31 July - Thames Water. Enemy of the people

Abbey Road in Belvdere has been closed all week, thousands of residents deprived of bus services all the way from New Road in Abbey Wood to the Asda store a mile and a bit to the east.

And whose fault is that? Thames Water of course. The most incompetent utility in all of history.

As you would expect they cannot even do the job properly. The entire mile is festooned with Road Closed and Diversion signs which are simply wrong. Buses may choose to use New Road but most traffic need not. The sign shown is opposite Shortlands Close. Anyone with any sense, which obviously excludes everyone associated with Thames Water, will know that the sign should be ignored. Turn left and immediately right into Kingswood Avenue, then left into St. Augustine’s Road and emerge a few yards beyond the unnecessary obstruction.

Unnecessary because just like last week’s closure of Brampton Road, the digging was on only one side of the road. One carriageway was passable.

Almost needless to say, no one was at work and an uncaring Bexley Council should be ashamed of themselves too. Do they never supervise the disruption thay authorise? It’s time for change in May 2026.

Thames Water is still refusing to speak to me about having no stopcock on the footpath outside and hence no meter. If any window cleaner wishes to fill his tanks; feel free to help yourself. There is an easily accessible tap.

Note: I have not yet found a totally satisfactory replacement for Photoshop. I considered returning to it as the free Irfanview is not in the same league but Adobe had increased the price again. I missed the ability to crop an image to a specified size in one simple drag operation. As from today I have found an inexpensive program which can do it in a two stage operation. Adobe can take a jump,

 

30 July - Bonkers

All the frequently used facilities are now migrated from the eight year old PC to the one built in March for which I could never find the time to commission.  Over the years the on-line version of Bonkers has accumulated files which are unwanted and whilst they do no harm things are a little bit messier than they need to be. Over the next day or two Bonkers will be deleted and reloaded in many relatively small sections. This will have the effect of parts becoming unavailable for short periods, probably most noticeable in the temporary loss of images.

The process could be automated but that would cause the files that the paranoid Chairman of a local Reform UK branch demands are never seen again being put back on line. Exactly what is she ashamed of?

So it will be a fiddly manual process and take all day, maybe longer.

Note: The clean up was completed at about 17:00 hours.

 

29 July - Safer Streets Summer

Thanks to Labour Leader Stefano Borella we can now see the Conservatives’ amended Motion which criticised President Trump’s nasty little man for failing to provide London and Bexley in particular with as many police officers as he could have done given the level of Government funding.

The original Motion may be seen in the report on the sham debate.

The Labour Group famously took no part in the debate because they were given no opportunity to draft an Amendment. A 15 minute recess is grossly insufficient to come up with a form of words which puts a convincing counter-argument which is water-tight. The Tories beg to differ but they put Labour in an impossible position which few will defend.

Conservative’s amended Motion presented to Council without prior notice. Click image for Labour Press Release. (PDF)

The Labour Group circulated a Press Release yesterday which for some reason best known to themselves is dated 16th July, the date of the Council meeting. I would venture to suggest that there was no time that evening to prepare three pages of Press Release but never mind, what did they have to say for themselves?

In direct contravention of the Conservative claim that police numbers are fewer than they could have been, Bexley Labour said the town centre will see “an enhanced police presence” under a Mayoral scheme called Safer Streets. 500 more across the 32 boroughs. Criticising the decision to deprive them of advnace notice of the Motion they said…

“Bexley Conservatives deliberately decided not to show us before the meeting the changes they wanted for their original motion. This is why Bexley Labour group walked out of the debate because this administration doesn’t believe in fair debate, is tired, has run out of ideas and just want to play pathetic political games.”.

Hard to argue with that. Tired, no ideas and against fair debate perfectly describes the current situation and in some respects the past 19 years. How many petitions have been debated? None. Never forget that Full Council meetings have always been a carefully rehearsed political game.

According to Labour, knife crime is down by 18%, burglary nearly 18% and theft nearly 16%; figures obtained by comparing April 2025 with the same period last year. Rather more surprising is that it is claimed that knife crime is down by 21% since Boris Johnson was Mayor. (In the small print it says the statistics are not comparable.)

Safer Streets runs from 30 June until the end of September.

 

28 July - “An absolute load of nonsense.” Are we sure about that?

The end of each Council meeting is usually marked by the nodding through, that is approval, of the Minutes of the various Committees and the last one was no different; except that one was not nodded through. The Labour Group objected to the last Places Scrutiny Committee minutes and Councillor Nicola Taylor (Erith) told us why she didn’t like what had been said. (Erith is an awful concrete monstrosity and other truisms.)

Nicola spoke passionately about her ward, shouted might be an accurate description, but there was no doubting the passion.

This Council has done things AT Erith and not WITH it. Erith has been neglected for far too long. She objected to the Council holding “stakeholder” meetings about Erith without her knowledge. It would be hard to deny that is a strange decision, but Nicola referencing the earlier one-sided Motion debate said that the Council prefers to talk in an echo chamber. “They [Conservatives] never listen”. The Conservatives fell about laughing.

They didn’t listen when West Street small park was built over with unaffordable houses by BexleyCo. You repaved Pier Road when there were far more deserving sites. You took no account of our warnings of anti-social behavior when you rebuilt Pier Square. You ignored the residents’ petition on street drinking. You didn’t listen to the complaints about traffic outside schools. Cabinet Member Diment never did respond to the enquiry about School Streets.

Riverside Gardens was reopened at 3 p.m. on a weekday meaningt that few could attend including the two Councillors. Will it be maintained? Pier Square hasn’t been. We asked in vain for CCTV.

Councillor Davey said that the gardens were underutilized (not reported on BiB) but events held there bring in visitors from far and wide. “Erith does not need gentrification, it needs homes, and shops and banks and jobs that pay a decent wage but instead BexleyCo has taken the Post Office away.”

The Council has failed to work with Morrisons. It should start to work with all residents.

So that is Bexley Council pretty much banged to rights with some home truths. What did they have to say in reply?

Cabinet Member Cafer Munur merely said that Councillor Taylor had come out with ְ“an absolute load of nonsense”. There was a reference to BBE but as no one knows what that is it is a meaningless argument for those not in the know.

BexleyCo is building homes and the Post Office will reopen inside the shopping centre. “How can a Councillor get things so wrong?”

The meeting was with “partners” which excludes Councillors. “Councillor Taylor is utterly utterly wrong.”

Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) was barely audible but was saying much the same. There is no “vision” for Erith.

The Chairman of the Places Scrutiny Committee was not sure what he was being asked to do as there was nothing in the Minutes that was inaccurate. They were approved.

 

27 July (Part 2) - The Leader’s report

The Leader’s written report included references to £249,971 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to be spent on Lesnes Abbey by June 2027, the completion of the Erith Riverside Gardens refurbishment and the spending of yet more money on senior management. Tanusha Waters has come from Harlow Council to be Deputy Director of Housing and Strategic Planning (the new Jane Richardson) and Ayesha Rahman who will take up the new post of Director of Transformation. Will she survive a Reform takeover next May?

Fortunately the Leader managed to condense her 25 page report into just a few words, but maybe not as few as usual. The Government has said that London will lose out in the next funding review but she will continue to provide value for money. New Government bills on Children’s wellbeing, SEND, Renter’s Reform and Planning will all impact Bexley. She did not say adversely but probably that can be taken as a given. When did our Government do anything to benefit people financially?

The Leader has tried to convince the police that shoplifting should be a priority and the new mobile CCTV units may help to tackle it.

A Department for Transport survey has reported that Bexley’s roads are in better condition than any neighbouring borough.

Labour Leader Stefano Borella, describing her as his good friend, congratulated Councillor Slaughter on her MBE and 51 years as a Bexley Councillor. His question was in effect asking the Leader why she did not acknowledge the granting of £1·4 billion for rebuilding of “crumbling” schools which will benefit Bexley. Similarly £39 billion over ten years for affordable housing.

The closure of Community Centres, dismissed by Cabinet Member Bishop during Questions was “an appalling failure”.

The Leader replied that the £1·4 million for schools was a re-announcement by Labour of what the Conservatives had put in place more than a year ago.

Councillor Philip Read (Conservative, West Heath) said that autism diagnoses had gone up eight fold in ten years and asked for an update on the Council’s autism strategy. He was told only that there was a strategy and the increased numbers may be due to improved recognition of the problem especially among females. The strategy includes raising awareness, access to support services and promoting wellbeing and publishing a website.

Councillor Cheryl Bacon (Conservative, Sidcup) asked for more detail on the D of T’s road condition report. Cabinet Member Diment said that the report showed that compared to Greenwich, Lewisham, Havering and Croydon, Bexley’s roads were in “considerably better condition”. Only 1% of A roads were in need of resurfacing. Bromley was not mentioned and one must wonder why.

The Leader summed up by saying that residents will be “disgusted” by the Labour Group “extracting themselves” on the debate on police numbers and she would continue to fight for the DLR extension to come to Belvedere.

 

27 July (Part 1) - It’s bin collected

Until Friday I had never reported a missed bin and I thought that at best it would remain full until Monday and more likely for another fortnight but it was collected around 9 a.m. Saturday morning.

Unusually the bin was full. Several kitchen bin bags from Sainsbury’s and all full of lightweight stuff such as Cellophane from packaging, things like this bag of liquorice and a lump of polystyrene. The whole lot may not have weighed as much as half a kilogramme. I remember having to push the last bag down a bit to get the bin lid shut.

Bearing in mind that the Council website said my bin had been collected and it had moved from where I put it AND when I examined it the uppermost bag was missing, my theory is that the bin was taken to the truck and inverted; the top bag fell out and the others somehow jammed themselves together and stayed put.

The whole lot was so light in weight that the bin man would not have noticed as he wheeled the bin back to the footpath. Maybe I should stop using ‘sticky’ bin bags.

Probably I should let Cabinet Member Richard Diment off, it looks as though the circumstances may have been a bit freakish.

 

26 July (Part 2) - Democracy in Bexley

One might argue that Council Motions are not the most interesting things to report at the best of times but when one is not even sure what the Motion is, possibly even more so.

This situation came about because Cabinet Member Richard Diment proposed a Motion which may have been relevant when drafted three years ago but not any more; so he produced a new one which the opposition had not seen before. They asked for 20 minutes to consider it and maybe come up with an Amendment.

The Labour Councillors were given 15 minutes but that was insufficient to draft a reasoned Amendment and without being allowed to prepare for debate they decided to opt out completely.

They were not the only people to be disenfranchised. Unless they attended the meeting in person no member of the public has been allowed to see the revised Motion. Conservative Councillors are not allowed to offer resistance to the party line in Bexley so what follows is more the bleating of sheep than an exchange of ideas.

Councillor Diment began with the easy job of cataloguing Mayor Khan’s many failings one of which is the high rate of crime in London. Even in Bexley which has less crime than most there is an average of 45 reported every day. 65 for every 1,000 of the population each year. A total of 16,299 crimes. A third involved violence, a fifth were theft and 911 were drug related. Unfortunately many go unreported because of the police’s reputation for doing nothing.

There are only 161 PCs serving all of Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham and Bexley is the poor relation given its low crime levels. The Metropolitan Police was the only force in the entire country not to have taken advantage of the extra funding provided by Government in 2022/23. The numbers have fallen further since then and last month the Labour Chancellor squeezed the finances even more.

Councillor Howard Jackson told how anti-social behaviour affects Barnehurst. Up to 200 people with weapons held a party and taunted the police who were at first massively outnumbered. Reinforcements with dogs and riot gear were eventually able to make arrests. Interesting, but I am not sure how that advances the Motion. Once the police saw the scale of the problem they dealt with it. Councillor Jackson thought they should have turned up mob handed as soon as they heard about the party.

Councillor Chris Taylor (Crook Log) said that the Labour Group was a disgrace for not debating the issue and come next May they deserve to be “wiped out by a sea of blue”. But what shade of blue?

Councillor Rags Sandhu (Bexleyheath) said that the police numbers in Bexleyheath are reduced to a skeleton by the requirements of Central London. It was likely he was referring to Khan encouraging his regular Jew-hating marches. Rags specifically said more than once that Khan does not care about Bexley.

Councillor Cameron Smith (St. Mary’s & St. James) - who used to work in County Hall - said that Khan had promised a change to police numbers if ever there was a Labour Government and he had delivered on it. He wondered how the Labour Group would have defended the reductions if they had not run away.

Cabinet Member Brian Bishop summed up. “When officers are deployed elsewhere they are not here!” The Met was the only force to not increase officer numbers when given the funding. etc. Daniel Francis MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford has trotted out the official Labour line that Bexleyheath town centre will get more police but there are none available thanks to Sadiq Khan. 1,089 fewer London officers than what were funded.

Obviously the Motion was passed unopposed.

 

26 July (Part 1) - Council Questions

The first question at the Council meeting ten days ago was from Dimitri Shvorob who asked the Council Leader what she thought of her Cabinet Member for Place Shaping “who is responsible for asset disposal” buying Council property for himself. A one sentence reply said he had not. Dimitri replied to the effect that she was wriggling on a technicality but the truth was Councillor Munur bought it before his appointment.

Mr. Shvorob had a second question. Why has the expensive block paving in Hadlow Road, Sidcup been allowed to crumble over several years with no attempt to repair it? Cabinet Member Diment said that the installation was to the design standards of the time. The lack of action is caused by checking if higher design standards will be of any benefit.

The next question came from Tom Clapperton, Chairman of Bexleyheath and Crayford Conservatives and West Heath candidate for 2026, who asked the Cabinet Member for Resources to criticise the Labour Government which David Leaf duly did to a ton of clapping over the following eleven minutes.

Councillor Day (Labour, Slade Green and Northend) put forward a genuine question. Why were no affordable homes started in Bexley in the year to April 2025, the worst record in the whole of the Greater London area? Cabinet Member Munur had a glib answer. The GLA figures were wrong. They are “notoriously unreliable and incomplete”. Bexley’s own figures are “accurate” but have not yet been published. He conceded that Bexley’s lower property prices are not conducive to building affordable homes. He is nevertheless proud of Bexley’s record.

Councillor Ball (Labour, Erith) was more interested in climate change than housing. Seven London boroughs, all Labour, are in the country’s top ten for work on climate change. Cabinet Member Diment referenced Bexley’s LED street lights and its record of recycling. He went on to say that Labour boroughs achieved their position by dimming street lights or turning them off and introducing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and 20 m.p.h. limits. The implication was that we do not want any of that Labour nonsense in Bexley.

Councillor Smith (Conservative, St. Mary’s & St. James) said it was all green virtue signalling.

Councillor Curtois (Conservative, Falconwood & Welling) welcomed BBE to the Civic Offices and Cabinet Member was pleased to do so without either of them letting us know what BBE was.

Councillor Slaughter (Conservative, Sidcup) asked for an update on litter bin provision. Cabinet Member Diment said the £250,000 roll out of new bins is just about complete. 285 new bins, 200 old ones replaced and 350 refurbished. Every bus stop has a bin. Additionally there are lamppost mounted gum and cigarette butt bins in shopping centres.

A further grant from Keep Britain Tidy will enable gum clearing in the streets of Bexleyheath and Sidcup.

Labour Leader Stefano Borella said the Parkside Community Centre had been “flattened”. Does the Cabinet Member still think that the “model for community centre delivery” should be unchanged?

Cabinet Member Bishop said that Parkside “had been deemed a dangerous structure. The only option was demolition.” Belvedere’s is closed and the future of others are constantly under review.

Note: Mr. Shvorob subsequently wrote to the Cabinet Member for Place Shaping to apologise for his question wrongly implying impropriety. He was in error with his investigation.

 

25 July (Part 4) - The Great Replacement

They have got three Councillors in Dartford and now they have one in Bromley. Reform UK won the Bromley Common seat against the former Conservative Mayor Ian Payne.

Reform 34·0%
Conservative 29·4%
Labour 18·2%
LibDem 13·7%
Green 4·7%

Bexley Tories will be beginning to panic.

 

25 July (Part 3) - Another computer failure

Just when I had caught up with life sufficiently to plan a Council meeting report this afternoon. I am in serious trouble with the computer again. After spending too much money on it last weekend it has run well all week only to switch itself off again this morning. This time It is now complaining of overheating.

The obvious solution is to transfer everything to the new Windows 11 machine but the program that maintains the website is refusing to accept its product key on Windows 11. I can write individual pages without it but maintaining the database of links to 10,000 pages or whatever the total is can only be done with software assistance.

Bonkers may be off air again for a while.

 

25 July (Part 2) - 99·9% of statistics are made up

I now have first hand experience and proof that Cabinet Member Richard Diment’s proud boast that more than 99·9% of bins are collected each week is a fiction.

I put my green bin out around 7 p.m. last night along with my neighbour’s green and blue bins as otherwise it would never get emptied. He never remembers.

Soon after 9 a.m. this morning his bin was emptied but mine wasn’t, although it had been moved to a different position, presumably by a bin man.

When I reported the missed bin on line the website said it had already been collected. Confusing.

In another example of how Bexley Council wastes money, the early morning green bin collection here is only from one side of the street. Later on, at 10:15 this morning, another refuse truck comes to take the green bins from the other side of the road. Needless to say, they did not take mine.

 

25 July (Part 1) - “A recipe for head on crashes”

Only a couple of hundred metres east of last week's crash we have another in Abbey Road, Belvedere. To be fair to Bexley Council it was not part of the road stupidly narrowed in 2009. It has been as it is now for all the time I have lived nearby.

Care is always needed due to the restricted sight line and the parking which forces traffic over the middle line and despite its infrequency there is too often a bus coming around the bend.

Someone who was on the scene just before the police arrived said it looked as though someone had stopped to allow another driver to pull out of a parking space and patience was in short supply. It was not the right time for a high speed overtake into oncoming traffic.

Photo by Rebecca.
“A recipe for head on crashes.” Comment on Bexley’s road design from the Chairman of the EU Vehicle Safety Committee.

 

24 July - How do HMOs operate?

It’s not something I have ever thought about. Once owners have permission for an HMO do they advertise for tenants like a mini-hotel? I had assumed that the Council had a hand in filling them, but maybe I am completely wrong.

I am not at all sure what is going on next door to me but someone - Bexley Council? - spent a lot of money on replacing smashed doors and fixing the garden which had been a jungle for almost 20 years. It was ‘fixed’ by laying a tarpaulin over the bare earth and covering it with shingle. It looks like the worst sort of bathing beach and I have no idea where the rain is dispersed to. Early evidence is that it runs off into mine.

There is a constant stream of visitors of a wide variety of ethnicities. They have not caused any problems and I don’t think it can be an HMO because the accommodation would not lend itself to that purpose. Maybe I am jumping to all the wrong conclusions.

The same could be true of 35 Alexandra Road, Erith. It was one of a number of premises that were noted on these pages as all being bought on the same day and converted to six flat HMOs two years ago. Presumably the same applies today.

Is it the owner or an enterprising tenant who is letting it as a bedsit? Whatever the case the advertisement would raise the suspicions of someone who is merely looking for a flat of the type I once rented. (Ilford. Late 1965. Hated it.)

One bedroom and two bathrooms seems rather odd to me and if there is a spacious living room and fully equipped kitchen as the advertiser claims, why are there only five pictures of a crumpled bed and a shower head?

 

23 July (Part 3) - Bexley needs Reform

While one small part of Reform UK threatens to drag me off to the High Court if I so much as mention a certain name the remainder of my Reform UK contacts are the epitome of civility and good sense. I tell myself that every party contains at least one thoroughly bad egg so why should Reform be any different?

They are digging into the detail of finance and policy in Bexley to ensure that should they be elected in not much more than nine months time, they will hit the ground running. Not for them the empty promises and cluelessness which Labour exhibited nationally.

In their spare time the local group have knocked up this little video. It’s only an advert for their Bexleyheath and Crayford meeting at the Black Prince on 11th September but it is very well done. I look forward to seeing more and I think I might go, but it is a bit expensive. It is about time I met Chairman Tom Bright.

 

23 July (Part 2) - The Old Scrooges Association

In what must be the quickest FOI response ever, Bexley Council has told @tonyofsidcup that the well funded Conservative Associations made no contribution to the Bexley Box scheme.

It is of course not quite the same thing but Bexley Conservatives made great play of the fact that Labour Councillors boycotted the scheme, offering no help of any sort whatsoever.

The Associations could easily have offered a token gift on behalf of their Members but chose not to.

Just before the Conservatives’ refusal to put their hands into their pockets Bexley Tories accepted a gift of £5,000 from the wife of a Russian oligarch.

What did they do to merit that?

 

23 July (Part 1) - Sidcup cinema closes for refit

A number of readers alerted me to the temporary closure of the StoryTeller cinema. I confess to having missed that news. One suggests a Freedom of Information request should be made as to how much Bexley taxpayers’ money was pumped into the failed project to keep it alive.

That of course has already been done. Bexley Council was initially less than honest but later admitted spending upwards of £12,000 a month. Insider information said it occasionally exceeded £17,000.

The news reports say it is being refitted. I hope so; at present I would rather watch a film at home.

Index to StoryTeller blogs.

 

22 July (Part 2) - Transport extras

Here are a few things that were missed from the initial Transport Users’ Sub-Committee meeting report. (From a review of the audio recording.)

• Southeastern is expecting its close working partnership with Network Rail - a shared Managing Director - will lead to lower Government subsidies.
• Councillor Davey asked if hot weather caused particular railway problems. (Drones are used to look out for distorted rails. Near London Bridge some rails have been painted white which helps just a little bit.)
• It was Councillor Diment who put in a plea for Albany Park (and Falconwood) to be opted out of any station skipping. (Not Councillor Smith.)
• Sidcup station is unlikely to get step free access any time soon unless someone comes up with external funding.
• Albany Park station may get a footbridge refurbishment.
• Councillor Davey asked why there is a consultation on extending the DLR to Thamesmead. Surely everyone will be in favour and is there money for it? (No answer from TfL.)
• The Youth Council Member asked why the SL3 disappears from departure boards and conversely sometimes one will show up unannounced. (TfL asked for examples. I have seen both phenomena myself. I think the former is caused by buses being prematurely terminated, at Bexley Library especially.)
• Councillor Davey said that the Lion Road SL3 stop is only a short walk from Bexleyheath station so is not needed. (The TfL lady said that stopping data is looked at constantly.)
• Councillor Smith did not say that the SL3 route is the least used SuperLoop. He said that it was one of the least used.
• Councillor Diment said that TfL Buses is a very difficult organisation to do business with and his counterparts in other boroughs agree. They say that TfL Rail is good. (No TfL Rail in Bexley.)
• Councillor Davey asked if Cycle Routes were demand driven or aspirational. They too often caused traffic jams and bus delays. Answer: A bit of each in the case of the proposed Bexleyheath to Erith route which may result in “a bit of lane narrowing”. It may cause “major disruption”. A cycle route over the Long Lane railway bridge would not meet TfL’s requirements.
• Trojan Energy is installing about 90 EV charge points across the borough.
• The new pedestrian crossings will be installed in Brook Street and Slade Green Road in late August and Bexley Road in October.
• The Abbey Wood CPZ signs and road markings will be installed in early August to be operational in September with a two week grace period for offenders. West Heath will follow a month later. (The Agenda date is a mistake.)
• The cycling representative said that employing Lolly Pop ladies was an admission that roads are dangerous and argued that further attacks on motorists were justified and more concessions towards cyclists. The Highways Manager countered that there was no evidence of speeding at crossing sites. The justification for crossings is the number of pedestrians wishing to cross versus the road traffic density.
• The resurfacing of Townley Road by the Library is on hold for budgetary reasons.

 

22 July (Part 1) - HMO or what?

A month ago a lot of work was done on the house next door to me which was unusual as almost nothing had been done to it for the past 15 years or more. I got a new fence panel out of it and the people who moved in did not appear to be universally African as has always been the case in previous years.

They were friendlier than those there for most of this year which wouldn’t be difficult as the previous lot may not have spoken English at all. Rumour has it that Bexley Council has bought the house and turned it into some sort of HMO refuge. Certainly a large number of different faces come and go.

Coincidence or not the number of cars parking on my drive has increased recently, Photo 1 was taken last Wednesday and Photo 2 this morning.

I said to the driver that I was curious as to why she had chosen to park on my drive and in justification produced a Bexley Council pass. Stefanu something or other beginning with M from Social Services and she had been called to the house next door.

This was not another Kelly Wilkinson situation, Stef, if that was her name, was exceedingly polite and not an entitled nobody from Bexley Council. I pointed out that her client’s drive was completely empty and I think that is where she went to.

The owner who moved out in 2006 installed an air conditioning unit which has not been used in 20 years because it is too expensive to run. Now that Bexley taxpayers may be paying the bills it is in use almost constantly. Similarly the smoke alarm has been beeping for the past two weeks. Maybe they are waiting for someone from the Council to pop round with a new battery.

If and when my remotely controlled retracting bollard is ever installed it will be fun to impound vehicles for 24 hours. Bexley’s included.

 

21 July (Part 2) - A disappointing Transport meeting

I like going to the Transport Users’ Sub-Committee meeting because everyone will or should have an interest in its subject matter.

I missed the March meeting because I was in a hospital bed but last Thursday’s started in the familiar way with a welcome from Chairman Cameron Smith and his secretarial assistant Chantelle. But it was disappointing in several other ways.

Councillors were not in a talkative mood which presumably means that I have upset both Conservatives and Labour Councillors in equal measure, which is no bad thing.

The meeting is conducted by Zoom or Teams or some such system and the sound quality is only just tolerable first hand as it were, but is distinctly naff on the recording.

This first report is compiled from notes and memory and of course the Agenda and will be augmented once the recording has been checked.

These were not the only disappointments; the normally excellent railway people had very little new to say, the TfL representative didn’t have many answers to questions and the police, useless as always, did not put in appearance or even apologise for not doing so. The Chairman has already said what he thinks about the police’s fairly consistent failure to show up but I think I have a solution.

Cameron should rename his Committee to the Trans Users’ Sub-Committee, come dressed in his ceremonial kilt (I have seen the photo) and misgender someone. The police would be there in rainbow coloured cars in no time at all and do what they do best at Council meetings. Be totally unprepared.

So what did the railway people say? Well they cleared up my confusion over @SteveWhiteRail who a few months ago announced he was moving to Network Rail but continued to comment on Southeastern matters. We were told he now wears both hats and as he, like his subordinates who work with Bexley Council, always seem to be on top of their game, it must be a good thing. Southeastern and Network Rail cooperating closely has to be beneficial for travellers.

We learned that Southeastern cancels fewer trains than its rivals and Network Rail plans to deep clean all its Bexley stations apart from Sidcup which was done not long ago.

In not so good news the subway at Bexley station is now in such a bad state that it is beyond economical repair and will close permanently on 6th September.

Passenger numbers are growing, up by ten million journeys last year although the Elizabeth line gave Abbey Wood (and nearby) a battering. A 20% loss of passengers. Not surprising. As us locals will know, the National Rail Enquiries website directs travellers to Waterloo to the Liz and Jubilee lines - and it is consistently quicker than Southeastern.

There will be the usual Autumn leaf fall timetable with trains setting out earlier although it will mainly affect long distance routes. Cameron Smith put in a plea for any station skipping to give Albany Park a break this year. It has only just had its 15 minute interval service restored.

The TfL lady reminded us that the DLR to Thamesmead consultation will end on 17th August and of the increase in the Congestion Charge from £15 to £18. The same lady spoke of an EV exemption and Councillor Hinkley queried it. The TfL lady got in a muddle and we got no answer but I can tell Sally that my renewal reminder said nothing about any exemptions; it comes to an end on Christmas Eve and it is a stuff you from Sadiq. For 2025 it is same money, half the benefits. Even new residents to central London are to lose their discounts. Sadiq doesn’t care about anyone.

Cameron put in a half-hearted plea for the SL3 to stop in Bexley Village but realises that for now at least it is a lost cause. He said that TfL stats show it to be the least used of the SuperLoop routes.

Undeterred, a guest speaker said that the SL3 is grossly overcrowded and needs new and larger buses. Obviously someone without any knowledge of vehicle size regulations or the difficulties of steering a double decker through Bexley’s narrowed streets. Later on someone else asked for more cycle lanes please with little recognition of the need for cycle tracks to take the shortest route or bikers will go another way; and sometimes the shortest route is just not practical for a cycle track. I think I could see Cameron’s eyes rolling.

I sometimes think that the Committee guests are there to make sure that however silly Councillors’ comments are they will never be the silliest.

Speaking of which…

Councillor John Davey continued with his one man campaign to do away with the Superloop stop at Lion Road. It is only a short walk from the Library so why bother, he says. I may be biased because I use the SL3 to Lion Road quite often, though not as much as I used to. The Library is a brisk ten minutes walk away

By what right does a Councillor without a shred of statistical evidence think he has a case for withdrawing bus services from a ward that is not his? TfL for all its inefficiencies must know which stops are useful and have determined that Lion Road is worth having.

For God’s sake don’t tell John about Florence Road where SL3 passengers may alight and in the morning peak period be able to walk from there to Abbey Wood Station in less time than the bus takes to crawl over the flyover. I use that stop frequently including this afternoon when an electric SL3 whisked me from Lion Road to near home in just a few minutes. Don’t let John Davey ruin it. If bus stops are never used as he claims they don’t slow the service do they? Elementary I would have thought.

On roads it was revealed that three new flat (not humped) Zebras will go ahead shortly and the long awaited Abbey Wood CPZ (including my own road) will be operational by mid-September with West Heath following a month later. Apparently humped crossings and speed humps generally are the subject of far too many noise and vibration complaints.

In 2011 when Boris Johnson was seeking re-election I heard him say that speed humps were old hat and if re-elected would make sure there were no more. Unfortunately that promise did not go on the old blog.

 

21 July (Part 1) - The hate list

I used to think it was terribly bad form to hate someone or something and I never did. Obviously I had to make an exception for a certain estate agent but there was only ever that one until fairly recently. How things can change in little over a year.

At the risk of instant arrest I am happy to say I very definitely hate Sadiq Khan and Keir Starmer and I have come to think I am in good company. Not very far behind is those parts of Bexley Council which have anything to do with roads and transport, and of course, everyone’s bête noire, Thames Water.

I have a visitor every Monday morning and not for the first time she was on arrival incandescent with rage about Crook Log being closed again. It cannot be much of an exaggeration to say that Bexley Council has allowed that junction to be closed for approximately half of this year.

This gives me a problem. My visitor drives perfectly competently and knows the rules relating to Yellow Box Junctions but for some reason stares straight ahead and doesn’t always see them. I have carefully contrived a route home for her which avoids all YBJs but by closing the Crook Log Brampton Road route Bexley Council forces her over one on the way to me and two on the return journey. I suspect it is a money inspired policy. (Actually we know it is because it has twice been admitted in Council meetings.)

I have taken to escorting her back as far as Danson Road to ensure she gets home without a penalty. I did so again today and wasted precisely 60 minutes because I stopped off to take photos before catching a B12 and SL3 home.

Sure enough it was the bloody awful Thames Water who will be disrupting life in Bexley all week. No one was working there of course and there is no reason at all why the road could not be partially open. In fact the traffic lights are there alongside a perfectly usable southbound carriageway.

Click image for a bigger view.

My return journey was fairly swift because I checked the time of the next SuperLoop while on the B12 and alighted at Lion Road and crossed the road to wait at the stop which Councillor John Davey (Conservative, West Heath) is campaigning to have closed. About which more later.

For a waft of cannabis smoke, the west bound Lion Road stop is hard to beat.

 

20 July (Part 2) - Epping boils over

There was nothing in this morning’s Sunday Telegraph of the disturbances in Epping which is only 30 miles away from here, less as the crow flies. Nothing in The Daily Mail On Line either and just a few references to far right thugs elsewhere. Epping residents are understandably upset about a 14 year old girl being sexually assaulted by an immigrant who had arrived by boat only a week earlier.

I watched quite a lot of their protest live streamed but it was of poor quality; yesterday something far more professional showed up on YouTube.

Did the police really escort masked people with the professionally produced Refugees Welcome Here banners from the Central line station to enable them to directly confront the residents? Did they stand with the police almost as if they were part of them? When things became a bit lively, did the police load them into their vans and give them a lift back to Epping station?

Did the police run away at one stage and drive into an old man who got in the way? How severe were his injuries?

Did a police officer lose his temper and beat a resident? Would you like to see how many of his teeth were knocked out?

Would you like to count how many police vans lost their wing mirrors to vandalism? All these questions are clearly answered in the 58 minutes of Wesley Winter’s video.

Will it be a protester who is killed by the police first or will it be the other way around? Things are getting serious again and if you don’t look at the new media streams you might never see it coming.

YouTube direct link.

 

20 July (Part 1) - The Abbey Road crash

I showed the crash photos to the former EU Vehicle Safety Committee Chairman and asked his opinion on the 100 m.p.h. impact claim. In 1997 he correctly estimated from photographs the Princess Diana crash speed as a little over 60 m.p.h. when the newspapers were suggesting twice as fast.

His response… “hitting a brick wall at 100 m.p.h. will always result in mincemeat.” Both occupants got away with it quite lightly. They were doing more than 30 m.p.h. but nowhere near 100.

There are no obvious skid marks on the road, only some paint marks which indicate the car’s likely trajectory.

The Abbey Road accident page has been updated.

I thought the newspaper report of an end of terrace house being worth £500,000 just as unbelievable as the speed estimate. My own on the same development is in estate agent’s terms better than that and I had no idea it was worth that much. Rachel bloody Reeves will be rubbing her sticky paws with glee.

 

19 July (Part 2) - Idiot driver causes half a million pounds’ worth of damage

Bonkers owes its existence to Abbey Road in Belvedere; it was the lies told by the Highways Department that led to the website’s creation. Basically the Council were encouraged by the GLA to install cycle tracks and make the road narrower.

Bexley said that there had been no accidents before so the narrower roads would make things even safer. The Chairman of the European Vehicle Safety Committee who had issued the guidance on how to safely narrow roads said that what Bexley had done was rubbish that didn’t follow the guidance at all and they had created a recipe for collisions.

And so it has proved; when did Bexley Council’s Highways division ever get anything right?

There was another accident in the early hours of Friday morning and the first reports said a Chrysler 300C had been doing 100 m.p.h. and wrecked a £500,000 house. How would anyone know the speed without witnesses? An expert crash investigator might but not someone who only heard a loud bang.

The damage to the house is extraordinary and may require it to be completely rebuilt. The cracks extend well beyond the site of impact. There are five large photographs on the page that catalogues Abbey Road accidents. Scroll to the bottom or press the Reverse Order button.

The Tesla Model 3 was parked by the house owner and is unlikely to be seen on the road again. Imagine being fast asleep and woken by the sort of ‘explosion’ that the idiot driver caused. Obviously he caused the damage and has been arrested, but Bexley Council must take some of the blame in view of their total lack of road design expertise.

The man in the yellow jacket is sealing off the gas supply. There were no fatalities.

 

19 July (Part 1) - More excuses

Just when there are several things that need to be reported, the Full Council meeting, the Transport User’s Committee meeting, the extended Belvedere and Abbey Wood CPZs, more silly parking and alleged 100 m.p.h. car crashes, Bonkers decides to go off air.

But not voluntarily.

Just a minute or two after posting Thursday’s blog my PC switched off as if it had suffered a power outage. It is eight years old and in March I built a replacement. It is fully working but various things got in the way of commissioning it with programs and data etc. Not good planning!

The old PC continued to misbehave, it would run for five seconds and sometimes two minutes and then simply switch off. I suspected a power supply failure and couldn’t find my spare anywhere. Maybe I gave it away; so I ordered a new one. Same make and Model number for simplicity. But it is not at all simple. It is smaller so the cables won’t reach without undoing a load of things and it only has two SATA connectors. The old one has six and I use three. Another example of creeping inflation by stealth.

Currently the old PC is running in lash up mode (hence this blog) while a more expensive power supply wings its way to me. What would we do without Amazon?

In the meantime 25 years of data is being transferred to the new PC. Easy enough with traditional drives; just physically move them from one machine to another, but the M2s are a damned nuisance requiring motherboard dismantling.

Depending on when Amazon delivers, it will probably be Monday before BiB gets back to something like normality.

Note: I don’t usually buy computer components from Amazon but my normal supplier demanded a premium for Sunday delivery and were £20 more expensive anyway.

 

17 July - Conservatives’ “affront to democracy”

You will know my opinion on Motions by now; a bunch of generally powerless busybodies pretending that they can influence national policy. Last night Cabinet Member Diment dragged out from the back of the Tory’s Motion cupboard an ancient one praising the Conservative Government for increasing the number of police officers in London. Obviously that is not very appropriate since the demise of the Conservative Government a year ago.

Councillor Diment asked for permission to amend it. It would have been helpful if he had made it available to members of the public via the webcast so that they could form a judgment but no one has.

Labour Leader Stefano Borella objected, basically on the grounds that it was not an amended Motion but an entirely new one which Councillor Diment could have had the courtesy to let him see before the meeting but had chosen not to do so.

Not unreasonably Stefano objected. Councillor Diment had “made a mockery of the procedures on Motions”. He was disgraceful. Stef called for a 20 minute adjournment and was granted 15 and he and his colleagues promptly left the chamber.

In rather less than 15 minutes they returned and the debate sort of continued but only for a few seconds. The Labour Leader said his Group would not be participating in the new Motion, Sometimes principles count, but not perhaps on the Conservative benches.

With luck the revised Motion will be made available so that taxpayers will know what was being said in their name.

 

16 July - Risky business

The stupidity of Elizabeth line commuters never ceases to amaze me. Who would be daft enough to risk damage to their car by blocking access to a skip?

Every day this week at least one has parked in private parking spaces. None of the flat dwellers opposite run cars less than 15 years old and don’t park where the Ford is. (Photo 3.) Maybe they have well-heeled visitors who drive new cars and stay for most of the day before going home; but it is doubtful.   

If that is a sign of things to come, maybe I should get that bollard after all.

No news yet on the CPZ installation. It is exactly a year since Bexley Council officially decided there is a commuter parking problem and unofficially, much longer.

 

15 July - Public enemy number 1

Anyone who drives in Bexley will know what a menace Thames Water is. Indeed Bexley Council has officially acknowledged that they are the worst utility to work with and care not one jot for anyone - apart from senior managers and shareholders that is.

Back in April I briefly mentioned that my water bill had gone up by exactly 50% - give or take the odd penny - and I asked Thames Water for an explanation and requested that they install a meter. I not only have no meter, I haven’t even got a stopcock in the footpath outside. All my neighbours have, but not me.

Thames Water eventually replied but their email did nothing apart from referring me to the back of my bill. The meter question was ignored.

I asked them how they justify charging me more for having three bedrooms. What has that got to do with water consumption? Only one of mine has a bed in it but apparently three bedrooms in a single occupier house means that much more water is used.

The reply was to the effect that they did not want to discuss the matter.

“We have already carried out a full and final review into your case in line with our complaints procedure. I need to let you know we’re unable to discuss the matter further as detailed in our previous response dated 11 April 2025.” (See below.)

A further paragraph said that in their experience people without meters use more water than those without. Obviously we have an intellectual genius working at Thames Water.

I didn’t get to see the reply immediately because of my stays in hospital but when I did you can imagine it was very much a red rag to a bull case.

Red rag to a bull.

I asked them how they justified £54 a month at times like during hospital stays and pointed out that they could not cut me off for non-payment because there is no stopcock, that is the whole point of the complaint but Jade Warburton at Thames Water is far too dim to recognise that.

In fact I have been paying the bills but not by Direct Debit. I am currently within 50 pence of paying the entire annual bill and the second sixth monthly installment is not even due yet. I left it 50 pence short to give TW something to moan about.

This has not stopped Thames Water from phoning me - I no longer answer their calls - and sending letters - which I have stopped opening.

I discovered by accident years ago that if you don’t pay Thames Water exactly what is demanded - like a penny too much for example - they do not recognise the payment at all.

So Thames Water is currently wasting its time demanding I pay them when I already have, albeit in several random amounts, and because they said that they expect me to use more water than non-metered customers and I do not wish to disappoint them, the garden tap has been left running throughout daylight hours for several weeks. I am being charged more in two months than a cousin living in identical circumstances, single, three bedrooms etc. does in a year and all because Thames Water failed to fit a stopcock 38 years ago. Their problem not mine.

While Thames Water refuses to discuss the missing stopcock issue, it is “bugger them”; I will waste as much water as I possibly can.

 

14 July - Ignorance is bliss

A correspondent who did not leave any contact details suggested that I look at what was being said by the landlords of the Alma pub in Sidcup about former Conservative Councillor James Hunt and with the aid of Google, curiosity got the better of me.

They are for some reason loudly supporting the position of the Rose Bruford College which recently acquired a Youth Centre on lease from Bexley Council. It immediately raised suspicions. Why would one business be supporting another with which there is no obvious connection? I smelled a political or business connection and there may be. Links led me from the criticism of James to the Sidcup Business Improvement District Chairman who would have very close connections to Bexley Council the Leader of which obviously hates James with a vengeance. So that would be a very good reason to be supporting Bexley Council’s line; but why is the College itself silent on the matter while the pub is so keen to associate itself with the name calling?

There must be more to this than meets the eye.

I messaged James Hunt about the personal attack and all I got out of him is that he is trying to address concerns expressed to him by residents. It is probably best if I keep out of this one; Bexley Council is not known for its honesty and I think the pub’s response should be treated with caution. Google Alma Sidcup etc. and decide for yourself.

There is however a political connection which may or may not be significant. Googling around a little more, I discovered that the Alma pub is the headquarters of Reform Old Bexley and Sidcup branch.

I have very mixed views about Reform UK. Farage is, or pretending to be, some way to the left of me politically and much too pro-immigration but on the other hand no one can be as utterly useless as the traitorous Kier Starmer.

Click image for more of Old Bexley Reform’s Facebook page.

What I don’t understand about Bexley’s OB&S Reform members is why so few of them have thought to ask why their Chairman has four times in the past twelve months demanded that I sign a gagging order that would prevent me from ever mentioning her name again.

Why would anyone want to be doing that? Not someone whose life has been an open book of honesty and saintliness, that is for sure.

I have a meeting with Reform coming up soon. They are not all stupid, neither are they OB&S members.

 

13 July - Stinking bins

Twice during last week’s Cabinet meeting, Councillor Diment managed to slip in his regular plea for more responsible recycling.

Putting stuff which could be recycled into the green bin costs a fortune in landfill taxes while paper, tins, plastic and food waste can all be sold and provide a small revenue stream.

Based solely on local observation I would say that contamination may be a far bigger problem and again, just a personal view based on my nosy parkering activities, I would hazard a guess that people from foreign parts are the biggest offenders.

When certain people meeting my criteria moved out a couple of months ago the years’ long problem of contamination of the communal bins disappeared with them. They have been remarkably neat and tidy ever since.

The house next door to me was sold in 2006 and the Nigerian who bought it said he would rent it only to Nigerians although a new bunch that has just moved in may have broken that mould. There have almost certainly been more than 20 different occupiers in the intervening years; various types from very nice couples to drug dealers; but they have all had one thing in common. None could give a fig for recycling.

It is pretty much the norm that I put their bins out every Thursday evening. Last week there were two medium sized Amazon cartons on top of the white (paper and card) bin so I opened the lid to see if I could squash them inside; but there was no way. So I began to do a little bit of sorting. There were several bits of polystyrene and a good number of disposable plastic cups in the paper bin which I transferred to a stinking green bin. Stinking presumably because the black sacks would be full of food scraps.

However it proved to be a hopeless undertaking because some very large bits of polystyrene were jammed in alongside numerous plastic containers. I left it. Unless I tipped the whole lot on to the pavement and found some empty bins the job was impossible.

Needless to say, next morning, the bin men did the same. Left it that is.

I noticed that the bin bore the address of someone a few doors away. Someone who keeps his bins clean and uncontaminated. Thanks to ‘his’ bin being emptied, next day we were able to redistribute the rubbish though not in a way that Councillor Diment would like because next door’s bin is still contaminated and no doubt it will remain that way; it has been since 2006. Why expect things to change now?

The food waste bin pictured has lain unused in their front garden for well over a year. Now that Bexley Council has stopped distributing their Annual Recycling Guide how will these itinerants ever get to know the rules?

 

12 July - Not quite broke yet

The next Cabinet item was the usual one. Money; and as always the overspends were with both Children’s and Adults’ services particularly SEND transport.

The Places Directorate underspent by £2 million. They didn’t build the promised houses. Both BexleyCo and Highways suffered slippages.

Council Tax collections were 0·8% below target and worse than last year. Cash balances dropped to £21·6 million at the end of the last financial year.

The current year, and it is early days at present, is forecasting an overspend too. Another £2·1 million due to the usual suspects. It might have been worse but £2·7 million is being pumped in from contingency reserves.

BexleyCo continues to unwittingly bale out the Council with a £26 million slippage on what might have been. Staff have rejected a 3·2% pay increase which is more bad news for Council Taxpayers.

The National Insurance Increases (the higher headline rate but maybe even more damaging, the lowered threshold) imposed by the Labour Government have put huge extra costs on the care providers which makes contract negotiations very difficult. Some of the providers are “price gouging” (£16,000 a week to look after one badly behaved child) and whilst Labour promised to clamp down on it they have in practice done nothing.

Labour Leader Stefano Borella said this was because the Tory’s huge mess was taking time to sort out.

There were lengthy speeches on transforming services in line with changing needs and technology. The issue has been discussed for many years and is obviously a necessity but whether it works (FixMyStreet was held up as an example) as well as the Council would have you believe is less certain. I totally failed to get through the system relating to Parking Services  (circular references and full mail boxes) and my FOI on the subject is due to be answered any day now.

Cabinet Member Melvin Seymour with his responsibility for vulnerable adults was also concerned about the inaccessibility of some services.

Note: For those wondering about the relevancy of the associated image; there is none; but it is a very rare X post by the Council Leader. One might wonder if she is planning on pushing herself forward over the coming months now that there is a very good chance that she will lose the Crook Log seat come next May.

We could swap a Councillor who reports me to the police for harassment with one from another party who reports me to the police for harassment. It was actually 100% support which was recently acknowledged; but liars will be liars and can never be reformed.

 

11 July - Library Strategy

The first Agenda item at last night’s Cabinet meeting was the new Library Strategy. Apparently a nine week consultation was conducted earlier this year and it has led to a new direction for libraries. Who saw that coming? No idea because the report gives no clue as to how many residents may have participated in the survey.

Council Officer Ginny Hyland summarised the Strategy and I learned absolutely nothing about it. She reminded me of my final months with BT where Colin cigar chain smoking Sutton had risen without trace on the back of golfing and the ability to speak management gobbledygook non-stop for hours.

Ms. Hyland said the Strategy was “a bold and exciting vision for the future”. “Strong foundations.” “Community innovation and success.” “Bexley is a unique network”. “Strength and Diversity. Fantastic. Ambitious. Dynamic multi-functional spaces and hubs.” “Key drivers of economic and community well-being.”

There are six Bexley Council libraries and six “run by incredible Community Partners”. Membership has grown by 30,000 over the past three years which in a digital age is undeniably good going. “Together the libraries attract 900,000 visits a year.” [The report itself says 814,000.] “Our libraries enable residents to live vibrant, healthy, resilient lives through bold transformative services and programmes.” How do non-users survive?

In three minutes I learned not a thing of the Strategy except that it prioritises “Reading and Literacy”. Who could have guessed? Colin Sutton didn’t have a clue as to how telephone calls were connected around the globe but he rose almost to the top by his mastery of management-speak. Nothing much has changed in 30 years.

Having been left in total ignorance I thought I had better read the Strategy (PDF) but that too is wall to wall guff. Why did we need one?

Cabinet Member Bishop was, if the tittle-tattle is to be believed, given his job because there was no other choice. He managed little - correction, nothing - beyond thanking everyone involved for “the absolutely first class document” which he welcomed. Not a word of detail on why it was so magnificent.

Cabinet Member Diment said that it was right that libraries evolved and so they should but I wish Ms. Hyland had told us what in particular is different to what has gone before. What could possibly improve on ‘The Lego Club’ in Welling library for example? (With thanks to Councillor Newton for providing that example.)

It would churlish to suggest that Bexley’s past library strategy which avoided closures like most other boroughs has not been pretty successful although the very limited hours are felt to be very unwelcome. A question might be why money had to be spent on a Consultation and lucrative work for expensive management teams when money is so tight. Who proposed it? Surely not Ms. Hyland?

DOGE anyone?

 

10 July - No smoke, no talent, no commuters

There is a Cabinet meeting scheduled for this evening, so that may scupper plans to repair the fence on Saturday. But meanwhile…

Lesnes Abbey
As the first fire engine drew up at Lesnes Abbey circa 10:20 this morning I looked in vain for the smoke. There was none.

Within seconds there were four appliances on the scene.

From overheard conversations I gathered that a dog was trapped in the brambles surrounding the lower pond and no one had remembered to bring a chain saw.

One of the men was on the radio for one to be rushed to the park.

Bexleyheath ward
Councillor and recent Mayor Sue Gower has confirmed her yes, no, yes again and now definitely no decision about standing at the 2026 election after successfully passing through the selection process. This might look like indecision but everything has been triggered by changing family circumstances. Two or three electoral defeats could leave Bexley Tories with no discernible talent at all.

Bollards!
I am lukewarm about deterring commuter parking on my drive because it is not a cheap option and feels a bit like overkill, but a small number of readers showed an interest in the subject. Hence this update.

Enquiries were first made long before the subject was mentioned here so the timescales are longer than the recent blogs implied.

The first company approached was Bollard Security which gives a Yorkshire address. They offered one solution and a more expensive alternative. I emailed to say that I was prepared to order either subject to their comments on one specified difference.

I heard nothing more.

A second company calling themselves Wentworth Protection sent what they said was a PDF quotation but it was nothing more than a link to their website. An email said see below for the actual quotation. There was nothing below. Not even a company signature or logo.

My query suggesting that their email had been accidentally truncated went unanswered,

A third company called Bison Security phoned me soon after I made an enquiry. Upon hearing my requirements I was told their specialist would call me back and he did within the hour. He wanted to do a site inspection. When was I available? Any time next week.

I heard no more so eight days later I phoned them. They remembered by enquiry and said they would get the specialist to call me straight back. That is more than two weeks ago. Absolutely nothing since.

A web form request to a fourth company resulted in a near immediate phone call from someone who said that what I had been offered previously required a complex control system which could control up to four bollards and put the price up very considerably. This was not made obvious by any of the other companies who offered the control box only as an extra implying it was optional on a single bollard installations.

Careful reading of the manuals suggests that the control box is indeed a necessity and while the fourth company was prepared to fit it it wasn’t practical to use my existing 32mm conduit to convey the various signal cables back into the garage. This more or less ruled the system out because of the extra expense and the need to rip up part of the block drive.

However this fourth fellow was trying to be helpful. He said he has a new product coming on stream next month once its testing trials are complete and he can bring it round to show me before making any decision. It is not quite as substantial looking as the others but it not much more than a quarter of the price of the others.

Watch this parking space!

 

9 July - Albany Park station. 90

An interesting little video on Albany Park station popped up on YouTube today. Apparently the station was 90 years old earlier this week. The newest on the Bexleyheath line. It includes why the line was built in the first place.

Apart from the title, almost nothing about the loop to the North Kent line.

Albany Park, Bexley, Crayford, Dartford. Apparently the longest alphabetical sequence on the British Rail network.

YouTube direct link.

 

7 July - Labour logic. Labour lies

The name of the Facebook Group is Bexley News. Pretty specific I would have thought.

But nevertheless the fake Administrator, charged among other things with keeping the Group on topic thought it appropriate to headline the alleged misfortunes of the MP for Basildon.

Not the most outrageous biased-towards-Labour comment to be found on the Labour run Facebook Group but sufficient for Gerry Kelly to make a tongue-in-cheek but nevertheless wholly justifiable comment.

“Can’t you rename this site, The Ben & Lou hate Brexit and Reform Party Group?”

Fake Ben suggested that Gerry goes elsewhere if he doesn’t like free speech.

Oh! The irony.

Someone who exercises his right to free speech is not welcome on London Borough of Bexley News and Views; a Group with anti-free speech Administrators with a long record of banning everyone, me included, who disagrees with them.

Labour brains are incapable of logical thought and in twelve short months have brought this country to its knees. Every one of Starmerְ’s claimed achievements is based on a lie. Fortunately that fact does not qualify as Bexley News.

 

6 July - Fostering

The first 33 minutes of the two hour Children’s Services and Education Scrutiny Committee meeting was devoted to Foster Care and two long standing Carers related their experiences and answered Councillors’ questions. There is no way to realistically summarise that section except that the ladies concerned found it very rewarding and had stuck with it for much longer than they had initially planned. The detail is currently available on the webcast.

The number of Bexley children currently being fostered was unknown.

The meeting failed to provide any interesting nuggets of information unless you have been following the number of school exclusions for drug offences. The numbers are down.

 

5 July - Bexley Council admits to being the worst borough for Extra Care Housing and abortions

The Adult Social Care & Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting is, not to put to fine a point on it, almost always a bore, and the one held on 1st July was no exception.

Here are the few things of minor interest I managed to pick out of the webcast…

• There is going to be a Care Quality Commission assessment of Bexley Council’s performance some time in the next three or four months. They only need a 62% score to be rated Good. The Council does not believe it has any critical weak points.
• Despite promises made in Council seven years ago no new “extra care housing” has been provided since then “but it remains a huge priority”. Bexley is an outlier, “pretty much every other borough provides care housing. Bexley does not.” The Council officer said she knows of no other borough that has made no provision for extra care housing. No Councillor expressed any surprise or regret but Councillor Peter Reader (Conservative, West Heath) said the seven year old promise was not the first; it was also a recommendation of a sub-Group ten or eleven years ago.
• Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) sought assurance that the staff being CQC assessed for the first time in 15 years would be protected from any stress that might be brought on by the inspection. “There is a whole programme of support in place.”
• Several Bexley Council wards do not have any dentistry facilities at all.
• Bexley has a very bad record for “untreated chlamydia” and a “far higher rate of pregnancy terminations than other London boroughs or even England”.

 

3 July - Downgraded. BexleyCo falls short

Erith Post Office has featured on Bonkers more times than any other which can be explained by the fact that Bexley Council has long been enthusiastic about buying it and now building on the site.

In November 2020 it was noted that the P.O. was included in the Council’s Asset Register and they had paid £925,000 for it.

Then In October 2021 it was reported that it had dropped off the Asset Register and the Land Registry said it had been sold for £900,000.

This turned out to be an error by the Land Registry which had muddled it with the neighbouring property. Bexley Council had bought that too. At an auction. They were desperate to own the whole of the corner site.

And finally, on 7th December 2020, confirmation that Bexley, that is BexleyCo, planned to build 60 “genuinely affordable” homes there.

Well not quite finally and not very genuine, because BexleyCo has finally got off of its backside and submitted its plans (25/01304/FULM); not for the promised 60 homes but only 33. Affordable? None that I can see on the planning application.

An uglier edifice would be hard to imagine.

 

2 July - You win some, you lose some

Bexley Labour Group wants you to know that it estimates that 26,000 Bexley homes are in line to get a £150 “Warm Homes Discount" this coming Winter (read their PDF Press Release) which will go some way towards making up for the £300 fuel bill reduction promised by Ed Miliband before the election but which I do not recall seeing.

The Press Release includes a link to a Cost of Living Help booklet.

I do not expect to receive the revised Winter Fuel Allowance which Rachel has U-turned on or the Warm Homes Discount but on the other hand, thanks to the recent spell of sunshine, Ed Miliband’s 2010 Feed in Tariff will provide me with a little over £1,000 in just a few days time.

If only electricity was as cheap as in the USA none of these handouts would be required. Energy policies have all been fracking crazy for many years.

 

1 July (Part 2) - What a racket

I have no idea how many people look at Bonkers, there are no visitor count cookies and certainly no hit counting adverts which make navigation of some similar sites such a nightmare. It therefore comes as a surprise when readers who I have never before heard of make contact and say they have been checking up on Bonkers regularly for a very long time.

Surprising but welcome.

There have been three such messages in the past 24 hours. One came from the western extremity of the borough and tells how no one living near Welling’s Westwood Lane car park has been able to get a decent night’s sleep recently.

Nothing to do with the excessively hot weather but a faulty loudspeaker (or amplifier), - the white blob beneath the CCTV camera in the associated photo.

Welling is not on my regular itinerary but I had an excuse to visit Orchard Fencing in connection with my vandalised fence, so Westwood Lane was not much of a detour.

The noise was easily heard over the general hubbub and a passing train, so it is not just a trivial annoyance.

For how long will Bexley Council allow nearby residents to suffer?

Constant noise in Welling. Keep the volume down!

 

1 July (Part 1) - Artful management

Note: This is a modified version of the blog placed here earlier today which alleged that Rose Bruford College had been given a particularly good deal by Bexley Council while taking over the Sidcup Youth Centre.

The blog was based on information I thought was supplied by an identifiable insider within Bexley Council but I may have been mistaken/misled, or he was misinformed.

Further reports received today are that the College has been granted a 25 year lease and cannot build on the site. The same report claimed that every Sidcup resident will be £240 better off as a result of the deal. The 2021 Census said that the population of Sidcup was 15,421 which suggests that Rose Bruford is paying Bexley Council nearly £4 million. There is no confirmation of that figure but one can be sure that no Sidcup resident will be suddenly better off.

Fortunately Bexley Council has this morning clarified what it is doing. There is no defence of its failure to consult, but it confirms the 25 year lease and no likelihood of new building.

The Rose Bruford College is a fairly prestigious drama and arts college in Sidcup; maybe not quite as prestigious as The Italia Conti which my daughter attended on a scholarship - remember them? - but that doesn’t count any more as they went bust about four years ago.

And that is pretty much as far as my interest in Arts Colleges goes apart from noting that Bexley Council, not unreasonably, looks upon Rose Bruford favourably; maybe too favourably.

When Colin Campbell and Donald Massey were in charge of Bexley Council’s finances they were both on the board (Governors) of the Rose Bruford College too which managed to take the derelict Lamorbey swimming pool and one time cinema off of the Council's hands at a knockdown price after promising to turn it into student accommodation.

They did no such thing and instead sold it for three times the price. Didn’t they do well for themselves?

An insider alleges that the cash is beginning to run out but not so much that there was not enough to wine and dine the Council Leader and award her an honorary title.

Now Bexley Council has handed a Youth Centre to the college on a 25 year lease after consulting no one at all and the College has allegedly promised to spend £2 million on refurbishing it.

History suggests that Rose Bruford are much better negotiators than Bexley Council and the information currently available does not reveal how taxpayers’ interests are being served.

Note: With thanks to the readers who were quick to correct the error.