Bexley is Bonkers - Bonkers blog March 2026

31 March (Part 1) - Water torture

It is often said that most people are only interested in local politics when their bins don’t get emptied and in Bexley that is not one of the borough’s problems. (Don’t move to Greenwich, it is what fills their Facebook pages.)

It probably explains why a lengthy BiB report on a Council meeting which I see as important because it would otherwise not go on the record, almost never provokes reader comment while a rant on rubbish bus services or Thames Water will fill the Inbox. Well maybe not fill but at least provoke a flurry of activity.

Very irregular intervals are not unique to the 301 and the SL3 and maybe TfL is unconcerned about it; they usually dodge attending the Transport Users’ Sub-Committee meeting but they are apparently interested in the number of times the bell is rung. Do drivers mentally opt out at so many warning bings and bongs?

Next Tuesday TfL is running a seminar in Vauxhall for passengers to voice any concerns they may have about warning messages and noises off. They would particularly like the elderly and the wheelchair bound to have their say. You may apply to attend here and if selected be paid £150 for your trouble.

Thames Water continues to be Public Enemy Number One, not so much for the gridlock they impose on Sidcup and elsewhere but for attacks on customers. They still won’t tell me why they think my water consumption is direcly related to the number of bedrooms I have or why I should pay in full if I spend a month in hospital and do not use a drip, or what I am supposed to do if there is a leak when they refuse to provide me with a stopcock in the street outside.

The Inbox revealed someone with a meter that leaked from the outlet joint and caused an £800 bill on which TW has refused to compromise.

Another had a boundary wall damaged by TW contractors which they denied causing. They claimed that in the unlikely event there was any damage their contractor must be pursued, not them. A Subject Access Request produced nothing of interest but a carelessly written email suggested that the contractor knew they had damaged the wall and photographed it. Their apologetic report to TW acknowledged the damage caused and eventually the photo they initially denied existed and the accompanying report reached the complainant. But TW continued to insist that their contractor must pay up and not them. They appear to entrust customer care to a bunch of thickos.

The case went to Court a couple of days ago.

Another resident faced with a massively increased bill was told that meters never fail. Under pressure Thames Water sent an ‘engineer’ who had been working in a pet shop until the previous week. His suggestion was to use an egg timer to limit the length of showers.

OFWAT said the meter could be replaced at the customer’s expense and it would be tested off-site. It was faulty. The customer agreed an estimated bill.

Following that, TW would not accept the meter readings because it had the wrong serial number. They had not updated their records. For the next year they sent estimated bills based on the usage recorded by the old and broken meter. Obviously far too high again. Their incompetence knows no bounds.

It reminds me of when my old Aunt in East Ham was taken to Court by Thames Water for not repairing her allegedly leaky pipes. She lived in Springfield Road and you can guess what they eventually discovered their listening device had found under the road. They absolutely refused to apologise to her for causing so much unnecessary stress. Never forgive, never forget.

I left my garden tap running from last Saturday lunchtime until the middle of Sunday morning. An accident, I forgot all about it. Perhaps I shouldn’t campaign for a stopcock and the meter which would inevitably follow.

30 March (Part 2) - The Working for Sidcup Party

I failed to notice that the PDFs supplied by Working for Sidcup were two pagers. I didn’t scroll down to what was not on view, so to hopefully make amends here is the most important part of two leaflets, extracted from the archive of leaflets.

30 March (Part 1) - Dishonest, Incompetent, Vindictive

’Though I say so myself, Bonkers has become an amazing repository of Council history which would otherwise be forgotten. Indeed if it was not for what sometimes shows up during site maintenance sessions, I would probably have forgotten myself. Only this morning (Sunday), a researcher called me to ask about the desecration of Old Farm Park and I was able to find a photo of Councillor June Slaughter with her arms folded at a Scrutiny meeting in December 2015, alone in a sea of raised Tory hands eager to sell it.

Almost nothing is ever deleted from Bonkers and it has grown to very nearly seven gigabytes and just short of 100,000 files. The result is that things can be impossible to find. The only pages to have been withdrawn relate to the wicked litigious witch who has been thrown out of more political parties than of which I have ever been a member.

No one will remember, but before Bonkers adopted the style of a daily blog, it was more like a newspaper in format, with a front page, comment pages and an occasional blog buried deep in its structure. It needed a Site Map to get around.

Without that Site Map, some pages are effectively lost for ever. Whilst many will never display properly on anything less than an HD screen, I have been checking them over and making sure most of their links still work. They prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Bexley Council has behaved appallingly at times, not just lying but fully living up to the original tagline of ‘Dishonest, Incompetent, Vindictive’.

Would you believe that in 2008 an eccentric old man living in Crayford and bullied by the local yobs was refused help by Bexley Council 81 times but they did stir themselves to accuse him of Benefit Fraud. A barrister warned Bexley Council that they were going to become a laughing stock and after considering their verdict for 20 minutes a jury agreed. Despite that Bexley Council tried to put a charge on his house in a vain attempt to take the money a Court said he didn’t owe.

Totally shameless. The old man was definitely an odd ball and it was alleged that he drove a car towards Councillor Melvin Seymour who appeared as a witness in Court. “He angled his car towards me as I crossed the road in the Crayford Way shopping parade and he missed me and a parked car by a matter of inches”. Councillor Seymour went on to make more allegations about another Crayford resident only a year later.

Maybe as the election approaches, and with no meetings to report, more history should be resurrected.

How about this from a long forgotten Bonkers page published on 1st June 2011?

Bexley is a London borough bordering the county of Kent. It shows every sign of being a thoroughly incompetent council, an often dishonest council and a sometimes corrupt council.

Among its claims to fame is…

• Being severely criticised by a High Court Judge for attempting to trick a resident out of £1·25 million.
• Persecuting an unstable resident to the extent he burned his own house down.
• A former Leader of the Council who used his publicly provided credit card dishonestly and was convicted of fraud.
• A former chief executive who left on health grounds with a pay off reported to be £300k. and a £50k. pension but immediately found a similar job in another London Borough.
• Having a mayor so unstable that she twice wrote to residents complaining of their “parsimonious appreciation” while attending council meetings.
• Calling in more police to protect councillors than there are members of the public at a council meeting most of whom are pensioners.
• When recommended by a government minister to make council meetings more open and transparent, convened a meeting to ensure their Constitution made that impossible.
• Attempting to place obstacles in the way of Freedom of Information requests.
• Restricting questions to the council by refusing, losing, reducing time for answers, planting fakes and publishing personal details on the web of anyone who asks questions.
• Attempting to stifle adverse comment by referring local bloggers to the police for harassing them.
• Allowing private information about residents known only to the council to be posted to the web in a lewd and obscene manner.
• Producing apparently false figures to justify service price increases but won’t provide a detailed breakdown.
• Telling the press that it has the cheapest car parking in SE London when everywhere in Bromley is cheaper. Greenwich too with the exception of the central ‘tourist’ park.
• Taking itself off to posh hotels in far away places when there is a perfectly good hotel right next door to its offices.
• Selecting residents who have crossed them for individual vindictive attention costing them hundreds of pounds.

29 March - A Finance meeting with almost nothing about money

Last Wednesday saw the final Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting of the current Council; at the next one it will be all change. The Agenda was headed Finance but not a word about money for the first 30 minutes. The meeting was all over inside an hour. Not much different to the interval between 301 buses in my recent experience. Twice!

Andrew Curtois was in the Chair and the first Agenda item after the formalities was a discussion on the People Strategy abd Culture Transformation Programme, people management being a subject on which Bexley Council has previously shown itself to be a very poor performer.

In March 2024 Bexley Council admitted that staff morale was at rock bottom. Mental Health was the largest cause of sick absence and there was a culture of bullying. Staff were said to be scared. Has “fostering a high performing, inclusive and supportive workforce” achieved anything at all?

The proportion of permanent non-agency staff has risen from 48% to 80% but it turned out that that was over the past 14 years. Figures for recent years were not available. Staff churn numbers were also said to be on an improving trend but once again the Head of Corporate HR had no figures to back it up.

The report said that so far in 2025/26, 1,580 staff days had been lost to mental health issues. “Was that an improvement?” asked Councillor Peter Reader (Conservative, West Heath) . The Head of HR couldn’t say except for the usual Bexley excuse of the numbers being better than some other unspecified local authority.

Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) thought the report was a good one and particularly liked the fact that long serving (20 years plus) employees will be allowed to add that fact to their email signatures. Staff are also being encouraged to call themselves Ambassadors and Champions. (Oh, how I wish I had thought of that when managing a 1,300 strong workforce 35 years ago.)

Two years ago one of the complaints was that managers didn’t speak to staff but Council Leader David Leaf said that staff were now appreciative of managers who made them feel welcome. 250 employees joined an on line “Let’s talk session” with management.

Council Leader Leaf knew more about HR statistics than the Director and said sick absences were down by 55% so far this year compared to last, and by the year end is expected to be about 5·16 days per employee. That is a pretty good score.

The Chairman summed up by saying the report is “a really good news story” and addressing the Head of HR, said “thank you for answering our questions so comprehensively”. Was he really listening?

Certainly there are some good initiatives within the report, just as Councillor Ball indicated.
People Strategy
Eventually Councillor Leaf got his excuse to talk about money. He doesn’t like borrowing and prefers capital receipts and asset sales.

Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Caroline Newton, said she was still looking for a new Monitoring Officer. Just how many has Bexley lost over the years? Could it be that legal officers are uncomfortable with what they see in the borough and what it asks them to do?

Councillor Leaf acknowledged that it was the last meeting before the election and thanked everyone who had listened to his interminable, but usually interesting, speeches.

28 March (Part 2) - Musical chairs

Yesterday’s late night blog on election candidates was based on the names I had managed to find on the local web, which was perhaps not very useful. This is an update with the help of someone who prefers to remain anonymous.

It bears the hallmarks of desperation; among the Conservatives, three returning candidates from up to a dozen years ago, three Gillespies and eight who have done the chicken run.

Down here (up here?) in Belvedere with the eyesore which is the Leather Bottle site I am being tempted to vote for the woman who is very close to the rogue developer, Kulvinder Singh who knocked it down. I don’t think so!

Ward name list
Barnehurst
Barnehurst
Belvedere
Belvedere
Belvedere
Bexleyheath
Bexleyheath
Bexleyheath
Blackfen
     &
Lamorbey
Blendon
     &
Penhill
Crayford
Crayford
Crayford
Crook Log
Crook Log
Crook Log
East Wickham
East Wickham
East Wickham
Erith
Erith
Falconwood
     &
Welling
Longlands
Longlands
Northumberland
Heath
Sidcup
Sidcup
Sidcup
Slade Green
North End
St. Mary’s
St. James
Thamesmead
East
Thamesmead
West Heath
West Heath
West Heath

Ward name list
Barnehurst
Barnehurst
Belvedere
Belvedere
Belvedere
Bexleyheath
Bexleyheath
Bexleyheath
Blackfen
     &
Lamorbey
Blendon
     &
Penhill
Crayford
Crayford
Crayford
Crook Log
Crook Log
Crook Log
East Wickham
East Wickham
East Wickham
Erith
Erith
Falconwood
     &
Welling
Longlands
Longlands
Northumberland
Heath
Sidcup
Sidcup
Sidcup
Slade Green
North End
St. Mary’s
St. James
Thamesmead
East
Thamesmead
West Heath
West Heath
West Heath
Conservative
Michael Gillespie (N)
Howard Jackson
Christine Bishop (R)
Matthew Gater (N)
Masbah Khan (N)
Bolah Carew
Hannah Gillespie (N)
Rags Sandhu
Brian Bishop (C))
Frazer Brooks (C))
Peter Craske
David Leaf (C))
Cafer Munur (C))
Nick O’Hare
Andrew Credginton (N)
Jonathon Gillespie (N)
Geraldene Lucia-Hennis
Graham D’Amiral (R)
Chris Taylor (C))
Janice Ward-Wilson
Steven Hall
David Li (N)
Caroline Newton
Gurhem Otem (N)
Joe Pollard (R)
Christine Catterall (C))
Dave Curtois (N)
Barry Saunders (N)
Oscar Harrison (N)
Lisa-Jane Moore
Marcio Fasano (N)
???
Terry Barcock (N)
Andrew Curtois (C))
June Slaughter
Adam ??? (N)
Bimpe ??? (N)
Kurtis Christoforides
Cameron Smith
Angela Gillespie (N)
Alison Hartshorn (N)
???
Thomas Clapperton (N)
Melvin Seymour (C))
Eliot Smith (N)

Labour
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
Vincent Adegokw (N)
Veronica Obadara (N)
Philip Segurola (N)
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
Zainub Asunramu
Larry Ferguson
Abi Johnson (N)
???
???
???

C=Chicken : N=New : R=Returning

28 March (Part 1) - Children Scrutinised

The meeing held on 24th March and Chaired by Councillor Lisa Moore discussed the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) provided to children in the borough and the visit of the SEND Monitoring Unit. I was found very little which I considered to be of widespread interest.

HAF is funded by central government, about £800,000 each year which goes to Bexley children in receipt of Free School Meals and some others from families deemed to be vulnerable.

Unfortunately the SEND report had been embargoed by the Department for Education until after the election.

27 March - Are they all chicken?

A trawl through Bexley’s political websites has revealed the names of very few confirmed election 2026 candidates. I could guess more but these appear to be the only ones on the record so far.

Ward name list
Barnehurst
Barnehurst
Belvedere
Belvedere
Belvedere
Bexleyheath
Bexleyheath
Bexleyheath
Blackfen
     &
Lamorbey
Blendon
     &
Penhill
Crayford
Crayford
Crayford
Crook Log
Crook Log
Crook Log
East Wickham
East Wickham
East Wickham
Erith
Erith
Falconwood
     &
Welling
Longlands
Longlands
Northumberland
Heath
Sidcup
Sidcup
Sidcup
Slade Green
North End
St. Mary’s
St. James
Thamesmead
East
Thamesmead
West Heath
West Heath
West Heath

Ward name list
Barnehurst
Barnehurst
Belvedere
Belvedere
Belvedere
Bexleyheath
Bexleyheath
Bexleyheath
Blackfen
     &
Lamorbey
Blendon
     &
Penhill
Crayford
Crayford
Crayford
Crook Log
Crook Log
Crook Log
East Wickham
East Wickham
East Wickham
Erith
Erith
Falconwood
     &
Welling
Longlands
Longlands
Northumberland
Heath
Sidcup
Sidcup
Sidcup
Slade Green
North End
St. Mary’s
St. James
Thamesmead
East
Thamesmead
West Heath
West Heath
West Heath
Conservative
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Brian Bishop
Frazer Brooks
Peter Craske
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
David Li
?
?
?
?
Christine Catterall
Dave Curtois
Barry Saunders
Oscar Harrison
Lisa-Jane Moore
?
?
Terry Barcock
Andy Curtois
June Slaughter
?
?
Kurtis Christoforides
Cameron Smith
?
?
?
Thomas Clapperton
Melvin Seymour
Eliot Smith

Labour
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Vincent Adegokw
Veronica Obadara
Philip Segurola
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Zainub Asunramu
Larry Ferguson
Abi Johnson
?
?
?

26 March - It’s another Nothingness Day

There is no blog today and unlikely to be one tomorrow but I have listened to the as yet unreported Scrutiny meetings. Commendably short and anything worth reporting will be published during the coming weekend.

What was apparent at all the meetings is that the Conservatives are pessimistic about their chance of re-election, they are wishing themselves fond farewells etc. Of course much of that is due to the number who have decided to stand down. A lot of Conservative Councillors are as old as I am and believe me that is not good for prolonged concentration. Where Councillor June Slaughter (Sidcup) gets her energy from I have no idea.

The archive of election leaflets is beginning to fill up. Three parties and an Independent have shown their hands so far.

In a further sign that things are hotting up, I was asked to propose a candidate which I am happy to do so long as they do not think it guarantees a vote in a different ward. I still have no idea who will stand in Belvedere, nor have I a feel for which party is in the ascendancy.

I doubt that I will be able to remain neutral. Somethings in Bexley are undoubtedly better than in neighbouring boroughs but my occasional request to name one thing that is unequivocally better than in 2006 always goes unanswered. Should we go for managed decline or gamble on change? Decline never sounds attractive to me.

25 March (Part 3) - All lies

The implication of the X post by Bexley’s Conservative Group which you may read here is the most outrageous lie. The Labour Group spoke in favour of the Freedom Pass at the recent Cabinet meeting. The Labour Leader said that while Labour is in charge in London the Freedom Pass will never be abandoned. Bexley Cabinet Member Richard Diment said much the same thing.

At the last Council meeting the Labour Group put forward an Amendment to the Conservative budget proposals. It was in effect the Tory plan with additions. It therefore included the Freedom Pass and many other things. At the vote the Conservatives voted against the Labour Amendments and the Labour Group voted against a Tory budget that did not include the extras they had called for.

They emphatically did not vote against the Freedom Pass and any suggestion they did so is the work of the congenital liars who speak for Bexley Conservatives.

You will note that the Tories got close to acknowledging their untruth by turning off commenting on their post. Maybe Bexley residents should turn off voting for them at the forthcoming election. Bexley has been a Council built on lies for many years and it would seem that they have no intention of changing direction.

25 March (Part 2) - Another Scrutiny meeting. Adult Services and Health

The items discussed were…

• Changes to haematology care at the Princess Royal University Hospital (PRU). This will generally be relegated from in-patient to day care status. In-patients will usually be sent to King’s College, Denmark Hill. These are of course the most serious cases requiring specialist care and often associated with cancer. There was no prior consultation with Bexley Council for which various reasons were offered.
• User Feedback and Satisfaction Levels. Care is inconsistent and satisfaction levels in Bexley are below national achievement. The form for getting a Disabled Badge is horrendous. Navigating the care system is overwhelming.
• Health Inequalities in North Bexley. North Bexley is the most diverse in the borough and with the highest proportion of young people. It has significantly lower cancer screening than elsewhere in the borough. 71% of it is more deprived than the national average. One in twelve black men die of prostate cancer and black females are twice as likely to have late diagnosis of breast cancer.
• Social Care Workforce. Half the staff are on Zero Hours Contracts.

25 March (Part 1) - Someone’s been busy

He beat them in Court, now he wants to beat them at the ballot box.

The Electoral Commission.

24 March (Part 3) - Going Places : Sustainable Transport

Before the Places Committee moved on to Sustainable Transport, Brian Bishop the Cabinet Member for NFDS said there was nothing in his portfolio that was not absolutely perfect. Things were going very very well, CCTV was much better, housing was performing absolutely excellently and the best team in London “and there is nothing in my portfolio that needs Reform at all”. Who will shake this man out of his complacency next May?

There was no news on when the deferred Belvedere and Slade Green CPZs might be implemented. The replacement of refuse vehicles has been deferred to see how technology is changing. The existing fleet is being refurbished by CountryStyle.

Sustainable Transport had been a Task and Finish Group project led by Councillor Mabel Ogundayo (Labour, Thamesmead East) who was disappointed by what she may have seen as a lack of support for her initiative but Councillors Cheryl Bacon, Sue Gower and Cameron Smith were generous in their praise for it.

It is difficult to see why there should have been a falling out among only three Group members but it resulted in two reports. The so called Majority report, which might be described as an extension of the Minority report, the latter being less inclined to criticise the Mayor. The Majority Report included tables of statistics which the Minority Report did not. Maybe, despite the kind words from Conservative Councillors, there was a political battle behind it all.

The Majority Report made the following recommendations…

• Bexley Council should continue to support and lobby for both the extension of the DLR to Belvedere and the Elizabeth Line to Gravesend.
• Bexley Council should continue to lobby Transport for London to review the SL3 route and add a stop in Bexley Village.
• Bexley Council should support Southeastern’s bid to the Department for Transport to replace outdated Networker trains.
• Bexley Council should continue to lobby Transport for London for zero-emission buses on routes serving Bexley.
• Bexley Council should consult residents on what specific improvements would make it easier to walk and cycle in our borough.
• Bexley Council should continue to push the Metropolitan Police for more resources to tackle speeding and dangerous driving locally.
• Bexley Council should promote cycle training provision so more residents can take advantage of the scheme.
• Bexley Council should expand on street EV charging provision
• Bexley Council should promote the expansion of car club schemes

and the Minority…

• Implement a sustainable borough-wide communications campaign promoting sustainable transport benefits via the council’s social media, local events, and partnership with community groups.
• Improved way finding and signage to encourage walking and cycling.
• Expand on a borough-wide transport behaviour change programme targeting schools, businesses and residents.

During the discussion, Councillor John Davey, criticised TfL buses for never listening to anyone. They have ignored him on SL3 stopping points and the imposition of ULEZ caused perfectly good cars to be scrapped.

A vote was taken but the Chairman did not announce the result. One might safely guess it was the Majority Report.

What good did the Task and Finish Group do? Probably none at all, but at least they finished their Task. The last one did not; overtaken by developing circumstances.

NFDS: Nigel Farage Derangement Syndrome.

24 March (Part 2) - Going Places : The Highways

Bexley has almost 50 miles of A roads, 25 of B and C roads and 280 miles of residential roads. I used to say here that I almost never used them but circumstances changed six months ago and now I am a regular and it has been a bit of an eye opener. Our roads could be so much better if only we had someone competent in charge of their design. Having said that, the surfaces, poor though they often are, are undoubtedly better in Bexley than in surrounding boroughs but the congestion here is appalling. Much of it engineered in.

Recently I have been driving via Belvedere, Bexley Village and Ruxley to get to Bromley and with any luck manage the elevenish miles in not much more than 40 minutes, which is half an hour quicker than the direct route at busy times.

Never is the driver given any consideration. The Danson Underpass is being resurfaced this week but I knew every pothole like the back of my hand so didn’t have much of a problem with it. I used it in both directions before 6 a.m. yesterday and there was no sign of any work going on but at 7:30 in the evening it was shut in both directions. Why does a dual carriageway need to have both sides shut at the same time if the intention is not to make our lives difficult and theirs easier? The diverted traffic was solid along Blendon Road and Arbuthnot Lane. It is rare for any journey across Bexley not to suffer a diversion and the architect of that miserable state of affairs is Head of Highways, Andrew Bashford. the man who effectively created Bonkers when he blatantly lied to me to protect his masters.

At the Places meeting he was the principal speaker. Would what he have to say there be any more honest?

He said that quite a lot of infrastructure is not his responsibility. Private roads on Housing Association estates and utility manhole covers for example. Fixing the latter doesn’t usually cost much but it all adds up and the utilities don’t pay the bill. He said there had been press reports that Bexley had gone a whole year without resurfacing a single road. It had come from Department of Transport data and was a misinterpretation. Resurfacing is categorised by them as a 50mm deep replacement but Bexley goes for 100mm, so by definition Bexley had not done any resurfacing, it was reconstruction.

Priority 1 potholes (there is no national definition of a pothole) are protected as soon as they come to light and usually fixed temporarily within an hour or two day and night and fixed properly soon afterwards.

Pothole
Bexley fixes about 2,500 potholes each year. Surface cracking, also known as crocodile cracking, as currently seen in Harrow Manorway, is not seen as a pot hole at all despite the water ingress and subsequent freezing.

On Lane Rental which came up here a couple of blogs ago, Mr. Bashford said it could only cover A roads and the rate would be in the order of £2,500 a day and more for longer periods. The danger is that utility companies will reroute cables etc. along minor roads to avoid the charges and disrupt the lives of people who live there.

Councillor Sue Gower (Conservative, Bexleyheath) commented on pedestrian refuge bollards which are damaged and left dangerous. Penhill Road has one right now which is virtually invisible at night.

Councillor Fosten (Labour, Belvedere) asked how the Highways Manager meets his stated aim of protecting Priority 1 potholes within the hour. His response indicated they don’t always, and only spoke of within the day if they are not too busy. Then the Highways Manager reverted to speaking of an hour; it was all rather unconvincing.

Retiring Cabinet Member for roads and things, Richard Diment, praised the Highways Manager and his team for making Bexley’s roads less bad than many others.

24 March (Part 1) - 3,375,024 was wrong

I forgot something. When there is a series of blogs on the same subject there is sometimes a composite version. The most recent example is @tonyofsidcup’s pro-ULEZ argument. In such cases neither the blog nor the composite version includes any text, instead your browser is instructed to import a text file from elsewhere. It saves duplication and ensures that both versions of the blog are identical. Unfortunately there are no words to count in either blog version, hence yesterday’s count was wrong.

2012, 2019, 2020, 2021. 2023 and 2024 are affected and have grown, not by much. From fewer than 100 extra words to around 17,500 in 2023. Difficult to see on the graph but the total goes up to 3,406,377.

Bonkers word count

3,406,377 blogging words!

23 March - Verbal diarrhea?

Monday is one of those days when there is no time for Bonkers at all, a few minutes at best so I used them today to satisfy my own long standing curiosity. How many words have been expended on exposing Council fibs? The job took rather longer than expected; counting the lot in one go had the program complaining that there was not enough memory. Presumably the counter has its limits because the PC has 96 gigabytes installed. But breaking it up into years was more useful and produced this graph.

I seem to have gone a bit mad in 2010 and the later years show what might be called the Mick Barnbrook and Covid effects. Only blogs are included, not the occasional essays on other subjects. To be pedantic, captions under photos are excluded too, but not the blogs about the Court litigant who now flips to any political party fool enough to have her and who believes that quoting Judges is criminal harassment.

As their inclusion implies, everything still exists, it is just that only I can see it; unless I decide to flick a switch!

With more than three million words under the belt and a stack of worn out keyboards awaiting a trip to Foot’s Cray, I hope you will allow me the rest of the day off.

Bonkers word count

3,375,024 words on blogs alone.

For comparison, 3,375,024 is three times as many as in all eight Harry Potter novels, four times William Shakespeare’s output and nearly five times as many as in The Holy Bible.

22 March (Part 2) - Going Places : The Growth Strategy

With half an ear on the webcast, the Places Scrutiny Committee meeting chaired by Cameron Smith sounded quite interesting. Will that initial assessment prove to be correct?

The first item on the Agenda was the Economic Growth Strategy and Councillor John Davey spoke for most of us by saying he did not want to see any more cheap and nasty warehouses which do little for the borough. He also wondered if, longer term, we really needed all the extra houses given the falling birth rate. We have quite enough HMOs too and we should focus on family housing with a reasonable number of bedrooms and the jobs to support them. “This Growth Strategy will achieve those results.”

Cabinet Member Cafer Munur said he had an idea of what Bexley residents needed. (Well thank goodness for that!)

Labour Councillor Jeremy Fosten (Belvedere) said he had read the report and was none the wiser on what the plan really is, only the generic requirements. It merely pats ourselves on the back saying how good we are. On culture, warehouses, investment and growth It says what we aspire to do but doesn’t mention how. It is nothing but a largely agreeable wish list. He was told that was entirely intentional. it is a deliberately vague wish list and if Labour had attended the prior discussions they would have known that.

Councillor David Leaf said the borough was up against a Mayor and Government’s ill-thought through planning policies but the Strategy is our prospectus to put before possible investors. Investors are no longer very interested in Britain or in London but Bexley is trying to be a beacon of entrepreneurship in both business and in culture, heritage and healthy communities.

Councillor Fosten asked again what good growth is as opposed to bad growth. “A definition please.” He was told it was all on Page 32 of the Strategy.

Cabinet Member Munur said if only Councillor Fosten had attended the meetings he could have helped define the answer himself. The meeting Chairman. in his customary down to earth way, told Jeremy that he didn’t think he was going to get an answer.

Jeremy said he was disappointed to have no answer because his own thoughts on what might make Bexley a great place to be may be very different to everyone else’s around this table.

The reply was that a vague definition allows the Strategy to move with the times and not require it to be rewritten every few years. Instead every effort would be directed at delivery and ‘Good Growth’ is an established term within the industry.

Councillor Mabel Ogundayo (Labour, Thamesmead East) said it “was not much of strategy and I do not feel we are inventing anything new here. Take out the name of the borough and it could be for anywhere else in the country. It is a nice report but not a clear comprehensive strategy. Where is the Action Plan?”.

The Council Officer (Tanusha Waters) said there was one in development and she could share it with Councillors on request. (Maybe I misunderstood her but I think words fail me here.)

Chairman Smith said “that would be useful”. Cabinet Munur repeated that whilst he understood some of the Labour concerns they really should have shaped the Strategy by participating in its formulation at meetings.

Labour Councillor Anna Day said her party did not criticise the Strategy and the Plan which is work in progress. She accepted that it was not easy to attract people to the borough and NHS staff in paricular were reluctant to work here. People were not keen on the Mayor of London, “how can we change this perception and work with him?” Cabinet Member Munur said he does his best to jump through the Mayor’s hoops and what goes on behind the scenes is not always reflected at public meetings.

The Strategy was adopted with Labour support.

22 March (Part 1) - The Piss Association

If you could cast your mind back 15 years and more you would find that blogs were all the rage. There were five in the borough of Barnet pulling their Council apart and I had a friend who banged the drum for the orchestra of which he was percussionist. 853 in Greenwich (named after the phone code) and Arthur Pewty’s Maggot Sandwich in Erith were others nearby.

Bonkers, kindly named by Councillor John Davey, got in on the act after Bexley’s Highways Department blatantly lied about the wrecking of Abbey Road. Everyone was doing it! Blogging that is.

Councillor Read registered a blog name but never used it. It was Councillor Craske’s weapon of choice when attacking residents and James Hunt ran a spoof blog featuring his dog Jasper!

Blogs were so popular and thought to represent the future of news propagation, that OFCOM called all the London bloggers together for a conference in September 2010. It was there that I first met Hugh Neal of the Maggot Sandwich and realised that my digital camera was hopelessly outdated.

At some time since then blogs seem to have fallen by the wayside. There are only two left in Barnet and 853 has become a news website rivalling what is left of local newspapers.

Somehow Hugh Neal has kept his Maggot Sandwich going each Sunday and Bonkers struggles on with far fewer readers than used to be the case. Unless Bexley Council reverts to full on criminality as was once the case, Bonkers is never going to see 50,000 hits a day again.

If you keep in touch with The Maggot Sandwich you will know that its author has suffered very serious health problems for the past 15 months or so and is now housebound apart from occasional trips in an ambulance. He has far too many difficulties to contend with but if you scroll towards the end of today’s effort you will see that he has another.

His blog attracts external contributions from time to time and given his immobility Hugh may rely on them more than me. My complaint is that almost no one supplies photographs with their contributions whilst Hugh has fallen foul of exactly the reverse.

Unknown to him there have been four occasions over several years when the photographs he was sent were not the sender’s own work as he had every expectation to assume. Now out of the blue the Press Association is after him for copyright infringement, for hundreds and Hugh, not to put too fine a point on it, is absolutely stony broke having not been able to work for rather a long time.

The P.A. has been totally unresponsive to Hugh’s pleas and there is now a possibility that they will have his blog closed down. The Press Association did not warn him or ask him to remove the offending images nor have they been able to show Hugh that the images they claim to be theirs are in fact so. Their only interest is extortion.

The Maggot Sandwich may go quiet for a while but I have assured Hugh that that will not be for long. There are ways and means…

I have always taken the view that if I put an image on the web it is inevitable that someone will make use of it. Somewhere on Bonkers there is a message to the effect that anyone can help themselves without fear of a come-back.

I cannot think of any occasion when Bonkers has received a photograph which the sender had not quite obviously taken themselves but it has certainly used photographs from news websites with acknowledgements. What about the Estate Agents photos that illustrate those house sales featured here every few months; or screen grabs from Google Earth?

If copyright issues are taken to extremes, the web would be much the poorer for it, but that apparently is what the Press Association seeks to achieve.

OFCOM

Hugh Neal on the left. September 2010.

Note: The Press Association now calls itself PA Media and is a private company owned by a consortium of newspaper companies.

21 March - Waffle

I often think the only real point of Bonkers these days is its reporting of Council meetings as otherwise few of us would know what is going on. You have to be some sort of nut to listen to a three hour meeting. Too much waffle and squabble. But time has become my huge enemy. I am currently two long meetings behind the times but with plans to catch up by next Wednesday. By then I will again be two meetings behind! Why are Council meetings like 229 buses?

With little free time available today it is my turn to waffle with something which may not offend the litigious and the copyright fiends sent to hound us…

Pot holes and things
Whilst the situation in Bexley is far from being good, I still maintain that neighbouring boroughs are worse. The massive hole left after a mini-roundabout collapsed just South of Chislehurst station (Bromley) was patched three weeks ago; not with a replacement roundabout, that has completely gone, but by a not very flat asphalt fill in. Unfortunately that has collapsed too.

The northern end of Brampton Road which Greenwich Council closed for 28 days last November was in a state of partial collapse by January. Last week it was closed Monday to Friday for remedial repairs; but late last night it was still shut. The Knee Hill lights were letting only three vehicles pass in a West to East direction before going red again with long queues as a result.

Unfortunately Bexley Council’s claimed achievements are too often, “well we are not as bad as the others”. Actually it is very often true but is that really good enough?

Thames Water
I must be careful with this one as I do not particularly want them chasing me for even more money. Last year they raised my bill to being within a couple of pence of 50% higher. They absolutely refused to discuss their failure to provide me with a street stop-cock and consequently a meter and sent a very rude letter to that effect. They would not say how they justified charging a single occupier according to the number of bedrooms as if there was any water consumption link, or why there would be no reduced charge if I took a month’s holiday and used no water.

I retaliated by wasting as much water as I could and paying late.

This year my bill was less than last which struck me as odd. The 2025/26 tariffs are no longer on Thames Water’s website even though they are still current, so on 1st March I asked them to send me a copy. On the 19th they did so but it bears no relation whatsoever to the bill they sent last year. The war goes on.

Idiot Police
A friend was driving along Lower Road, Belvedere when a police car went by in the opposite direction. It made a screeching U-turn (probably went round the Asda roundabout) and put on blue lights and siren. Then the friend realised it was chasing her so she pulled over wondering what she could possible have done wrong.

She soon found out.

L Plate She was accused of driving unaccompanied with an L plate back and front. Since when was that an offence? I have held an unblemished licence for 63 years and could legitimately display a P sign; and maybe I should given the standard of driving around Abbey Wood.

Just before 8 p.m. yesterday I pulled into a space on New Road to allow a bus to ascend the hill unimpeded. I was passed by a madman apparently intent on hitting the bus head on. Fortunately for those on board the bus, the car driver averted a collision by mounting the pavement without so much as slowing down.

Anyway, back to the idiot police; and things get worse. The driver is an instructor who was on her way to pick up a Learner client. Have the police in Bexley really got nothing better to do than watch out for L plates?

20 March - I think they must be worried

The election is only 48 days away and my leaflet collection is looking very thin; one Conservative, one Reform UK and James Hunt. Nothing from my neck of the woods. However when I showed up in Bromley this morning at some unGodly traffic beating hour, I spotted an election leaflet in my friend’s waste bin. (For the record, 24 minutes there and 63 minutes back.)

If it was not for the fact that I knew the name Ian Payne I would not have known which party the leaflet was from. “Bunch of liars, I won’t vote for any of them” said my friend dismissively. I asked why. “That Sunil Gupta comes around asking how he can help and goes away making promises, and then you never hear from him again. Useless”. So I took the leaflet home to study it carefully.

It consists of four A4 sides and the word Conservative appears only four times. Once in the tiniest of fonts giving the legally required address. A Facebook link which includes the C word, a small heading including the name of their Association and a single occurrence in the four pages of text.

It is almost as if they are ashamed to let on who they are. In Sidcup the Tories have delivered a far more professional leaflet.

Reform UK however is listed 26 times, including the graphics, so if the electorate didn’t know who they were, they will now.

They are slagged off of course. It is alleged that Reform UK claimed they would cut Council Tax when in reality they have, on average, only raised it less than the Conservatives.

Bromley follows Bexley with the justifiable complaint that The Labour Government has lied about the funding formula, and again, like Bexley, are trying to fix pot holes. The borough has 547 miles of roads and will spend £5 million on them in the coming financial year; I doubt it will make much of an impression. (Bexley 354 miles and £7 million.)

I think Bromley is in for an even rougher ride than Bexley.

The Reform Members on Bromley Council come in for some personal stick. They allegedly have a poor attendance record at meetings. It might be true. There are three of them, all defectors from the Tories. (†)

Sour grapes and a a little bit frit? You may very well think so. Bromley leaflet

† Having looked at Bromley’s website again I have concluded that Ian Payne is not currently a Councillor and was defeated by a Reform candidate in a by-election.

19 March - Shameless

BiB is occasionally asked to feature a perceived injustice which the requester believes will shame Bexley Council into action. My answer is always the same, I am happy to do so but warn that Bexley Council is beyond shame and will do nothing. In the worst case they may take revenge and make things worse. This may be why such requests are fewer than they used to be.

You cannot shame a Council that after a blog stating that two plus two equals four and quotes Bexley Council’s website as evidence one Councillor complains to the police that in fact the answer is five and the police, incompetent as always, don’t bother to check and charges you with spreading misinformation.

Then when you seek support from every Councillor, all of whom know that two plus two is four, only two bother to reply and help. Councillors June Slaughter and James Hunt if you must know. All the rest shamelessly defend the indefensible by default. (This predates the last election so don’t tar the recent young intake with the same brush. Ditto Labour Councillors.)

When another Councillor was arrested by the police and the C.P.S. recommended he be charged, Bexley Council called in favours with the Tory Mayor and the police magically de-arrested him. When I challenged the police with this thought they refused to deny it and the Councillor was restored to his Cabinet position. Shameless again.

Need I go on?

I have been attempting to collect evidence on the latest complaint for several weeks and even now it may fall a little short of what is required. It concerns the Bowling Club in Russell Park. It’s off Long Lane not far from the bus garage and I didn’t know it was there.

Like most of us I have driven down Long Lane many hundreds of times and occasionally wondered why a road with houses on one side only, all of which have off-road parking spaces for one or two cars, should be so clogged with additional vehicles.

Maybe I am dim but I never thought that drivers at the nearby bus garage might be responsible. They are not allowed to park on site so where else are they going to go? On three occasions I have stood and watched them.

The problem is that the 70+ mainly elderly folk who pass their time playing bowls cannot get anywhere near their ground as a result of which the Club might have to close. Visiting Clubs refuse to come.

There is a simple solution, park on the green’s own car park; but it belongs to Bexley Council and allegedly those shameless enemies of the people won’t let them even in return for a fee. The only use the car park gets is when the Mayor turns up in the Council limo to award prizes.

Maybe next May will bring forth a more responsible Council? The suspicion right now must be that Bexley Council would like to see the Club close so that they can build over it.

Long Lane parking

18 March - A Transport of Delight

I have seen a wide variety of Chairmen perform in the Chamber since I began Bexley Council watching in 2010.

We have had one who illegally moved her public meeting to a private room and barricaded it because she did not want her words to be recorded. The lies told about that incident were so extreme that they resulted in the police sending a file to the CPS.

Then there was another who encouraged Councillors to switch off their microphones so that the Hearing Loop didn’t work and two deaf people in the public gallery could no longer follow the meeting. The Equalities Commission stepped in to prevent a recurrence.

Another Chairman reprimanded a member of the public in a letter to his home address because she deemed him not sufficiently enthusiastic about her performance. I suspect that breaking into Council records to find his address broke all sorts of rules but that particular Chairman was never very interested in following rules.

Most meeting Chairmen have been perfectly OK if unremarkable. Towards the other extreme Andy Dourmoush would always welcome me to his meetings and on my not very frequent attendances at a Planning Meeting, Chairman Peter Reader would come over to shake my hand. (All of these Councillors have gone or announced their imminent departure.)

And then there is Cameron Smith. (Conservative, St. Mary’s and St. James and Chairman of the Transport Sub-Committee.)

He used to invite me to sit alongside him until he noticed I always declined his kind offer. He also allows me to participate in the discussion if I feel so inclined. He is unique in both respects and I particularly like his tendency to say what most of us are thinking. He is his own man willing to represent residents without being too much of a whip aware party slave.

Within a few hours of me admitting missing his Transport Users’ Committee meeting through my own stupidity he was in touch to tell me what I had missed. Not much on the police and bus front apparently but the rail authorities made some interesting announcements.

The pre-Covid six Southeastern services an hour will be restored on all three cross-borough lines, The Bexleyheath line will get more Charing Cross services while the Greenwich line will get loop services to Sidcup off-peak and Saturday too. “So delighted” he says.

Cameron takes issue with me on Lane Rental. I say take issue but in reality yesterday’s blog was deliberately escalated into a bit of a rant. I am not unsympathetic to Cameron’s view but I really hate Thames Water who refuse to talk to me about them never fitting a street stopcock outside my house. As every driver knows, getting across the borough is an extremely frustrating experience and I am not immune from it.

For your benefit, the Chairman is of the opinion that “charging utilities may very well act as a deterrent but it is effectively a tax on investment. Ultimately, bill payers would pick up the tab and it would deter mains water replacement etc. that we need to stop the cycle of endless road works caused by failing infrastructure”.

“My hope is to secure the mains replacement Bexley Village needs so we can substantially reduce road works. Perhaps not a popular view, but it’s short-term pain for long-term gain. The politically difficult but right thing to do is to encourage the real investment we need to replace our ageing pipes. The alternative of taxing investment or just saying no which isn’t usually possible, would just mean more of the same. Old pipes, breakages and road works ad nauseam.”

True, but I am not sure I will live long enough to see the improvements!

He adds that the map of forthcoming works will not disrupt life all at the same time. It depicts what is in the pipeline if you will excuse the pun.

Cameron had nothing to say about buses so I will fill in for him. They are everywhere but not terribly reliable. At 6 o’clock yesterday evening there were eleven double deckers stuck in Gayton Road, Abbey Wood and overflowing into Florence Road.

I was at the Clock Tower at ten to three yesterday and unusually caught the scenic route home because I wanted to take some photos near the bus garage. So I got off the 229, looked for what I had been asked to photograph - and failed - and went back to catch the next 229.

The bus App said it was due in eight minutes and 20 minutes later three turned up at the same time. The first was full but I squeezed on to the second one and stood next to the stairs opposite the priority seats.

At the next (near Silverdale Road) stop, a frail old lady got on and stood in front of me. The two chaps in the priority seats took no notice as she swayed perilously.

I was tempted to photograph the back end of the bus, crowded but with sixteen school kids visible to me, but you can’t take pictures of kids in these woke times so I didn’t. All but one were black. Probably things would be no different if they were white British but not for the first time I wondered why you see mainly black children on buses. How do the others get home?

The three 229s travelled in convoy to Lesnes Abbey and beyond but by then mine was heading the queue. It arrived around quarter past four. Well over an hour after leaving the Clock Tower.

Earlier the same day I took an SL3 home from Lion Road. I was literally the only passenger on board. It travelled non-stop to Florence Road via Nuxley Road because of the incessant road closures. It even missed Bexleyheath station and the oncoming bus on New Road where the parking is idiotic.

Note: Showing my age here but the blog title comes from a 1957 comedy song by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. I recall it included the line, 97 horsepower London bus, the Routemaster had 115. About half that of my electric car. I seem to have nicked all my sister’s records.
Flanders and Swann

17 March - Bexley is FUBAR

OK, I admit it. I had the Transport Users’ Committee meeting down for tomorrow, I had even charged my recorder batteries and packed a notebook and pencil, but it was last Thursday,

Maybe it is just as well as I had in mind saying what I thought of the Committee. Bexley is too often close to a standstill. I did one of my Bromley return trips yesterday before 5 a.m. to avoid a couple of hours on the road. Unfortunately I had to return in the late afternoon. Brampton Road is shut and last time I tackled Sidcup at that sort of time it took 25 minutes to get from Waitrose via The Green to the hospital. Yesterday I thought I’d give it all a wide berth.

From Lesnes Abbey to Picardy Road, along Nuxley Road and out to Long Lane. From there Gravel Hill to Bexley Village and North Cray Road to the A20 and Bromley.

But it was not to be. Bexley Village was shut again so I had to return to the traditional Sidcup route. I wasn’t going to risk the 25 minute QEH delay again so I planned to go via Knoll Road and down Sidcup Hill to Footscray and the A20.

No such luck. The traffic queue started at Rectory Lane. On Sidcup Hill there was the half hour queue of traffic trying to get to Sidcup and past the hospital and in the easterly direction there was a half hour queue of people like me who were trying to avoid it.

The queue on the Bromley side of the hospital extended to within a few hundred yards of Chislehurst station and the works are scheduled to take 18 months.

Now I know that these problems are largely not directly Bexley Council’s fault (Greenwich Council trying to fix the road they closed last November. Gas and Thames Water yesterday) but come next May I will not give them the benefit of any doubt. The roads are a shambles and they are ultimately responsible. Irrational or not, it will make me feel better.

Oddly enough the Committee was due to discuss the London Permit Scheme and Lane Rental which would allow utilities to be charged for wrecking local economies. I would think Thames Water should be paying £2 million a week for what they have done to Sidcup. Has it not been brought to a standstill every weekday over the past two months? £10,000 a week for more minor roads too, although I think that is beyond the scope of the Lane Rental Scheme which Bexley Council says it is considering.

The rather blurry map below shows in blue where Thames Water has or shortly will have, its road wrecking schemes.
Press Release

Disruption everywere.

While on the subject of the appalling Thames Water; on 1st March I asked them for a copy of their 2025/26 tariff. ie. the current one. Next year 2026/27 is on the website but not this year.

On 11th March they agreed with me, it isn’t publicly available - but they couldn’t tell me what it is. As soon as the weather improves a bit I will repeat last year’s protest of running the garden tap continuously straight down the drain. A drop in the ocean compared to what they waste but until they agree to give me a stopcock in the footpath outside…

16 March - You didn’t imagine it

Parking fines are up 33% in Bexley in just ten years, among the lowest increases in London. Despite that Bexley Council admitted at its last Cabinet Meeting that the new CPZs had made a significant contribution to the budget deficit, but this is apparently permit take-up rather than fines. But I am sure every little helps.

Greenwich is an odd one; in Abbey Wood (which is mainly in Greenwich for non-locals who may be reading this) the complaint is that commuters park with impunity.

This image has been ‘stolen’ from Mr. Mustard, the Barnet based PCN guru. It probably took him hours to prepare and discuss on his website so I am not going to repeat his analysis here.

Go and read it for yourself! (Link.)

15 March - Don’t be deceived

Yesterday the News Shopper reported that the Council Leader and Mayor has unveiled a plaque to those whose death was attributed to Covid. It was in effect a republication of a Bexley Council Press Release because no local paper can afford to cover such events with their own reporter and photographer.

As such, readers might be forgiven for thinking that we owe the plaque and the garden in which it stands to Councillor Leaf. “It was important for us to establish a permanent space where our community can visit to reflect on their experiences and remember those no longer with us. This garden is a tribute to the resilience of our residents and the tireless acts of kindness shown during an unprecedented time.”

The former Leader Baroness O’Neill gets a credit too.

The whole truth is rather different and may be found on Bexley Council’s own website of all places! The idea came from Bexley resident Gordon Davis who sought the help of Independent candidate and Councillor for Blackfen & Lamorbey, James Hunt. James was assisted by his ward colleague Peter Craske.

Mr. Davis said; “I’m really pleased that my suggestion for a commemorative garden has been acted on. I felt it was vital to have a scenic place in the borough to visit and spend time thinking about loved ones we have lost, or who may have suffered as a result of Covid. I am delighted to be involved in such a positive project and look forward to spending time enjoying the new space we will be creating as a community. This park is an ideal choice and I thoroughly enjoyed walking the site to see the new playground and various wildlife habitats promoting greater biodiversity of flora and fauna. I thank the Councillors and the Mayor for embracing this idea and bringing it to fruition.”
Press Release

From the August 2020 News Release.

As the Council acknowledged in 2020, the Mayor at the time was James Hunt but not a word about that from the current would-be electorate deceivers now!

14 March (Part 2) - Conservative Bexley is more tyrannical than Labour Greenwich

Two local websites have covered what they call Greenwich Council’s shameless attempt to curb democracy. Murky Depths and The Greenwich Wire.

What neither seem to have recognised is that even after the clamp down, Greenwich Council will be no worse than and in several respects better than Bexley Council has been since the Conservatives were elected in 2006.

Greenwich is going to ask for a week’s notice of questions while Bexley has always asked for seven days excluding both the day of the question - and only then after they have got around to looking at the email - and the day of the meeting. So both are much the same. Greenwich is restricting Councillors to only two questions while in Bexley they are squeezed into any time the public has not used from their 30 minute allocation which comes around only five times a year. In Greenwich they have seven opportunities.

Greenwich will no longer allow questions in excess of 100 words long but Bexley Council has always done that.

Call ins by opposition parties are to be restricted while in Bexley they are not allowed at all. It is based on a mathematical calculation and that is the way it works out when the Conservatives hold a large majority.

In Greenwich Labour Members will be encouraged to ask soft questions designed to put the party in a good light. In Bexley they have always planted easy questions in order to initiate a party political broadcast.
Shameless

The Greenwich Wire

Nothing will ever beat Bexley Council’s decision to accept questions only from residents who agreed to allow the full details of their name and address to be published on the Council’s website. This inhibited questions from residents who were living at home with parents who might wish to exert a controlling influence. It also completely prevented anyone living in a hostage for abused partners as it revealed their whereabouts.

I cannot remember now whether it was me or Mick Barnbrook who reported Bexley Council to the Information Commissioner who came down on them like the proverbial ton of bricks.

14 March (Part 1) - Where’s Melvin run to?

Not a lot has registered with me about who the Conservatives plan to stand for election in May. I know the names of the Sidcup three and I know that Frazer Brooks has done a runner from Falconwood to Blackfen and been criticised in certain quarters for doing so. I have no idea why; it is standard procedure in Bexley; but of the others? I should have taken notes. (I suspect I would find a few if I carried out a thorough search.)

However thanks to an X post from former MP David Evennett we know who is going to take on Crayford. “Local Conservatives were out campaigning in Crayford this morning to support Council candidates Cllr Geraldene Lucia-Hennis, Andrew Credgington and Jonathan Gillespie. Our GLA member Thomas Turrell AM joined us.”

Geraldene has been a Crayford Councillor for a very long time; since before 2010 anyway. (The precise date is unknown because the Tories website page on her is broken. P.S. 2006.)

However her colleague and Cabinet Member Melvin Seymour, while present in the photo, does not otherwise get a mention. Has he done the chicken run? (P.S. To West Heath.)

I am not sure why he should be worried. In a fit of extraordinary stupidity, Crayford elected a Labour MP in 2024, one who is in favour of killing viable nine month foetuses and thinks we are short of juries, not Court rooms or the judiciary to run them; and is happy to undo 800 years of history.

Crayford doesn’t need any more buffoons and might be well advised to stick with those they know best.

13 March - In a bit of a flap

While the Prime Minister creates a new clown show on a daily basis it is a relief to find something from local Labour politicians with which one can agree; up to a point. They want to see the end of flags on lamp posts in part because as they age, they make the place look untidy, which is true, but also because they make health workers feel uncomfortable working near to the British and English flags. Allegedly.

Their Press Release goes on to say that the Union and St. George’s flags are symbols that unite the nation but they are not inclusive. You may care to think hard about the juxtaposition of those two statements.

Presumably the Press Release is entirely in tune with the Government’s Social Cohesion Strategy which branded the Union Flag a tool of hate.

Being a reasonable Labour politician trying to toe the line imposed by the most tyrannical government in history requires the highest skills of funambullism.

There was an earlier Bexley Labour flag Press Release. The problem with getting rid of flags is that it is too expensive.

Click image to read today’s Press Release. (PDF.)

12 March - The first of the election leaflets arrive

Four years ago the Conservative had the first of their election leaflets out by the beginning of February and they were first out again this year unless one counts the London wide circular issued by Nigel Farage back in December. But Reform UK is not to be outdone, two leaflets through Bexley letter boxes already.

Newly Independent James Hunt is working up his campaign too and was featured in MyLondon today.

11 March (Part 2) - Well I got that wrong!

It didn’t take long for those in the know to bring the big goof in this morning’s blog to my attention. Dave Curtois is not the father of Councillor Andrew as I had assumed, far from it. Let’s just say that if, in the unlikely event of both being elected on May 7th, Bexley Council will be back in couples territory. Not as many as the five we had some years ago, given the present mood that I sense is prevalent in the borough, the Conservatives will be lucky to have five couples in the chamber, married or not.

If apologies are due they are freely given, but what is the Mayor Catterall Consort Curtois link?

11 March (Part 1) - Monkey business

There is a proposal to build some sort of play park in the wooded area of Danson Park. Ropes and zipwire type things hanging from trees. 25/02342/FUL.

We had the same courtesy of the British Army when I lived on the edge of Aldershot in the 1950s. Kids could use the Paras’ training facilities when there was no live firing in progress

The difference now was that Aldershot was free of charge and Danson Park won’t be. No wonder Councillor Nick O’Hare was ridiculed by Nicola Taylor for complaining that Bexley Council keeps flogging off its green spaces and his comment that when it is gone it is gone.

Children’s playgrounds are not the sort of thing that interest me greatly but as I have a friend who lives more or less opposite the park I asked if she could do me a favour and report back on the protest meeting.

The report didn’t amount to much and is reproduced here. It looked like a David Curtois was going to seek election in May and is best friends with Mayor Christine Catterall all of which is perfectly legitimate.

I had forgotten about the Catterall Curtois link, but it is not a secret, and guessed that David was related to Councillor Andrew Curtois. But once again; who cares? There was a time when five Bexley Councillors were related to another five and no one much cared about that either.

Then someone who keeps an eye on Planning applications found 26/00396/FUL. (The search button returned Not Found for me but a search for the address, West Lodge, Danson Lane does the trick.)

That application comes from Mr. Andrew Curtois who has some extensive alterations to his home in mind. Unlike one of his predecessors he declares himself a Councillor as he is required to do. A certain lady Councillor not renowned for her honesty failed to do that. Such a declaration ensures that the application goes to the Planning Committee so that everything is beyond reproach. And of course 26/00396 is.

But this Go Ape park is right next door to West Lodge which is not at all nice for the Councillor who lives there. An awkward situation if ever there was one. It might not go down well with Bexley Council to fight the Go Ape plans but maybe getting one’s father, who it might be, to run the protest group might be a neat way out of the dilemma.

West Lodge top left of both pictures. Google Earth on the right.

Some are saying this is a bit of a scandal though I cannot quite see how. I asked the friend who attended the meeting if Dave Curtois said anything about West Lodge and she thinks that on reflection he probably did say he lived nearby.

Andrew Curtois is not a Councillor who has ever showed any interest in Bonkers, if he had done so I might have asked him about his interest in the Go Ape application but as it is, I think those looking for another Bexley Council scandal will be sorely disappointed.

10 March (Part 2) - Cheering on inflation busting tax rises

A balanced budget when a Labour Government is doing its best to wreck the economy with extra taxes on residents and more of them unemployed due to tax policies may have been difficult but not something to be applauded by Conservative Councillors; but they did. A balanced budget is a legal requirement but clapping loudly at the prospect of residents facing an increase of more than twice the rate of inflation must surely be the very pinnacle of poor taste. Maybe MPs attending a dance event rather than a debate on the Middle East war runs it close.

Do we have a serious Council ready to root out the underlying problems or is it tired of life?.

After rejecting the Labour Amendment to the budget - changing BexleyCo’s focus, spend £11 million on roads, create a Community Vision, improve Scrutiny procedures, raise about three grand by charging Councillors and the most senior executives for parking and welcoming recent Government initiatives like breakfast clubs and reducing electricity charges to rather more than they were in July 2024 - the Council moved on to debating its proposal to raise Council Tax by as much as is legally permitted.

There were several derogatory references during this second half of the meeting to members of the public who had drifted away early but when the clock heads towards 11 p.m. it is not particularly surprising. Listening to self congratulation by Tories seeking Brownie Points from their Leader is not the most inspiring of spectacles.

Councillor O’Hare (Conservative, Blendon & Penhil) spoke first. His chosen subject was parks and open spaces. “A vital infrastructure where families breathe and children play. Once they are gone they are gone for good. [West Street anyone?] This budget puts money into parks and playgrounds.”

After a long list of benefits lost by the gradual erosion of green spaces through planning applications; all good stuff, he was applauded somewhat unenthusiastically by his colleagues.

Cabinet Member Cafer Munur reiterated the legal obligation to set a balanced budget and was pleased that there were “no excessive Council Tax rises while keeping front line services stable”.

“Unlike other Councils which are effectively bankrupt Bexley has prudent management and a relentless focus on value for money. Look at Kent County Council, bold claims made about efficiencies but governing proved very different.”

More Conservative applause.

Councillor Lisa Moore (Conservative, Longlands) listed the achievements in Children’s Services, fostering, Education etc. all of which are probably true. She hoped that the Government would eventually come up with the money they had promised to fund it all. Loud applause.

Councillor John Davey (Conservative, West Heath) said he didn’t think much of the Labour Budget Amendment and he thought it likely that they would be annihilated in the forthcoming election. Polling suggests that the Green Party will wipe them out except possibly in their Thamesmead East stronghold. ”Labour put up Council Tax by nearly 45% following which the Conservatives froze it for six years. Khan increases his precept every year while Boris put it down. Bexley keeps taxes as low as we can. On one side, the Greens will take over Greenwich and on the other Reform splits in Kent and joins splinter parties.”

“Both of our Labour MPs do nothing at all to help; one has disappeared and the other prattles around with pot holes.” Lots of applause and shout of Well Done.

Labour Leader Stefano Borella was allowed to get a word in. He said that Daniel Francis MP fights for the people of Bexley while in Bexley the statistics are skewed to come up with the 7th best claim. “16 boroughs scored more Green ratings than Bexley. Bexley residents do not believe the nonsense being spouted.” Councillor Davey had referred to the Chancellor as “young Rachel” which had provoked indecipherable abuse from the opposition. Stefano doubted that John would say that about a male Chancellor and his chosen adjective was “disgraceful and absolutely appalling”.

(John Davey is 82 years old, just a few months younger than me, and probably regards everyone under the age of 65 as young. I know I do.)

“He should be proud of her” opined Stefano.

He rightly ridiculed Councillor O’Hare for his comments on parks after selling Old Farm Park, West Street and Wilde Road. It is disgraceful that Councillors get free parking in nearby car parks while staff do not. “The budget shunts problems forward to a future administration” which is exactly what Reform UK has been saying.

Councillor Rags Sandhu (Conservative, Bexleyheath) spoke about highway maintenance. He related how one of his residents was pleased that Bexley Council had resurfaced his road and had written to his MP to thank him. An MP who argued for less money for Bexley. [Labour jeering.] (I am still inclined to think that voting rights should be proportional to IQ levels.)

Councillor Andrew Curtois (Conservative, Falconwood & Welling) said that the Labour Government has landed us in a financial mess while Reform UK is a protest party. At this point he made an unwarranted reference to the Reform UK people in the public gallery. Bexley Conservatives on the other hand drive sensible efficiencies, balancing budgets and living within our means. Bexley achieves the second lowest of any Council in its spending on local services. It was presented as a plus point but opinions may differ. Prolonged applause.

Councillor Howard Jackson (Conservative, Barnehurst) was next to his feet. Roads was one of his chosen subjects and “the impressive £9·167 million investment on 354 miles of roads”. Investment in Libraries were in for similar praise.

Councillor Janice Ward-Wilson (Conservative, Crook Log) trotted out the sort of figures we have heard too often before. Bexley gets £46 a head from Government (down again) for public health which is only half the London average. More applause.

Labour Councillor Zainab Asunramu (Thamesmead East) said that the Labour Amendment would have strengthened the budget and “took umbrage” at the inaccuracies in the responses by Councillors Newton, O’Neill and Seymour who had dodged or otherwise misinterpreted Labour’s questions and comments, Standard practice surely?

Councillor Bola Carew (Conservative, Bexleyheath) said her residents tell her that they enjoy living in Bexleyheath, “It is a nice place to be” and the [much reduced in number but updated] CCTV coverage makes them feel safe. I am going to assume you don’t want to hear any more of this despite the loud applause given.

Councillor Brian Bishop (Conservative, Barnehurst) whose appointment to Cabinet was described to me as “barrel scraping” by one of his colleagues was mainly concerned with deriding the Reform UK supporters in the audience some of whom had left at the half time stage. Reduced grants, more money for libraries and the reduced CCTV coverage all got a mention as did the word Reform a creditable seven times, not including the alleged early departure. Is he worried or something?

Councillor Steven Hall (Conservative, East Wickham) managed a joke or two and said the Conservative budget was responsible, stable and puts resources where they are needed most. As a tail and speaker it must be hard to come up with something original so it was the usual stuff on pot holes, social care, recycling, green spaces and a defence of a £1,855 Band D charge. Bexley Council part only.

Cameron Smith (Conservative, St. Mary’s and St. James) said that replacing the outdated CCTV is very helpful to the police and additionally covered his pet subject, road maintenance and the little known fact that Councils pay for the Freedom Pass. He said that balancing the need for road maintenance and the constant utility works was highly complex and the Highways team was really impressive. Applause obviously but maybe more deserving of it than some.

Given the length of this blog, extreme brevity is now required. (The Chairman Mayor asked for the same thing!)

Councillor Caroline Newton (Conservative, East Wickham) said that she and her team had done “pretty well”.

Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) said that Margaret Thatcher sold off water “and look how well that has turned out”. No one will disagree. An easy target was the selling off of green spaces, When “they are gone they are gone”. She took the pee out of Bexley Tories and their green policies in a way that only Nicola could; and she was absolutely right.

Councillor Jeremy Fosten (Labour, Belvedere) took the mick out of the Council blaming unfair funding for their predicament when for 14 of their 20 years it was a Conservative Government in charge. Right again. He asserted that, the budget may be balanced but residents will not see any improvements. FixMyStreet reports of fly tipping go six months and more without action.

Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) thought the Highways team was “exemplary” suggesting that he does not talk to his MP, Daniel Francis. Mrs. Thatcher was “an extraordinary leader” but “demeaning Rachel Reeves by calling her “a young girl is not acceptable”. The budget is balanced but only by robbing the reserves. (Councillor Ball once told me to my face that he didn’t think Bexley’s Chief Executive was paid enough. Maybe he is not a real Socialist.)

Like me he has no real problem with flag flying but they have become “tatty” which is not good and “it is time they came down”. I said the same three months ago. Maybe I am a Socialist!

Lastly Councillor Baroness O’Neill (Crook Log) said nothing you would not expect. Bexley under the Conservatives has been fantastic etc. and pot holes are fixed in a timely manner.

Council Leader David Leaf corrected some of Labour’s statistics from his encyclopedia of facts and ridiculed the £2,500 improvement to the budget that would come from charging Councillors for parking. He said the Conservatives speeches were “excellent” while Labour will shortly vote against things that they want.

Once again the only Independent present voted for the Conservative budget.

Note: For the record, this blog took three hours and 40 minutes to write - before I go looking for typos and ungrammatical nonsense. Another 30 minutes.

10 March (Part 1) - Something missed yesterday evening

Yesterday’s blog.
Eamonn Delanney

9 March (Part 2) - Third time lucky!

At the end of last month Bonkers briefly mentioned the rumours circulating about the leadership of Reform UK’s Bexley branch. It seemed likely that Tom Bright who was their Parliamentary candidate in Bexleyheath & Crayford in 2024 was on the way out. Whilst I believed It to be fairly certain, no one would definitively say so. But now they have. The stepping aside is for personal reasons; obviously.

Tom Bright will follow the dreadful Fothergill woman, who was Chairman in Old Bexley & Sidcup until last Spring, into political oblivion, or maybe like her, the failed Councillors’ life raft which is Restore Britain.

I know who is going to replace Mr. Bright but it is not my place to make the announcement before the new man does. A much better choice in my opinion who I have met a few times and he lives in the middle of Bexleyheath rather than far flung Sevenoaks or Woolwich.

I expect to see the new Chairman take a seat on Bexley Council in May bringing with him much needed business experience.

9 March (Part 1) - Local boy dun good!

Only five days ago Councillor James Hunt floated the idea that he might stand as an Independent Councillor in Blackfen & Lamorbey next May and he tempted me into a rare look at Facebook where I saw he was getting some support. However I don’t get along with Facebook because I can only rarely find anything again, and that is the situation right now. Perhaps his supporters have had second thoughts and withdrawn their encouraging comments!

You may wish to spend a couple of minutes catching up with him on video. He and his parents still live where he was born and bred.

Blackfen & Lamorbey is a ward where Independents are in with a chance as the late Mick Barnbrook showed in 2014. Only narrowly edged out by UKIP who were on a roll at the time.

At a personal level I would be happy to see James push Peter Craske aside. Long term readers may recall the infamous Obscene Blog in which a Council insider accused me of committing lewd acts in the old Civic Offices and the Cinema car park opposite. Before the police traced the offender, James came around to my house to apologise on behalf of the Council. Well maybe not exactly that as he probably had no such authority to do so, but he was as disgusted by it as most people were. To this day I have no idea if he knew if the obscenities were the work of a ward colleague and his apology has never been mentioned here before.

Revealing it today cannot damage his relations with the Conservative party any more and it can only demonstrate that he is far more worthy of your vote than they are. Common decency in a politician is not as common as it should be.

8 March (Part 2) - The neurologically disabled are out in force today

Today we have the monthly farmers’ market in Lesnes Abbey which is a great opportunity to show how Bexley Council’s parking restrictions do nothing to discourage cretinous behaviour.
Market
Recent blogs have shown how it is possible to entirely block New Road and not run foul of any parking laws. Fortunately most drivers take things only to the very edge of acceptability and no further but not the entitled few with a Blue Badge. As can be seen below the Blue Badge is not a licence to be stupidly inconsiderate.
Blue Badge rules
The driver of BA19 DLZ (Photo 1) was far too lazy and probably unintelligent to reverse back 20 feet to a less dangerous spot. Not entirely Blue Badge rule compliant as it is opposite a junction but better than creating a major hazard to other road users (Photo 2) who have to exit a junction on the wrong side of the road.

In New Road EU22 NFE ignores the rules about making roads narrow and GF17 YJD is not a lot better.

Lower down the hill the roads are passable with care (The bus in Photo 6) which is not always in evidence. UA18 UAF (Photo 7) had to reverse out of trouble. Fortunately there were no buses behind him.

Some people are desperate to park as close to their destination. The owner of the wheel (Photo 9) is arguably on a double yellow but definitely across the dropped kerb leading to the park.

The little GEM in the final photo, DN74 HZR, is a collector of PCNs. On a double yellow with yesterday’s PCN resting on the dashboard. I was only out for half an hour but in that time there was no enforcement in evidence.

The worst of the danger is caused by inconsiderate parking but the congestion is created by the incompetence of Bexley’s Highways Department. Bus drivers have every right to hate them.

8 March (Part 1) - Excuses, excuses

Life in general and maintaining Bonkers too easily fall into arrears. This is a mini-rant about it and an apology to those awaiting emails to be answered. You don’t have to read what follows.

Sometimes, particularly in the Summer and the months before and after Christmas, there is a dearth of Bexley Council news and at other times there is a deluge.

Right now there is not a huge deluge although it will build up during the approach to the May elections but for several months past there have been three days, occasionally four, each week when there is no time to fire up the computer at all. This is becoming quite a problem and there are several emails originated by this website awaiting a reply and two other large websites I manage. Fortunately neither of those need daily attention.

On Bonkers there has been lengthy correspondence on an HMO. The occupants are allegedly disruptive, damage property and keep everyone awake. The usual stuff one might fear if the house next door becomes an HMO. I have literally years of emails which appear to prove that Bexley Council is not in the slightest bit interested. To be honest I do not think Bonkers can help. Bexley Council is shameless.

There is another involving a bowling green and parking which I have not had time to really look at yet. And some less complicated ones too.

It is slightly annoying to have readers querying my assertion that Bonkers takes a great deal of time to maintain. I started yesterday’s budget report before 9 a.m. and it didn’t go on line until after 2. Listening to the Council meeting, deciding which things are worth reporting, summarising it and correcting the typos takes ages. If quotations are condensed for brevity one must be absolutely sure that the nuances are maintained. Several Councillors who spoke were not mentioned at all because no one wants to spend more than five minutes reading a blog, but one still has to listen to them to be sure. If someone can do it quicker they are welcome to try.

In the old days when there were six of us behind Bonkers it was easier. The budget report was more than five hours of my Saturday gone and the meeting is only half covered.

As one gets further into one’s eighties there is the inevitable tendency to only have younger friends. They seem unable to understand that life slows down and complain that their ‘helpful’ suggestions may be cast aside for lack of time. Time to meet them becomes almost impossible to find and I think only one of them knows about Bonkers.

Gardening and house maintenance take a back seat and I don’t like living in a tip so the weekend is often clearing up time. It is frustrating that there is never time to keep an eye on investments. Probably the largest monetary cost of running Bonkers is not domain registry fees and the like but not keeping one’s savings in the right place.

And I have renewed my war with Thames Water. My assessed bill for the coming year is less than 2025/26. I asked them to justify 25/26 at the time and they told me they would not correspond with me. I have asked again with no response. It looks like I shall have to leave my garden tap running 24/7 again in protest.

Actually the water main serving my road runs under my front garden. Hmm. Now there is an idea!

7 March - Labour puts forward an alternative budget

On the Monday before last, Bexley Council’s Cabinet approved their budget and the inflation busting Council Tax increase it requires. All that was necessary to legally raid your pocket was the nod through by their Conservative colleagues at Full Council on Wednesday, Their job depends on total acquiescence. So all done and dusted within 20 minutes; right?

Not a bit of it, so much grandstanding, rehearsed speechifying and applause is necessary that they managed go for an extra three hours! (Much of it in the next report still to come.)

It started with Leader David Leaf moving that the 2026/27 budget be approved. Simple enough but he spun it out for more than seven minutes saying very little of note while finding time for a word or two about Rachel from Accounts [Complaints?] and the two party before residents Bexley MPs who voted to cut the borough’s grant.

New in this new budget, £30 million for Highways, freezing the cost of parking permits - at a level six times higher than when this blog commenced a few years ago - £2·5 million on playgrounds and £2 million for libraries. “BexleyCo will provide millions more.” The Leader is going to make Bexley Even Better while few can see any improvements.

Cabinet Member Melvin Seymour said it was a Budget for People while ignoring the poor sods who have to pay the bill out of their inflation ravaged incomes.

Labour Leader Stefano Borella had heard enough and put forward an Amendment to the budget which is included in his subsequent Press Release. The Finance Officer said its figures did add up OK. After Councillors considered it, or maybe not in the case of the Conservatives, for seven minutes the debate progressed.

The Labour Leader said his amended budget represented aspiration. Potholes would be fixed and a new Housing Strategy introduced focusing more on affordable housing and social rented properties. No more selling of the family silver, notably parks and open spaces. There are 50,000 residents in Bexley renting privately, Bromley gets Government grants to help them, Bexley doesn’t bother to apply. Sidcup would qualify but its MP attacks HMOs instead.

Scrutiny Committees in Bexley do not work, sometimes major decisions are not scrutinised at all, “Absolutely appalling,”

“The Conservatives are proposing a 12% increase in 30 minute parking charges but Councillors are allowed to park in four car parks without charge.” [Tories have been going public with a claim that parking charges are frozen.]

Councillor Jeremy Fosten (Labour, Belvedere) reiterated the affordable homes and social housing aspirations and said that BexleyCo’s performance had been pathetic. In what was supposed to be a criticism he said that Reform UK locally wanted to see BexleyCo scrapped. “That would be money down the drain.”

The pothole team would be augmented to speed up pothole repairs.

Cabinet Member Chris Taylor said that at a time when the Labour Government {and Sadiq Khan] was failing to meet its housing target the Amendment was “a silly plan and he was not going to allow that horrid Labour Mayor to build on green spaces across our borough.”. He failed to explain how he would stop Khan over-ruling them as he did in Abbey Wood but he did remind us that the last Labour administration raised Council Tax by 40%.

Councillor Peter Craske (Conservative, Blackfen & Lamorbey) said that a year ago Labour forecast that their 2026/27 Budget would be one of ambition, vision and new plans and all we got was more broken promises and seven new ideas and the biggest of them would be to charge people who do not own a car £57 not to use a car park. It was “Labour summed up”. In 2023 they voted against an investment in 300 roads; investment which resulted in the recent good report from the Labour Government and instead proposed cutting it by 3%. “In 2024 they proposed spending zero on road repairs.”

They are “ULEZ loving, LTN loving Lefties and we we know what will happen to them on 7th May”.

Councillor Anna Day (Labour, Slade Green & Northend) said residents’ main concern is potholes. She said that in 2023/24 press reports were that Bexley did not repair a single pothole.

Labour Councillor Baljeet Gill said the hard pressed businesses in his Northumberland Heath ward were angry about the further increase in short term parking charges and asked for a change of heart by Bexley Conservatives. [For the record, 50 pence ten years ago and £1 now. Inflation in that time 40%.]

Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) spoke about the new Labour housing strategy. Whilst residents see housing as a top priority for a Council, Bexley gave all theirs away leaving it powerless to introduce necessary improvements. Instead we have Housing Associations profiteering by selling them off. Cabinet Member Chris Taylor thought the reference to housing in poor condition was funny. But then he also thought the reduction in pay for care workers was something to rejoice in.

Cabinet Member Caroline Newton said there was nothing in the Labour Budget to say how they would manage the £11 million plus SEND transport budget supporting 1,200 young people. [£10,000 each.] She said that the all caring Labour Government only pays enough for two Bexley schools to get free breakfasts.

Councillor Brian Bishop (Conservative, Barnehurst) said that Bexley was one of the best performing Councils for temporary accommodation and ridiculed the Labour MP for shifting his attention from potholes to the closure of Community Centres. “But who was in charge when the keys were handed back at Belvedere? Who ran it into the ground? It was Daniel Francis MP. Desperate Dan the Pothole Man is now picking on Community Centres which are safe in our hands.”

“The Amendment will not make a blind bit of difference to the budget”, in which case one might argue, why not accept it?

Councillor Cameron Smith said the Amendment was “a good piece of fiction” but it was “so confusing”. They ask the Conservatives to welcome more Government money for potholes in Bexley while the Labour MP asked the Prime Minister to withdraw it. They want higher affordable home targets in Bexley while the Labour Government and the London Mayor are busy reducing them. They want less overcrowding while Sadiq Khan cuts the family homes target. They complain about parking charges while Bexley has among the lowest in London. In Greenwich and Lewisham parking costs up to £8 an hour. [The same as in Abbey Road and New Road close to the station. Unlike in Greenwich and Lewisham there is no reduction for clean vehicles.]

“They are as confused as Kier and Rachel and would like to be the party of builders but Sadiq Khan has been responsible for building for ten years and he has been an absolute disaster.” In nine months of last year only 3,248 homes were built in London and the target was 80,000. London is supposed to provide a quarter of the country’s 1·5 million home requirement, He has made it too expensive and too complicated to build in London. The London plan is 500 pages and 123 policies.”

Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) said it was not absolutely true that the Council gave away its housing stock, it actually sold them for £8,000 a piece and the Government of the day spotted the interest earned and took it from the grant. The Council was at its best when it was run by cross-party sub-committees and not via the current Cabinet and Scrutiny system where Councillors are rude to each other and the public is largely ignored. Hence the Amendment below.

Amendment
Councillor Melvin Seymour (Conservative, Crayford) objected to the alleged neglect of the North of the borough, “absolute hogwash”, and pointed to the efforts being made to reach out to ethnic groups on health issues and their attitude to women but the health grant is three times lower than in the City of London.

The Mayor asked the Council Leader if he would like to accept the Amendment and got a resounding “No”. He went on to say the Labour Amendment was “a lengthy piece of rhetoric”, a subject upon which he claimed to be an expert. It had “no substance whatsoever.” Even by Councillor Borella’s dodgy arithmetic Bexley is 34th best in the country for potholes. The Amendment comes from a party whose two MPs backed the cuts for funding of Bexley’s grant. A party embroiled in sleaze and scandal. A party that promised billions for social care with none forthcoming. A party that promised to freeze Council Tax but failed to do so. A party that boasted it would boost growth but which according to the OBR is falling, unemployment is rising and inflation remains above target. A party that betrayed pensioners and businesses with huge tax rises. It is Smoke and Mirrors and it is nonsense and we need to vote the Amendment down.

The vote was as expected with the only Independent present, Nigel Betts (Falconwood & Welling), siding with the Conservatives.

The debate on the Conservative budget will follow.

6 March - Poor Rupert. Who is going to tell him?

Supported by disloyal confidence leakers, a forger, a fraudster and accomplished Judge condemned liar.

Reform UK belatedly discovered the truth; how long will Restore Britain take?

Proper people? Rupert must be a well meaning joke.

5 March - Bexley Labour proposes an alternative budget

Note: The Press Release was updated at 23:00 hours today, around seven hours after the original posting.

I was unable to listen to last night’s budget setting Council meeting and as it went on for three and a half hours there has been no time to listen today either. However the Labour Group has commented via a Press Release (PDF). Their alternative budget was inevitably rejected by the Conservatives.

4 March (Part 2) - Will he or won’t he?

Just over a year ago, Councillor James Hunt was uncermoniously deselected as a Conservative for the May 2026 election. 20 years of loyal service counts for nothing if you get on the wrong side of Bexley’s Tory top brass. Just a few years earlier his collegaues were confident enough in his loyalty to make him Mayor for two years in a row.

Someone had it in for him sufficiently to break the selection rules which enabled an appeal but that was never likely to succeed, and it didn’t.

Since then we have exchanged many a message but I was never very sure if James would stand for election again. Clearly he was sympathetic to Reform UK but he never formed an especially close relationship as far as I could tell.

The whispers were that some in Bexley Reform may have seen him as an unwanted distraction who might steal the limelight. They may have been right, James is not afraid of putting himself forward as a community leader.

He has been pretty senior within the Scout movement and has had connections with both the Air Training Force and Army Cadet Force. Pretty knowledgeable about the NHS and the Artistic community too. He was recently pictured in the News Shopper alongside his senior nurse wife.

As I have said before, James was the first to welcome me into the Bexley fraternity, albeit as a persistent critic in the early days and maybe that illustrates perfectly how he is willing to put the community and democracy above party politics.

James has lived in Blackfen and Lamorbey ward all his life and clearly he thinks he still has something to offer and is taking the democratic approach once again. (See below.) Residents will have three votes. James deserves one of them and maybe that’s better than putting all the eggs in a Reform UK basket. A balance of unreined enthusiasm and a lifetime of experience.

4 March (Part 1) - Totally Bonkers

For further proof that Bexley Council’s Highways Department is either incompetent or malicious (as my son put it after a visit), may I recommend a walk up New Road?

How many variations to parking restrictions are acceptable within a quarter of a mile? Is the intention to confuse or are they the product of the aforesaid incompetence?

In CPZ AW1 the incompetence led to warning signs on some roads but none on others so that drivers may be unaware that they have entered the Zone, and in other places you get CPZ Exit notices where there is no Exit and five hour Parking Permits were sold to residents living in a six hour Zone.

At the bottom of New Road, lorry parking is banned but cars apparently not. I assume that is what the first sign means. Further along you can park opposite a bus stop for nothing or pay £15 for permission to impede 30 odd buses an hour.

Then you can’t unless you are a resident.

After that there are several more resident only bays before anyone can join in for the extortionate fee. But then it gets to be more complicated. You can park for free but only for four hours and then it is no lorries again. Can cars park there all day every day? Will you take the risk?

Then it is a return to anything goes except at lunchtime before things change entirely as you pass the hidden CPZ WH sign.

Especially confusing is that one long bay is subject to both the 11 to 1 and the 8 to 6:30 restriction. I imagine that it was originally two adjacent bays but white lining does not last for ever. And why would one long bay in the middle of a wood have two different rules anyway/ Unless of course Bexley Council truly is Bonkers.

Note: Only one notice has a text number. I wonder it that still works?

1 March (Part 2) - The end of Public Cabinet

After the Council Leader had finished condemning the Attention Seeking Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford for voting in favour of Bexley’s reduced Government Grant…

“What he said in the Chamber of the House of Commons was wrong, what he said about my colleague Councillor Diment was incorrect and because he said it in the House of Commons he thinks he can get away with it but the reality is that when we hold him to account and question and challenge it, he runs scared and complains about the fact we are issuing statements correcting the misinformation that he has given and as I mentioned earluer, the fact that he couldn’t even be bothered to thank our Officers and Operatives for the work they do just says it all, that it was nothing more than an Attention Seeking Stunt Made by a Desperate Member of Parliament craving attention and to camouflage the fact that a couple of weeks ago he voted to cut funding for Bexley.”

“It is disappointing that we cannot rely on the Labour Party in Bexley to champion our cause with the Labour Government.”

…there were exactly 30 minutes of the meeting left to run. It was spent discussing the Bexley Economic Growth Strategy and the Culture Strategy. The former will be formally launched on 23rd March. There were several minutes of waffle about stakeholders from the Council Officer but not a single item which will interest the ordinary resident. Consultation responses included the lowering of Business Rates but Leader David Leaf said that was unfortunately the responsibility of “our tax grabbing, business bashing, job destroying Government but the Strategy sets us up for going against those headwinds and saying Bexley is open for business”.

I’m not sure why it was relevant to the discussion but readers may wish to note that Cabinet Member Melvin Seymour said that “I haven’t got a problem with diversity, it actually makes us stronger and isn’t anything to be afraid of. Some national parties would have you think different but they are a one trick pony with a one man band and they are going to be found out. I know colleagues on both sides of the chamber believe that”.

It was puzzling that this was immediately followed by “we have done a lot to try reach out to our harder to reach cultures but we have to be honest, they do not want to reach out to us for whatever reason and many of those cultures do not value womenhood in the way that they should, so we need to do more. Sometimes I knock on a young woman’s door [campaigning for votes] and she will say to me, come back and ask my husband.”

Labour Leader Stefano Borella said about the two strategies, “there are a lot of things we would agree with” but there may be changes after the May elections. He too wanted to see “more emphasis on celebrating diversity”.

Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) linked culture to parks and asked why the Council had chosen to build over the West Street park and every one of the flats built by BexleyCo are still empty and unsold. “Do you value our Green spaces?”

“Since you outsourced public real rentals to Event Umbrella communities have found it a barrier to booking cultural events and we stand to lose key events because of that bureaucracy. I am sad to see that there is no report [in the Strategy] of Erith Playhouse in my ward which has been going since 1947 and every year has sell out shows.”

Cabinet Members variously said that Councillor Taylor was “in favour of nationalising everything, ideological, dogmatic, controlling, Dickensian, horrible speech”.

Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) said he couldn’t care less if things were “externalised” or not so long “as the quality is there” but {Event Umbrella] is making things difficult. “There are clearly experiences which are not positive. We need to look at that.”
Erith Playhouse

100 pubs and three theatres.

1 March (Part 1) - An Index to Indices

Ever since Bonkers’ infancy there have been requests for search facilities and there are none, but in an effort to be helpful some recurrent subjects have been provided with a quick access Index, a very few of them accessible from the site menu above. For example the never ending Leather Bottle demolition and its subsequent neglect. Index menus and even the Indices themselves have always been somewhat random and dependent on circumstances prevailing at the time of their creation. Some give latest news first and others last and that will be time consuming to rationalise; and which is most logical?

Because of that ‘a mess’ might be a fair description.

Menus have grown in number to 38, many of them created by request for a single researcher and some for my own convenience. Unless you know the URL (link) they cannot be found and if they were all added to the menu it would become unmanageably large and bloat every page with unwanted code.

Hence the new Index to Indices accessible from the ‘Indices>Blog collections’ menu above. Just click on ‘Blog collections’. The submenu remains unchanged and becomes a duplication but I imagine that will be reduced in size pretty soon.

I am hoping that no one objects to the change. There is no new content but some becomes more easily accessible. A few years ago a Conservative, Independent, Reform UK, Independent, Restore Britain Councillor reported me to the police for creating an Index pointing to misdemeanours relating to forgery, fraudulent behaviour, theft and a Judge's verdict on them, thinking that I had made a special case for one bad apple but it was just standard Bonkers’ practice. Nevertheless the police charged me for the perfectly legal ‘crime’ of reporting Court proceedings without comment. Fortunately the CPS thought they were nuts.

As already indicated, some of the newly revealed Indices require serious overhaul. Those created following an individual request often include every reference to a single keyword and could do with a good weeding out for general consumption. Maybe time will be found for that and maybe it won’t. Meanwhile a whole area of forgotten Bonkers has been opened up to curious historians.

News and Comment March 2026

Index: 2009 – 2010 – 2011 – 2012 – 2013 – 2014 – 2015 – 2016 – 2017 – 2018 – 2019 – 2020 – 2021 – 2022 – 2023 – 2024 – 2025 – 2026

News and Comment March 2026

Index: 2009 – 2010 – 2011 – 2012 – 2013 – 2014 – 2015 – 2016 – 2017 – 2018 – 2019 – 2020 – 2021 – 2022 – 2023 – 2024 – 2025 – 2026