30 June - Two birds, one stone! (Country Style and parking)

Two weeks ago (Friday 16th) my green bin was emptied at 06:45 which is pretty much the norm for this neck of the woods, but not today. A little after nine o’clock I went on my usual bad parking patrol and the reason for no bin collection was easy to see. Three clowns (YX61 SXS, SK58 NTU and the vehicle in the left corner of Photo 1) assisted by the selfish Toyota driver had blocked the road with a chicane which was too severe for anything bigger than a medium sized van to negotiate. The Country Style driver had not unreasonably given up again and a couple of hundred residents did not get a bin collection.

Well not quite true; Country Style had to waste time and money by getting a smaller truck (Photo 4 at 12:45 p.m.) because few people are willing to pay £15 to park when free alternatives are available.

Both the offending vehicles seen in Photo 2 had a warning card placed under their windscreen wiper but no PCN unfortunately.

This particular problem should disappear if Wednesday’s proposals are enacted.

Yesterday I wrote to traffic@bexleycouncil as requested in their street notice to support yellow lines around corners as recommended in the Highway Code but ignored by Bexley Council for 36 years.

When I filed my email comments I discovered that I last wrote to ‘traffic@’ exactly 19 years ago. They were unable to dispute the facts presented and maybe my opinion that Bexley Council is fundamentally dishonest was formed at least five years before the Highways Manager blatantly lied to me in 2009.

I remains optimistic that the new Cabinet Member will take an entirely different approach as was apparent at Tuesday’s Places meeting.

 

 

29 June - A breath of fresh air?

At the Places Scrutiny meeting held at the end of April we learned that Cabinet Member Craske had authorised the imposition of yet more taxes on Bexley’s residents, this time in the shape of restrictions on the number of permitted visits to recycling centres and the imposition of charges on the deposit of DIY building materials from 1st July.

Conservative Councillors Bacon, Brooks, Smith and Slaughter challenged him, the first challenge of a Cabinet decision for very many years. (Labour Councillors are not allowed to challenge decisions. Imagine that. The official opposition is not allowed to seriously oppose.)

Since then Councillor Craske has gone: could there be a link? and Bexley Council is in serious danger of an outbreak of democracy and honesty - which leaves BiB in a bit of a hole, but never mind, that has to be a good thing.

The limit on the permitted number of visits has gone.

On Tuesday Cabinet Member Richard Diment responded to the Call In (the complaints) by saying that the Government has in mind not allowing local authorities to charge for the disposal of domestic building waste. Should he begin charging on schedule and cancel later or should he give up on the idea? The cash grab would be worth around £100,000 a year and reduce the general level of taxation on residents. Maybe I should rephrase that. The tax on DIYers might save one tenth of a percentage point on the Council Tax rate, except that this high taxing Conservative Council (highest in Tory London) will increase it by the maximum permissible amount anyway.

The decision on whether to cancel the charge or not is to be taken imminently, presumably by Saturday.

Councillor June Slaughter asked how staff will check for residency as delays will make the queues even longer. Queues “back up on to Maidstone Road by quite some distance”. According to Councillor Cameron Smith, Thames Road can be a big problem too and may merit a booking system.

“How will the contents of bags be checked?” The Government makes “nonsense decisions” - and so say all of us!

The Council Officer said that everything is down to the new Cabinet Member because Craske’s decision is invalid by virtue of being called in. Oh, the well deserved ignominy! Residency would be checked electronically and take ten to fifteen seconds. The old permit system will no longer be allowed because of the abuse it suffered.

The Cabinet Member said his priority is to minimise delays and if the queue extended on to the road “traffic would just be waved in”. A booking system would require capital expenditure and the experience of other Councils is that it is not efficient. “We want to be No. 1 recycler again”.

Note: In order to schedule available time efficiently and provide for the technical requirement to always have a blog on the first of the month, other subjects discussed at the Places Scrutiny meeting are already on line.

 

28 June - A tiny step in the right direction

The residents of Carrill Way who had kicked up a stink about their road being regularly blocked by Liz line commuters were sent emails this week about what Bexley Council planned to do about it.

Viewed as a first step towards getting traffic to flow freely it is a totally acceptable move forwards but as a solution to the overall parking problems it is not any use at all.

The proposal is for double yellow lines on every corner as advocated by me and others over many years. Someone at Bexley Council has at long last read the Highway Code.

To be fair Bexley Council acknowledges that they are not at this stage attempting to solve the parking problem…

“Please note that these proposals are to prevent inconsiderate parking close to the junctions and are not to address all-day commuter parking.

These are to address where drivers can park at present rather than who can park. This is in regard to the road safety and access issues only.”

As such I shall write in support of the proposals but at the same time hope that we do not have to wait another 20 years for the next consultation. Todayְ’s proposals have much in common with those proposed for the Abbey Wood Controlled Parking Zone; they merely displace the parking issues elsewhere.

The problem with the yellow lines on corners (more are planned for nearby Abbotswood Close) is that they will displace the idiots who park on corners to already congested kerbsides. It is currently the case that if a large vehicle, a Transit style van for example, parks outside my house in a manner that Bexley Council deems to be legal, and a small car parks in a particular place nearby, then cars belonging to residents at 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 Coptefield Drive become trapped in their drives and dedicated parking spaces. It’s a fairly rare event but the absence of road makings should not allow the situation to arise, but things have been that way for nearly 40 years.

Similarly a large van frequently parks where you see the little red car (Photo 2) and it makes access to the driveway opposite near impossible. Another place where double yellows are needed.

On Monday I conducted a census in the Gayton Road and Felixstowe Road car parks, The former was close to being full with 87 paying customers (one with a PCN attached) and Felixstowe Road (Photo 4 above) was occupied by 43. Much more than I had seen before but not even half full. £15 a day is a hell of a lot of money and I for one would not be willing to pay it.

 

26 June - It’s naive to expect a straight answer

I suppose I should not be surprised to hear from people who write to Bexley Council and then express surprise when the reply appears to be less than honest. It happened to me 14 years ago when the Highways Manager sent me a blatantly dishonest response to an enquiry and I naively thought it might be a one off and worth posting to the web. A flood of similar stories convinced me that lying was the Bexley Council norm and BiB was born.

Things may have improved since but yet another such story dents my confidence somewhat. It concerns a resident who perused the Councillors’ Registers of Interests and was puzzled by some of them. He should count himself lucky. When I used to do such things the Register could only be inspected in person under official surveillance with copying verboten.

As far as the newcomer could see, a small number of Councillors did not appear to have employment within the borough or live in it as either a property owner or tenant.

“Any beneficial interest in land which is within the area of the London Borough of Bexley. None.”

Some years ago when I took a keener interest in Council skullduggery I managed to extract the following statement from the Chief Executive. It is reasonably clear and concise. Candidates at Council elections must have been around for a year beforehand and have a property interest either as tenant or owner. ‘None’ is not an option.

In addition to raising the residency issues this nosy resident claimed that some Councillors’ Registers were inaccurate and the Monitoring Officer conceded that they were while at the same time refusing to accept a complaint under the Code of Conduct procedures.

Over the course of several emails the Monitoring Officer eventually said that being unable or unwilling to disclose any interest in land in Bexley is not an impediment to being selected for election as a Councillor; which does not appear to align with what the Chief Executive said.

I can only see one reason for the excuses offered and that is that the Councillors concerned are living at home with Mum and Dad. I think that has happened in years gone by.

 

24 June (Part 2) - Treacherous weasel

There is a lot of interesting descriptions of Mayor Khan to choose from but my favourite from the past 24 hours comes from writer and historian Simon Webb. “Treacherous Weasel.”

From him I learned that the runt Sadiq is one of eight siblings, God help us, but apart from that Mr. Webb was preaching to the converted.

Khan is featured here today because he has taken to abusing my personal data.

In 2020 I registered my car for the Congestion Charge exemption and apart from demanding an annual £10 for the privilege TfL also demanded my email address. I introduced tfl@mydomain and since then the address has received two emails each year, one the reminder and another the payment confirmation.

But suddenly that has all changed. Khan has taken to spamming me with political claptrap. Is that not breaking data protection regulations? I never signed up for that.

I was particularly annoyed with yesterday’s message.

Diversity is not London’s enduring strength and neither was 23rd June 2016 heartbreaking for me and “caused huge damage” is highly debatable. Have we properly left the old dictatorship yet?

A man who prefers the EU flag to our own is by definition a traitor and if he represents progressive ideas then perhaps I can do without them.

My tfl@mydomain address is now cancelled and he can carry on breaking the law with political messages sent at taxpayer’s expense to addresses which he has no authority to use to his evil heart’s content.

I have never driven my car into the Congestion Zone anyway and the concession ends in 2025.

Get lost Khan and leave your legacy of high taxation and stabbings for someone else to sort out.

 

24 June (Part 1) - A shortage of mugs

A source inside Bexley Council has indicated that it is pleased with the performance of the newly opened Felixstowe Road car park and that £15 a day has not proved to be too great a disincentive to getting commuters away from residential streets. The actual words are carefully chosen but display an element of optimism which I find difficult to accept.

Whilst I can understand cash strapped Councils maximising their stealth taxes especially when I am not personally affected, high charges and the risk of fines must be a disincentive to any activity. 103 orders (some multiple items) from Amazon so far this year and two Blu-rays from HMV Bexleyheath. Bexley Council sure knows how to kill local businesses.

But back to Felixstowe Road.

Yesterday at 13:15 it held 24 paying vehicles much the same as on 8th June and the previous two days. Maybe only 23, the silver/blue vehicle in the middle has a PCN on its windscreen.

By contrast every free Disabled Bay is occupied which must surely prove that price is a factor.

Complicating the issue is the Gayton Road car park to the South of the railway line. It isn’t closer to the Elizabeth line platforms and unlike Felixstowe Road involves two flights of stairs to get there. Why is it so much more popular? Often close to being full. I doubt that short term shopping trips is much of a factor and I can only think that it is partly ‘old habits’ and that the number of mugs willing to pay £15 a day is finite.

With car commuters almost exclusively coming from the South, Gayton Road is much more accessible. (†) Felixtsowe Road involves queuing at two pedestrian crossings and queueing again to turn right into Overton Road, right again into the narrow and bendy Sedgemore Road and eventually to Felixstowe Road. It will add a minimum of five minutes to every journey.

† Out of town readers should perhaps be reminded that the River Thames lies only a mile to the North and the area is served by five very frequent bus routes. None serve large swathes of the borough to the South.

 

23 June (Part 2) - Secret Bexley

As expected my anonymous informer on the subject of Planning Applications 23/01410/FUL and 23/01420/FUL quickly got back to me. He said the numbers were cut and pasted from the Planning Portal and the links were still showing in his browser history but now route to a Council page which says “Planning Application details not available. This application is no longer available for viewing. It may have been removed or restricted from public viewing.”

As the man says - I assume a man but it might not be - just how much does Bexley Council need to cover up?

One thing I know they are covering up is how their parking department operates. When a Freedom of Information Request asked why they had decided to no longer allow bad parking reports to me made by telephone during office hours, they point blank refused to say.

 

23 June (Part 1) - A Gym for Erith?

The triangular plot of land behind the Erith Playhouse is owned by one of Mr. K. Singh’s companies and he was given permission to build on it nearly two years ago but he is back with a revised planning application. 23/01355/FULM. Nothing too dramatic but his new idea applies to the commercial unit that lies below the 13 flats. Change its use from Class B1(a) to Class E(d). I think that is offices to indoor sports and fitness.

An anonymous correspondent suggested that I might find 23/01410/FUL and 23/01420/FUL interesting but those numbers appear to be invalid and I do not see anything recent for the provided address. If he is reading this he probably knows what to do.

 

22 June - Overnight failure and overnight success

Today’s blog was going to be about planning applications but Bexley’s planning application web pages failed overnight and they are still down. So tomorrow maybe.

Something that didn't fail overnight was the Council’s yellow line painting machinery. I’m not usually an advocate of more yellow lines but for painting them around corners to emphasise the recommendations of the Highway Code I will make an exception.

Someone earned overtime by filling in the Toyota gap. There are eight such corners within 30 seconds of home and Bexley Council only cares about two of them and is content to encourage hazards on the other six.

The Toyota driver thought he would exploit Bexley Council’s failure again.

 

21 June - Doom and despondency

I didn’t get any outright contradictions to yesterday’s rant which must surely paint a pretty bleak picture for everyone with conservative inclinations. Maybe views are similar everywhere. Sir Keir Starmer gets no support at all but some (correction, one) sees Penny Mordaunt as a potential Tory Saviour. A good Parliamentary performer and sword bearer perhaps but a half decent LibDem at best.

A few words from the post bag…

Empty platitudes.
Sticking plaster policies replaced by no policy at all.
PR blather.
Codswallop.
Like Groucho Marx. If you don’t like my policies I have others.
To let Brexit off the hook is stretching it.

On the Toyota front nothing has changed. I went out to see if I could grab a picture of the arrival but an Audi squeezed into the gap instead. The driver asked why I was interested but the ensuing traffic problems made the point for me and he was happy to move to a more sensible position in Sampson Close. He said there was no way he was going to pay Bexley Council £15 a day to use their car park.

While I had been en-route a couple of minutes earlier, a lady stopped her car in order to take photos of the Mercedes parked dangerously on the corner of Sampson Close. Particularly stupid as there was a place available the other side of the dropped kerb. (The aforesaid Audi had filled it a few seconds before I took my own photo.) The windscreen note was probably not her handiwork as it appeared after she had driven off.

Nearly an hour behind the usual schedule the Toyota showed up to exploit Bexley Council’s failure. While I was photographing it the nearest resident took an interest in my activities. One of the few locals with whom I was not familiar which was strange because like me he had lived here since the houses were new.

He had reported the Toyota to Bexley Council several times but got the usual reaction, that is he has been ignored.

I suggested to him - and the lady photographer earlier - that they email Councillor Richard Diment, the newly appointed Cabinet Member for Roads and Rubbish. Will he be another Craske? No, surely not.

 

20 June - Only the messenger

When BiB was supported by six regular Council agitators and a rather larger number of occasional informants the blog was their publicity channel. It’s a formula that has had its day now that there are no regular supporters (well past 80, moved away or died) and very few casuals. BiB is a shadow of its former self reporting only what drops into its lap.

But it is still occasionally criticised which is fair enough because blogs can be deliberately provocative. This one for example.

The ULEZ saga submitted by @tonyofsidcup was a recent case in point, criticised mainly for its failure to recognise that Mayor Khan is an undemocratic cash grabbing liar who abuses or ignores statistics and public opinion.

More recently the Bexley Labour Party’s Press Release came in for some stick for allegedly being a National production regurgitated for Local use accompanied by the barbed comment that there was no one in the local party capable of putting such a document together from scratch. More to the point it was criticised for offering no solutions to the “Conservatives crashed the economy”.

Councillor Zainab Asunramu is right. The economy has pretty much stalled, the cost of living crisis is deepening, NHS waiting lists are out of control and nothing works any more. Can’t really argue about that but what is he going to do about it? Vote Labour is his only answer as if that is the solution to all our ills.

Can anyone point to a Labour policy that would steer the country in the right direction? Even the trade unions think Starmer is wrong on the economy and on top of that we have his nauseating opinions on various woke issues. I have a friend who identifies as a raspberry trifle when asked for personal details by the NHS and authority in general but it is his idea of a joke. Lefties go along with children identifying as cats or the moon and woe betide any teacher that misgenders them. Whatever gets into their stupid heads?

The Conservative Government has proved itself to be incompetent, corrupt and dishonest and, with the aid of the Bank of England, they’ve caused the hardships which far too many people now suffer. How come that I, and probably most people, could see that years of unjustifiable low interest rates compounded by quantitative easing would cause rampant inflation and successive chancellors couldn’t? Some, notably the former Governor of the Bank of England who was asleep at the wheel, now blame it on Brexit as if we are gullible fools.

Neither do they give up on hitting everyone where it hurts. Frozen thresholds such that anyone with a decent job pays 40% tax. Taxing energy which affects the price of everything. Net Stupid to drive petrol cars off the roads and economical central heating systems out of our homes. Even at the piffling end off their economic incompetency, proposing to ban BOGOF deals, adding a levy to food containers and a further recycling tax on all food packaging. The Conservatives are on a mission to destroy us and must be certifiably insane.

I have come to the conclusion as someone who has voted Conservative at every General Election (and most others) since 1964 that the party should be utterly destroyed as soon as possible in the hope that a genuine conservative party will arise from the ashes. With Sunak, Dowden, Hunt, Shapps, Cleverly and Mordaunt at the helm there is no longer any hope, they simply plough on regardless.

Mortgage rates are a ticking time bomb.

Who could be worse?

Well, Starmer, Rayner, Reeves, Dodds, Cooper, Thornberry and Lammy just for starters. We are well and truly into deep doo-dah!

At my advanced age I am unlikely to see a prosperous country and freedom loving government ever again so maybe it is time for a leap into the dark by kicking the present bunch of hypocrites and crooks out of office ASAP.

Labour will no doubt wreck the economy again and worse, knowingly change the country permanently.

For the record the selfish cretin was back this morning.

 

19 June - The driver of Toyota GV58 CFM is a selfish cretin

When Bexley Council resurfaced Carrill Way three weeks ago their quantity surveyor got it wrong and they ran out of asphalt three hours after the job was due to be completed.

Bexley’s contractor returned three days later to patch in the gap and leave it looking less than pretty.

The yellow lines were missing and a van driver with no knowledge of the Highway Code took advantage of the omission until a week ago when I happened to be passing by as the yellow line man showed up. I grabbed a quick and badly framed phone photo.

The man did the best job he could and I heard him call for a lift vehicle to come to his aid but it never did.

The van driver to his credit was never seen again but every day since a cretin in a Toyota has taken his place. Photos were taken on consecutive days and three are shown below. When I drove home from Sainsbury’s early this morning I had to hold up the traffic on Abbey Road while waiting for an opportunity to turn into Carrill Way.

Unless Bexley Council gets its arse into gear there will never be a time for filling in the gap in the lines. I think I am in favour of lift and crush - especially as it is a Toyota.

If Bexley Council wishes to get in first they should note that the cretin arrives between 7 and 7:30.

 

17 June - Nothing to Singh about

Unless your name is Nicola Taylor you have probably forgotten all about 176 and 178 Slade Green Road. I had until it popped up on Bexley’s planning site. 23/01307/FULM.

The address first came to notice when it showed up on Bexley’s Asset Register early in 2019 and BiB speculated that it and the Community Centre next door were being brought together on the quiet for a secretive sale.

For nine months Bexley Council left their two houses derelict as was no doubt their intention until it caught fire. It probably didn’t matter much to them as their preference is for property speculation rather than be a saviour of the homeless.

At some time in the intervening four years Bexley Council must have sold the properties exactly as forecast. Probably not to their favourite developer because the applicant is Uplift Development Limited which is a new name to me.

That is not very surprising because Companies House shows a Uplift Developments Limited was only formed a month ago and what is a single s between friends? Adding to the assumption that the two names are one and the same is the registered address. 13 Montpelier Avenue, Bexley, DA5 3AP. A predecessor company of the same name was dissolved in 2020. Owned by two more but different Singhs!

The company has but one employee, Jasdeep Singh Mann and his proposal is for 44 homes over four storeys if you read the summary statement or five if you read the actual application. The redevelopment will encompass both the adjacent community centre and the derelict house. That makes 44 more families with 36 car parking spaces to fulfill Bexley Council’s dream of a grid-locked concrete jungle and the loss of the community centre pretty much says it all.

 

16 June - When did it all go wrong?

We have come a long way since I saved £5 a month in The Lambeth Building Society for a couple of years before they agreed to lend £3,100 to spend on my first house. £3,400. What the hell has gone wrong since then or even since the 1990s?

My daughter bought her council flat for next to nothing thanks to Mrs. Thatcher and has never moved house since. In the mid-1990s I gave my son £10,000 to enable him to buy a house in the level above what he could afford. Imagine that! Ten grand could elevate a house purchase into a much better quality abode and it has kept him ahead of the game ever since.

I have no idea how people manage now but I do have an inkling of the discontent felt by younger people. The housing situation is a disgrace to every politician who has had a hand in it. (Pretty much all of them.) Ditto the economic situation. One can only blame politicians and perhaps the Bank of England too. Jeremy Hunt is a thoroughly incompetent and callous Chancellor but would Rachel Reeves be an improvement? It is hard to imagine anyone worse than Hunt.

Bexley Labour is claiming that the interest rate rises will cost local residents seventeen million pounds in additional mortgage costs now and more later.

Click image to read Labour Press Release. (PDF)

As a lapsed Tory I do not see how we can get out of the mess but there will be big trouble eventually if we don’t. Politicians are more interested in birthday cake than you.

 

12 June - Dangerous developments

You go away for the weekend and miss all the fun, weather included. It is fairly consistent when I journey westward that for better or worse the weather conditions reverse at the Membury Services. This time the sunshine disappeared and was not seen again until the return leg. With no wi-fi (it usually works down there but not this time) I was almost cut off from news which included the rejections from Boris Johnson's dubious Resignation Honours List (PDF file) and had to trawl down to the humble OBEs this morning before finding a name I was both familiar with and thought might merit a gong.

Colin Cromarty Bloom, faith adviser to BJ. Presumably he would have faced the same uphill struggle as he did against Teresa Pearce in 2010.

The big man himself resigned on Friday, a figure of fun who consistently lied in all the years I have followed his antics but nevertheless convinced me he would put Britain first and Get Brexit Done etc. He turned out to be a tax raising green socialist failure - as well as a liar. Now he has set out to destroy Rishi Sunak so my loyalties are torn yet again.

A week ago a friend said he had come around to my point of view on the future of British politics. “What is that?” I asked. “It will never happen but the only way to secure real change is a bloody revolution.”

I donְ’t remember saying that but I wouldn’t totally disown it. In fact I heard the same from a usually laid back family member on Saturday and when speaking to two farmers the following day.

The political classes have no idea what the general population may be thinking and that is dangerous.

Even way down west of here ULEZ was another conversation piece, maybe because a loon runs Bristol as well as London. I said, not for the first time, that the haulage companies could and should bring Khan and London to its knees by refusing to service it.

I was told by someone well connected in transport circles that that was the likely scenario in 2024 if Khan doesn’t come to his senses over something that has not yet captured the attention of the MSM. ’Nuff said!

Back home I found that Country Slop has emptied the contaminated bin neglected since April and left it unlocked so that the cycle can start again. Strictly speaking it is already contaminated because Country Slop didn't empty it properly.

On the parking front it is back to normal. Van drivers return from their overnight work and have nowhere to park because of commuter parking.

I had no intention of reporting the white van driver under my ‘commuters only’ rule but the driver told me he would only be there ten minutes until a parking space became available. I showed him where there was a space but maybe the language differences got in the way and he was given a ticket more than two hours later.

The car in Photo 4 was reported by the resident who was blocked in. The vans were not blocking the roads but the cars were. Guess which interests Bexley Council. I think their inability to do the right thing for residents indicates yet again that they probably hate us.

 

8 June - Same old same old

With so many Bexley Council cock-ups on just one road one must wonder just how many there are across the borough as a whole.

It would appear that a half empty Felixstowe Road car park is not a flash in the pan as today’s lunchtime picture shows. Another thing that is no flash in the pan is Country Slop’s unfailing ability to mess up bin collections.

The big paper bin parked near to me was labelled ‘contaminated’ back in April - not for the first time - and things have only got worse since; and all because the contractors have tolerated it having no lockable lid for more than two years. How useless can they get?

They couldn’t even be bothered to wheel the plastics bin back into position.

On 6th May Country Slop dumped six bins outside my house and it was left to me to correctly redistribute them. As Photo 3 shows, they have at some time done it again and the young family with two children have lost their distinctive large green bin and have a tiny one instead. (See door number and bin number.) I have been unable to find No. 4’s bin anywhere in the cul-de-sac.

Their white lidded bin was missed last Friday and it is still out on the footpath.

At the time of writing there are only two illegally parked cars in the road outside which as yet have not been given PCNs. Neither are blocking the road although one is completely blocking the footpath. It belongs to a neighbour but I only report commuters.

P.S. The commuter car was given a PCN.

 

7 June (Part 2) - Killing the Golden Goose…

… with a £15 a day parking charge.

£250,000 (†) Felixstowe Road Car park: Photo 1 around 1 p.m. yesterday, Photo 2, today at 2 p.m.

It is fairly obvious that there are several regular parkers with more money than sense who are beginning to assume they have an allocated space.

Meanwhile half a mile away those with no sense at all continue to block Coptefield Drive. Not totally today, most vehicles were able to squeeze through the gap.

It was OK when KE17 NKA was parked end on to the kerb but then the moron in GD15 KCX thought he would do the same when there were two free spaces another 20 metres along. No brains and no legs

Later on the broken down silver Mercedes disappeared to be quickly replaced by a smaller and legally parked red Citroen and the road became easily passable for the first working day since 26th May.

Fortunately the idiot driver of MK60 TZB (final Photo) was absent today, maybe the Police gave him an obstruction penalty for forcing people exiting Carrill Way to do so on the wrong side of the road. I was twice caught in embarrassing situations there when Abbey Road traffic needed to turn off and found me necessarily blocking their way.

£250,000 is the Council’s claim. Like most of what Bexley Council says, it isn’t true.

 

7 June (Part 1) - Google block

I first noticed it about a month ago when Gmail began to reject a few of my emails but the proportion has now increased to 100%. Today three correspondents may be wondering why I did not reply to which I am tempted to respond with “get yourself a decent email provider”.

I have no problem with any other mail system and I do not propose to investigate why Gmail has failed.

 

6 June - Bob needs a friend

There is one big difference between Bob Stewart MP (Conservative, Beckenham) suggesting that Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei should go back to Bahrein if he doesn’t like it here and John Davey (Conservative, West Heath) suggesting that Nazainin Zaghari-Ratcliffe might be better off back in Iran than becoming an activist for the Labour Party. It is that we will eventually discover all the circumstances of Mr.  Stewart’s outburst because he is to appear in Court because of it.

In Bexley the Monitoring Officer has refused to say anything at all about the Davey case when asked under FOI how the decision to absolve Councillor from the consequences of his unfortunate Tweet was reached.

It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. If you are running a dishonest Council given to occasional bouts of corruption and criminality a pliable Monitoring Officer would be a huge advantage.

In recent years Bexley Council has employed one who was not registered with either the Law Society or The Bar Council as required by the job description, one who over time sparked several anonymous messages to BiB alleging misdemeanours of a sexual nature, another who had been admonished in Court for “reprehensible behaviour” based on favours to friends and cost the Council employer a five figure sum in costs with compensation on top.

Then there was a Monitoring Officer who came and went very quickly and one must wonder why and now Bexley has by far the highest number of Councillors living in fear of their lives protected by a sympathetic M.O.

 

5 June - Idiocy and thoughtlessness everywhere

Last Friday the contractor returned around 4 p.m. to finish off the resurfacing of Carrill Way and was gone in an hour leaving behind them rather a lot of broken kerb stones.

The yellow lines have not been replaced, an omission that Elizabeth line commuters have been quick to exploit. (Photo 1 below.)

But there are far worse problems to contend with. They may be very localised but they are typical of the contempt and lack of concern which is the hallmark of Bexley Council.

In Coptefield Drive an idiot parked opposite an already parked car at around 10 a.m. (Photo 2 below) thereby blocking the road to any vehicle wider than 76 inches. Better than the 70 inches of last week!

For four of the past seven days the road has been blocked for at least part of each one, two with an imprisonment time circa ten hours; one day being for the resurfacing of course.

The police are too lazy and too ignorant to recognise an obstruction when they see one and Bexley Council would rather penalise van drivers who cannot get home than do anything to resolve the situation. (Photo 3 below.)

You can’t have so much as a wheel on the footpath without getting a PCN but you can block a footpath completely (EK69 WZP) and Bexley Council is entirely happy with the situation. The only consolation is that at least two of the vehicles blocked in belong to commuters.

Local Councillors are well into chocolate teapot territory as was Cabinet Member Craske. Will the new incumbent be any better?

Photographs immediately above taken today.

 

2 June - The Guilty men

Yesterday’s road blockage caused nine cars to be marooned all day with their owners unable to drive on to the open road. I was on standby to pick someone up from Gatwick but fortunately not required.

It is easy to blame the disruption on the idiot driver of Audi ST10 TSV but there will always be idiots driving cars; what one should not have to put up with is police (Officer 244CC) who refuse to enforce the law, Chief Highway Engineers who are happy to design idiotic roads and vindictive Cabinet Members who are equally happy to let them do it.

It was Andrew Bashford (Photo 1) who lied to me that Abbey Road was redesigned in accordance with Transport Research Laboratory guidance when the TRL consultant who issued the guidance was adamant that Abbey Road didn’t comply. Peter Craske (Photo 2) needs no introduction, his lies are legion and reported here many times over the years.

As you might imagine some tempers are being frayed and strongly worded notes may soon give way to something more hurtful.

Maybe a fire in the open garbage bin would have a salutary effect on the morons in charge.

Unfortunately the local Councillors are powerless to help and I am not convinced they are trying particularly hard despite circulating a letter to residents.

 

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Today’s blog was written yesterday afternoon to provide me with a free day on 2nd June and there is a postscript…

Just after 5 p.m. Thursday the Audi driver returned to his car and was seen delving into his boot. I went to take a look and saw that a tyre was deflated. Someone must have let it down late in the afternoon. I told him that he had prevented residents getting to work, stopped at least one family taking the day out with their young children for a holiday treat and caused others to risk a Penalty Charge Notice. He was very apologetic and the excuse was he assumed the Mercedes wouldn’t be where it is for long.

As the Mercedes is the only completely legally parked car in the street it was a rather lame excuse. Ironically it was me who had to pump up the tyre in order to not prolong the disruption for which Bexley Council is ultimately responsible. Later today they are going to finish resurfacing the road. More fun and games.

At seven o’clock this morning a van parked opposite the Mercedes blocking the road even more severely than yesterday’s Audi. I was able to intercept the driver and persuade him to park in a more sensible fashion, alongside the kerb as everyone should. The parking bays are the size and shape they are for a reason even if the useless Bexley Council has forgotten it.

 

1 June (Part 2) - The Council that doesn’t care

Bexley Council is continuing to turn a blind eye to the problem it has created in Coptefield Drive which it could easily solve but chooses not to. Once again the residents cannot go about their daily business whether it be going to work or getting children to school. The road is blocked again just as it was two weeks ago when the police attended and were very helpful.

Not this time though.

The Institutionally Corrupt Metropolitan Police represented by officer 244CC say that obstructing a road is a Council matter and anyone with half a brain knows that it is not. Where does the Met find such ignoramuses? (CAD1818/01Jun23.)

The Mercedes is locally owned and broken down, it has been in that position since Tuesday. Audi ST10 TSV belongs to an ignorant commuter who decided to block the road this morning.

For the record the gap the idiot left measures five feet and ten inches. I guided a Vauxhall Corsa through it. With mirrors folded there was an inch on one side and maybe two on the other. It was red but not a fire engine.

 

1 June (Part 1) - Dave Putsoff further Cost of Living meetings

Former Belvedere Councillor Dave Putson’s Cost of Living Crisis meetings have been held on the last Wednesday of every month since last September but by yesterday they had reached the end of the road. I had originally envisaged them offering advice on how the less well off might save money but except for last month when the conversation drifted in that direction my expectations were entirely wrong. There was information on how one could protest at our unbelievably incompetent and destructive Government (my words not Dave’s) but beyond distributing helpful leaflets there is little a small group can do other than hand out bundles of cash at supermarket checkouts and without wealthy sponsors that is a non-starter.

Despite not achieving as much as one might have hoped it was always interesting to hear the views of the fairly moderate Left. There was no support for Putin or for Shadow Cabinets that do not know what a woman is.

It has been said here before that Dave Putson was always the most friendly of Councillors and happy to talk to anyone, even lapsed Conservatives like me. I am not absolutely clear on why he was thrown out of the Bexley Labour Group and I only have his version of events but I saw how Danny Hackett was thrown out so I am inclined to go along with believing that Dave was undeserving of his fate.

Similarly I am prepared to believe that he was the only Councillor to show up at a consultation in 2019 when Planning Officers were formulating their ideas for what became the Bexley Plan. It was much the same story that Cabinet Member David Leaf trots out regularly. His door is always open but Labour Councillors fail to take advantage of it.

By evesdropping this conversation I gathered that Dave left Planning in no doubt about his concerns for ‘Belvedere New Town’ and ‘Nuxley Village’. High rise “monstrosities” forming “a concrete chasm” alongside the railway is not his idea of a welcoming environment but he is hopeful that his suggestion of improved GP facilities will come to fruition even if someone else claims the credit if it does.

He remains proud of his 2018 agreement with Councillor Nicola Taylor (Erith) that they should both go in hard on the Social Housing issue at every opportunity and of course Nicola continues with that fine tradition but according to Dave is let down by the Leadership who donְ’t really believe in it.

I will miss his monthly meetings, there will be no more for the foreseeable future.

Note: Normally BiB wouldn’t report overheard conversations but Dave is well aware that I collect Council tittle-tattle and I have in any case tipped him off about today’s plan to pass on what I heard him say. Like me he believes that anything said at a public meeting becomes public property.