Residents’ Parking Permits - a warning
In the past three months three people have told me that Bexley council no
longer sends out renewal reminders for their £100/£120 residents’ parking permits. Two
of them were fined as a result. Saving the cost of a stamp and issuing one or more £65
fines is obviously good business. The managers who decided that this change was a good
one can only be described as “scum of the earth”. Be warned!
Water bills
Two people tipped me off about a BBC news item also
reported by the News Shopper but I cannot find any direct Bexley council
connection. However it may be worth mentioning that Thames Water is planning
for Bexley residents to be guinea pigs in a roll out of Smart Meters.
Thames Water, like all the utilities, are basically con-men
and they would have you believe that metered water can be a lot cheaper, especially for
people like me who live alone in a Band E house. When everyone is on a meter paying
potentially lower bills do you think that Thames Water will be happy with the
reduced revenues? No of course not, they will just whack up the per litre
charges to compensate.
These smart meters are going to be wi-fi equipped. What good
that is to people like me who don’t have a smart phone and network
cabled the house ten years ago, so have no need of wi-fi, I
don’t know. Unlike most people my mains water stop-cock
is not out in the street, it's about 25 feet inside my boundary in my front
garden. Don’t be surprised if a large lead bottomed flower tub is placed on top of it.
Protests scheduled
I was hoping the Howbury Friends might be out in force at tomorrow evening’s
council meeting with banners and the like. For all I know they may be but the
Historical Societies will likely outnumber them. They are not taking cabinet
member Don
Massey’s proposal to shift our history out to Bromley lying down and quite right too.
My suspicion is that this idiotic piece of penny pinching is a sacrificial lamb,
just like councillor Craske’s Lollypop ladies were three years ago. They dropped
the plan and claimed it justified the fatuous ‘Listening To You’ slogan.