2 October (Part 3) - The answer might be far too embarrasing
No Full Council meeting would be a complete without a question from Dimitri
Shvorob. The next meeting is scheduled for 4th November and Dimitri likes to
get in early so as not to give the Council an easy excuse not to hear him.
His question to the Council Leader was to be “Can you please comment on the allegations of an
inappropriately close relationship between Conservative members of the
council, including a current Cabinet Member, and Mr Kulvinder Singh, a
controversial local developer looking to build housing on Metropolitan Open Land in Crayford?”,
However the Head of Democratic Services, Kevin Fox, has
a
wealth of experience built up over the past 15 years (one example out of
dozens) of how to be totally undemocratic. The answer might be far too
embarrassing and so he has rejected the question. It is defamatory. Against Mr. Singh
or Bexley’s leadership he does not say?
Developer and Leader of Council.
Strictly speaking it is not Kevin Fox who decides whether or not to accept questions, it is the
Mayor. One can understand why she might be reluctant,
Mayor and former Planning Committee Chairman standing on Metropolitan Open Land alongside those who have plans to build on it.
Postscript: At about the time the forgoing was published, Dimitri wrote to the Mayor
asking in what way his question could be defamatory and claimed it was based on
what he had read here on Bonkers. Nowhere on Bonkers is corruption alleged and I
have found it necessary to write to some local activists to remind them that
during Councillor Bishop’s tenure as Planning Chairman none of the decisions
taken were especially favourable to Mr. Singh and for the Planning Department to
be ‘bent’ would require at least three of its chiefs over ten years or more to be
on the take, which looks like a stretch too far.
All that we know for sure is that Bexley Council issues awards and honours to a
man who was successfully prosecuted by the H&SE with more prosecutions in the
pipeline and assaults and accosts residents who take an interest in his activities.
They encourage strange bedfellows.
Readers are entitled to believe that Bexley Council has exhibited extraordinarily
poor judgment but probably nothing more than that. Bexley Council and poor
judgment is not exactly new is it?
If the Mayor replies her excuses should be interesting.