexley’s Housing
Associations have not had a fire sale of wrecked houses
since September but they are back with a bumper offer of 24 tiny
hovels. If you think
they might be worth one and a half million
take a look at Rightmove Rightnow.
How much will it cost to bring them up the Ed Miliband’s revised insulation standards without which it will be illegal to rent them out by 2028?
Why do Housing Associations neglect their property to the extent that disposal is seen as the only possible solution?
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
60 Heath Road, Crayford
83 Heath Road, 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
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
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
6 February - Not good at answering FOIs. Not good at educating SEND pupils
Having added 25% to my personal lifetime FOI submission score in the first five weeks
of 2025 it may be wise for me to take a closer interest in the subject instead of just
parroting @tonyofsidcup’s successes. Presumably the chance of being labelled vexatious is zero given that
the Court ruled that @tony couldn’t be because some
of his answers are published here. He was said to be performing a public service.
Not that I am planning on pushing my luck.
When submitting my most recent set of questions I was asked to check that the
answers were not already available in Bexley’s FOI archive and further research
led to the website
whatdothey know.com before it went off air for exceeding its bandwidth
quota. Fortunately I took a screen shot of what I thought was a quite interesting one.
A lady had submitted an FOI to every local authority about Special Needs
Education (SEND) and home schooling. How many of this that and the other and
presumably easy enough for anyone with an abacus to count. Bexley Council was
alone in playing silly buggers.
They answered the questions up to a point but hid the answer behind a password
which expired in seven days. I caught it just in time. If I had not it would
have been tempting to resubmit the lady’s questions so that I could see the
answers and thwart Bexley Council’s hope that their response would be quickly lost to public view.
Bexley Council refused to say how many young people with an Education, Health
and Care Plan have no school allocated. Home educated EHCP children numbered
25. 32 were educated outside of a school or home setting. 20 have been allocated
personal budgets but the Council refused to say how many of them were to fund
out of school education on the grounds that counting was too much work. (How
difficult can it be to flip through the records of 20 children?)
They also refused to answer the same question relating to Home Education but
were prepared to say that payments were paid once per term and totalled £462,878
last year. (25 pupils at nearly £20k. each.)
The FOI lady then spent months pursuing her questions
about the money Bexley Council may have spent on legal fees fighting indefensible
complaints but until whatdotheyknow pays its hosting fees that is going to have to wait. I only remember that it was a lot.
The chart shown here is not, for a change, one of @tony’s but it follows
the same trend.
Bexley is the worst performing Council in London. Note the name Bexley right at
the top of the chart furthest from the red line.
It comes from the Department of Education and purports to show that SEND pupils
do best in boroughs with high residential incomes and plots their GCSE
achievement against non-SEND pupils. Not the easiest statistic to get one’s
head around but there is a reasonable explanation at
the swlondoner news website.
Suffice to say Bexley for all its bragging is the outlier and the worst performer in London. Again.
5 February (Part 2) - Lowest spending borough in London
Always
quick to jump on Bexleyְ’s financial predicaments, @tonyofsidcup was keen to tell
me what David Brown was getting for his whopping £3,000 of Council Tax.
Err; not nearly as much as if he moved to Wapping. (Tower Hamlets.)
The lesson is clear, let your borough degenerate into a dump and the Government will bail you out.
Same as in one’s personal life, become too anxious to get out of bed and the
Government will bail you out.
Maybe this is another example of it
not being entirely bad that Bexley is bottom of the list.
For pedants it should be noted that expenditure on schools is a big influence on
the numbers and with so many of them in Bexley being Academies where the
Government foots the bill directly a schools excluded table would put Bexley 5th from the bottom.
Highest taxes; lowest payouts per head of population.
Maybe David will write another letter to the Telegraph?
@tony queried some of the figures with the Cabinet Member for Resources but he
hasn’t had a reply; well it’s only a week.
5 February (Part 1) - Highest taxing Tory borough in London
I always
read the Letters page in the Daily Telegraph and this one took me by surprise early this morning.
Council Tax everywhere is far too high and even in Bexley the Council seems to
have stopped claiming that it is a low tax Council.
I think the Tax on my house is pretty silly at Band E when there are a far
bigger houses in the same street on the same Band; but Band F for a ‘modest semi’?
Sounds a bit extreme even in Swanky Sidcup.
London Tax rates.
4 February - Playing FOI catch up
Now
that @tonyofsidcup is a valuable member of society
backed by the Courts, Bexley
Council has quite a lot of FOI catching up to do.
One of @tony’s hobby horses is road safety outside schools, hence his so far
unsuccessful campaign on pedestrian crossings.
He reminded me that the Transport Committee was advised that
no school
had ever requested provision of a School Street, examples of which have
proliferated across London and @tony took issue with that.
His own survey of head teachers revealed a different answer so
on 22nd November in wielded his weapon of choice, a
Freedom of Information request which Bexley Council didn’t
bother to answer. But now with the vexatious label banished, they have to.
It confirms that Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Primary School did indeed express
interest in a ‘School Street’ but the Council decided to ignore them. “No decision was ever made.”
Thanks @tony, two birds with one stone. Confirmation that Bexley Council lies
and confirmation it is not really interested in School Streets.
Hypocrite alert; I am pleased to see Bexley at the bottom of the London list.
3 February - Back to the drawing board
Mr. Singh’s investment
in his relationship with Bexley Council has not been working out too well over the past month or two.
On Heron Hill, the site of Ye Olde Leather Bottle, he has not satisfactorily
addressed the conditions imposed in October 2023. The plan was for a four storey care home.
Bexley Council appears to have had Health & Safety concerns for the construction
phase and given the history that is understandable especially when the planning officer refers
to the possibility of unexploded bombs. The Demolition and Construction Plan makes for an interesting read.
However the most interesting paragraph comes towards the end as it does here:
Bexley Council reminds the developer that the original permission expired on 14th October 2024.
At 240 Woolwich Road (24/02905/LDCP) Mr. S. has come a cropper too. A single
storey detached outbuilding in the back garden “would not have been lawful”
which implies that he built the thing first and asked later. On the other hand
the application form says construction hasn’t started yet. Among other things it is too high.
Exactly the same thing has happened next door at No. 238. (24/02900/LDCP.) Because of the height
issue it will require planning permission.
Note: The care home was originally approved (20/02852/FULM) on 14th October 2021
as recorded here the following day.
2 February - Something to hide?
It
seems to be entirely possible that @tonyofsidcup is more widely appreciated than Bexley Council would like.
The sender of the associated message is somewhat bashful because he/she is a well known figure in Bexley who
needs to keep in the Council’s good books while behind the scenes being one of
its more thoughtful critics. A head teacher, a BID manager, someone senior in
one of the emergency services, a General Practitioner or Consultant in a
hospital. Someone of that ilk who feels compelled to toe the establishment
line but not believing a word of it.
Nominations for the Civic Awards are a waste of time anyway, we already know that
the
Scouts will walk off with the bulk of the prizes.
@tony definitely performs a public service; personally I don’t much like him picking fights with Councillors right across London which in my opinion is a little obsessive,
but the Court took his side and not Bexley’s.
Without @tony we would be in far greater ignorance than we actually are.
In recent years I have been unsure whether Bexley Council has been cleaning up
its act or become a lot better at hiding the truth. I was erring towards the
former but the fact that we have the same Leader now as we did in the bad old
days must cast some doubt on that conclusion.
Recently a number of things have shaken my faith in Council honesty and I have
prepared this Freedom of Information Request. It will be my tenth in 16 years so
hopefully not enough to be declared vexatious.
From various sources including Council communications I have formed the
impression that the Council’s data retention periods are unreasonably short.
Under FOI regulations please provide answers to the following time related
questions and a copy of any relevant instructions to staff…
1) After what period does the Council destroy the email of persons who have left
the Council’s employ for any reason?
2) Ditto for emails to and from Councillors who in any manner lose their elected position?
3) When are emails more generally deleted? Are Councillors in office at the time
treated differently?
4) After what interval are letters shredded or otherwise lost? Planning objections excepted.
5) When are the Telephone calls recorded for training or any other purpose erased?
6) Webcasts are lost to public view after three months. Are they archived for later retrieval if needed?
7) Much of the Council’s business is conducted via Zoom/Team or similar
electronic means. For how long do those recordings remain available to
participants or non-participants?
8) Minutes and Agendas of Public Meetings are generally available for many years
after the event but not always. Specifically how many requests have there been
in the past 24 months to remove potentially embarrassing verdicts from the
minutes of Code of Conduct meetings to protect Councillors past or present? What
was your justification for erasing Council history? (I know that you have.)
In an age when data storage has never been cheaper what benefits accrue to
the Council from destroying records prematurely?
I lost a few emails in 2000 due to a disc failure
and a three month gap in the backup regime but since then have used RAID and
have everything sent and received this millennium and a few more besides are
safe. Needle in a haystack job to find them sometimes but they are all there.
1 February (Part 3) - Erith Road
There have been rapid developments to the Erith Road
planning disagreement. Councillor Ball (Labour, Erith) says he went to take
a look when alerted to the issue last May and along with the planning officers
delivered their verdict. Councillor Ball has not said what that was but one must assume
the development, such as it was back then, was of the ‘permitted’ variety and
his resident was not very happy with the answer.
If Chris says he made a site inspection then one may safely assume that he
made a site inspection. On the other hand, the complainant said just two days
ago “you can see a long new block with scaffolding some 100 yards away but my
local councillor won’t help” which implies a recent refusal but may not be.
Surely everyone can take and send photos in 2025 and
no doubt Chris would be prepared to look at them. I think until I see some real
evidence I will be staying out of this one. The drone offer remains open.
1 February (Part 2) - A planning free for all?
One of several Council issues I have been asked to look into recently is a
planning dispute on Erith Road, opposite Trinity School on the A206 half way
between Belvedere and Frazer Road. The original allegation was that two new
houses have been built behind 135 Erith Road without permission.
I first heard about it on 8th May last year and I could find no evidence of a
planning application for Erith Road or Holly Hill Road which backs on to it,
either. Rather than waste time reporting on something which is well beyond my
power to influence, I passed the email to my Councillor Sally Hinkley who replied
very promptly to say it was on Councillors Ball and Taylor’s patch and she had
passed it over to “get the issue resolved”. (She came around with seedlings for
my front garden too but some ‘Conservative opposition’ slugs gobbled them all up.)
I heard no more and the complainant reports the same. Right now he claims to be
unable to get an explanation from anyone at Bexley Council and
he is beginning to think another Mr. Singh must be operating in Bexley. The two
houses report is now amended to “several flats” and the complainant reports that
Bexley Council does now concede that there is neither planning permission nor
fire access. I can only assume that the complainant is not mistaken in his
beliefs but when
rogue developers are alleged and Councillors said to be looking the other way,
experience teaches us to be suspicious.
On a dismal Saturday morning I took the car up the hill passing examples of all four buses that ply
the nicely resurfaced New Road. Erith Road is lined with
bungalows and one might expect houses in the back garden to look more than a
little incongruous. On the other hand the gardens are on a steep hill which might hide the evidence.
Google Earth draws a blank too although the big brown flattened patch (Photo 3) is interesting.
What the complainant really needs is a drone. If anyone has one equipped with a
camera there is money to be earned.
Let me know in the usual way.
Photo 3 enlarges to a much deeper view.
People do of course take liberties with planning rules and
Bexley will invariably accommodate those who enjoy favoured status but maybe it
is
not as bad as some boroughs where not a single house in some roads is without a residential
shack in its back garden.
Newham.
Photo 4 is of a small edifice in a nearby back garden and it too was built without permission.
Bexley Council told me that it was a small tool shed which didn’t need planning
permission. They were not interested that it was equipped as a dwelling house with
a posh front door and double glazing. Neither were they ever around to see the
meals cooked there, the laundry going in and out or the occupants in night attire.
It is not much used now because the occupier’s large family has flown the nest
and found their own accommodation.
1 February (Part 1) - Simple Exodus or Stampede?
I think there have been sufficient assurances over the past week to
convince me that there is no direct connection between the
Deputy Director of
Housing and Strategic Planning looking for another job and
the StoryTeller
cinema in Sidcup being in financial difficulties, but having overseen its
planning she may be relieved to leave it behind.
So
that’s one senior manager rushing for the door but what if I were to tell you
that there were seven vacancies in the Finance Department alone?
Head of Strategy (Pensions), Head of Finance Business Partnering, Finance
Manager (Capital and Balance Sheet), Finance Manager (Revenue), Finance Business
Partner (Corporate), Finance Business Partner (Adults and Health) and senior
Management Accountant, all on between 50 and 76k.
Interviews started last week.
Things must be getting desperate because the Chief Executive has
taken the trouble of making a video to say how important those seven jobs
are. The CE, a former Finance man in Bexley and other London boroughs carries a
bit of finance baggage himself. At best he has been unlucky and in the wrong places at the wrong time.
His protégée who is Deputy Director of Finance has said
how fantastic these jobs are although one must wonder why such “world class”
jobs have proved to be so unpopular among her existing crew.
While poking around the recruitment pages I discovered that Bexley Council is
honest and accountable and learns from its mistakes. Staff are encouraged to
communicate clearly and be role models.
Is Bexley Council aiming to be better than
the standard it admitted to in 2024? One must sincerely hope so.