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News and Comment July 2018

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31 July - Parking in Abbey Wood

Parking ParkingParking in Abbey Wood is not easy; two public car parks closed and the Elizabeth line opens in only four months time. There is a CPZ (permits £100 a year) that extends in all directions for about five minutes walk from the station on the Bexley side of the borough boundary and I live a further minute away.

As a result I am frequently blocked in by bad parking and I am far from being alone. Occasionally the whole road is inaccessible by large vehicles. Similar problems may be found on both sides of the borough boundary; something will have to be done about it.

Bexley Council has said nothing publicly about it except for hinting two years ago that they were inclined to play a wait and see game. I am informed that Greenwich Council might take more immediate action. More residents will then have to pay their current fee of £57 a year.

Obviously some won’t like that and the situation probably warrants some sort of opinion survey.

Locally there is a Facebook Group called What’s New in SE2 and while it frequently provides useful information I will never forgive Eoin Golden, the Administrator, for the time my post in support of a Wilton Road business was deleted. He had allowed a critical discussion thread to degenerate on the basis of no evidence at all and I put awkward facts in the way. The power to do as one pleases is always likely to be abused. I see that in his Smart Alec responses to anyone who dares to be a critic.

One of the regular posters on Eoin’s Facebook Group is a lady called Paula Vasile. She is in the nicest sense a busy body always coming up with bright ideas aimed at, to her mind at least, improving the area.

Unfortunately - and inevitably - she comes in for a great deal of criticism because there is no evidence she is a local resident but instead runs a business in Westminster. Her motives must be questioned, someone who is not really what she superficially claims to be will always create suspicions. I have some too but that is not to say I believe her to be fundamentally evil.

Paula recently, and not for the first time, set up a Survey Monkey questionnaire entitled Parking in Abbey Wood. Somebody needed to do it and not unreasonably she wanted people to know about it. Paula gave it a plug on What’s New in SE2 where she has created a few enemies over the past year, among them the Administrator and his like minded Assistant, Rebecca Erol. It was not a good idea to have once put both of them on her Block List.

Paula Vasile has blocked me too, once because I refused to give her the minutes of the Wilton Road Traders’ Association in which I play a minor role. I think I am blocked again now. I cannot see any of her posts so I assume so.

Eoin and Rebecca struck back, they removed all reference to Paula’s Survey Monkey consultations and introduced another of their petty rules (†) banning everyone from referring to Survey Monkey.

Their reasons were both ludicrous and childlike. They said that to link to Survey Monkey risked personal details being collected. Well yes, that’s true but before anyone can complete a survey they have to agree to Survey Monkey’s conditions. (††) It is all perfectly legal and GDPR compliant. Bexley Council uses the survey site regularly and has no concerns, Why is it not secure enough for What’s New in SE2? It is simply pathetic and gives the perfect indication of why Facebook Groups like Eoin’s can be dangerous subversions of democracy.

Paula says she will set up a Residents’ Association with its own Facebook Group and all power to her elbow. Unfortunately her propensity for blocking users left, right and centre for no obvious reason and failure to come clean on why a Westminster business woman is interested in Abbey Wood does not augur well at all.

† Like restricting references to local events to just one, thereby potentially harming the community. The forthcoming Wilton Road Craft Market being a case in point.
†† If you have not previously agreed to the conditions.

 

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