1 December - What did he Leaf out?
@bexleynews
has a new pinned Tweet in which they accuse the Labour Group of scaremongering about the Council’s
dire financial situation. Surely dire is not too strong a word for a Council
that has taken a begging bowl to the Government?
Cabinet Member David Leaf wrote about it on
Conservative Home
and it makes for an interesting read. He not only blames local Labour
Councillors for being critical but also their supporters.
I suppose that
must be The Guardian Newspaper.
I have no recollection of Labour previously saying that the Council will go
bankrupt or Council Tax will rise by 40%. I am tempted to say that that is
totally untrue. I think local Labour know that tax increases are capped.
Many of the services are better than seen elsewhere
as the Councillor claims but some are not. Parks are
not patrolled at night and no one looks at the live CCTV.
He trots out the usual top borough for recycling for 15 years which I will forgive him because Bexley hasn’t
dropped off its pedestal by much during that period. It was eighth for dry
recyclables in 2010 and only second for compost and for a while Bexley was stuck at 48·5%
overall and Bromley was on 49·76%.
The replacement Thamesmead library that began construction a year or two ago is
mentioned but not the string of cuts to library services elsewhere.
David Leaf says that Labour Councillors are frightening the life out of Council
staff by saying that job losses are in prospect. He says they are “salivating”
at job losses and it is “sickening”. He does not mention that 304 jobs will be
cut. It was not Labour that said that but
Leaf’s very own Director of Finance, Paul Thorogood.
His exact words were “304 is approximately 20% of the Council’s current 1,560 workforce.”
When he says that Covid has caused income to “vanish” he is right. I pass
a big Council Car Park most days and it is near empty but
the Auditor said that Bexley
Council was in financial trouble last March.
To drum up support for increasing fees he tugs at the heartstrings with the need to pay Lollypop Ladies - and Men.
Councillor Leaf says that Covid has hit the Council hard but omits to say it
hit
them for £3·517 million and the begging bowl is four times that figure.
I have no doubt that Councillor Leaf and his Conservative colleagues will work
their socks off to come up with a balanced budget but without even hinting that
residents will feel the pain is the sort of deception that we have come to expect from Bexley Conservatives.
Finally he lists some Labour Councils who are in trouble along with TfL.
Probably they have been badly run but he doesn’t mention that
Conservative
Peterborough is in a bad way too as of course is Bexley. Who steered it to that position?