7 October (Part 2) - The decline and fall of Belvedere
It’s usually nice to receive emails but not always so nice having to answer them.
Some don’t get answered at all especially those about national politics which
might lead to a protracted correspondence.
Those on local issues are always answered eventually, at least I hope they are.
There have been quite a few
emails over the years asking for an opinion on whether
Abbey Wood and Belvedere is a nice place to live and I try to paint an
optimistic picture. Despite what you sometimes hear I have witnessed very little
street
violence in my 34 years at this address. Three times I think.
Never once has my carefully written reply been acknowledged so I may not attempt
to be an estate agent in future.
A few days ago I received a similar sort of email but from the opposing
viewpoint. From someone who used to live here but doesn’t any more.
This is an extract of what was said edited to remove some personal stuff and
rejigged a little to make it read fluently after chopping bits out.
I was brought up in Greenwich and moved the family to Belvedere fifty years ago.
I felt like we were living in the country. Surrounded by woods, Ye Olde Leather
Bottle a short walk away, a Co-op shop, a library for the children’s studies and
the brilliant Davis Electrical on our doorstep. There was a good primary school
and a church in St. Augustine’s Road with a lovely vicar. Our MP was James Wellbeloved who would
never treat you as yours has done you and a local Councillor called Joe Delaney.
In 1983 we moved away.
Last Saturday I passed back through. My wife and I parked on the old football
pitch, I mean the B&Q car park, and explored a little. The pub opposite the
station had gone and wandering a little further found that we could no longer
get a drink at the Leather Bottle.
The bigger shops have gone and remaining doorways are filled with apparently homeless men drinking beer from cans.
The streets are neglected and full of rubbish and fences strain under the
pressure of weeds. The roads were in poor condition. We left feeling so very
sad about what Belvedere has become.
Maybe it is what comes from having an MP who cares more for black issues than her constituency.
I wonder when it all changed. Has it been gradual? Who can change it and how?
Sorry if I have gone on about it but it has been on my mind ever since I went back there.
Well
there’s a question and I have thought about it quite a lot including the middle of the night.
Lucky that the returnee appeared not to know about the murder that took place
a week before he looked by.
My first thought was that there was nothing much wrong with the place until the
new millennium. The rot had set in by 2008 but such a comment will land me in
political trouble. Was it the fault of Bexley’s Labour administration of
2002-2006? But that would pre-suppose that the decline was confined to Bexley and
I doubt very much it has been. The Tory takeover in 2006 can be similarly dismissed
although their obvious neglect of that particular area would not have helped.
Maybe it is the fault of the succession of London Mayors which began in 2000? Two of
them have failed Bexley totally and the third did nothing for it other than cancel its Thames Crossing.
Was there a connection with the decision to flood the country with cheap foreign
labour without providing them with housing, medical facilities, pretty much
everything such a scheme demands? Is it even right to pin-point the years to 2008 at all?
One could probably argue that the decline has been going on for much longer, the
Thatcher era perhaps, or alternatively only much more recently when Bexley
Council realised it was running out of money. Answers on a postcard please.