20 October - Crazy Golf

When the Crook Log Golf Pod proposal first went to the Planning Committee on 23rd July (25/02420/FUL) it was greeted with a lack of enthusiasm by Councillors mainly because of noise issues which have subsequently been proved to be grossly understated.

Fortunately the Chairman (Kurtis Cristoforides, Conservative, St. Mary’s & St. James) had the good sense to suggest a site visit to a similar facility, except that there isn’t one. Who in their right mind would allow 700 plus balls an hour to be whacked within 50 feet of private property and an SEND schoool?

From memory it was the Planning Officer who recommended a trip to a Pod site in Chislehurst but I can find no evidence that Councillors actually went there and all we know for certain is that consideration of the plan was withdrawn from the Agenda on 8th October. Bexley Council has steadfastly ignored questions about possible reasons.

They are definitely trying to hide something.

What has been whispered is that on 24th September some Planning Committee Members went all the way to the Pod Company’s facility in Cranham which is near Upminster and nowhere near to residential properties.

Bexley Council, being in deep secrecy mode, has refused to say which Committee Members took the trouble to go there. Neither do we know how close they stood to the Pods, how many balls were being fired off in a given time and what sort of drivers were in use. In short they are saying nothing.

Bexley Council appears to be on a mission to convince everyone that it is incompetent or corrupt. Their FOI responses, heavily redacted though they may be, read like an attempt to smooth the way for the applicant with some highly dubious assumptions. Golf Pods are no more noisy than cricket on a village green.

Believe it if you like.

Reform UK (Bexley branch) continues to dig ever more deeply into this farrago and I can only shake my head in utter disbelief at what they have found.

In 15 years of observing a sometimes evil and occasionally criminal Council I have never seen the like of it before.

Index to Golf Pod related blogs.

 

19 October - Reform v Labour

The Reform Bexley team not only spend their time digging onto Golf Pod irregularities, they are also very interested in what is going on at the VCD sports ground in Crayford and into its developer more widely.

In that connection they asked how many planning contraventions Bexley’s well known building developer and his company had been chased for and how many had ended up in Court. They got a list going back eight years. The oldest and the newest both related to Ye Olde Leather Bottle on Heron Hill, Belvedere.

The detail of Court appearances were withheld even though Court details should be on the public record.

As you can see, Bexley Council is being its usual secretive self. Reform UK and you and I are left to guess even the nature of the offence.

My guess is that it is related to the closure of Footpath 11 and the rubbish dump often to be seen on Heron Hill and the service of a Community Protection Notice, the compliance deadline of which expired more than a year ago.

Maybe Reform, UK’s approach is too sophisticated and simply asking a local Labour Councillor what they know is a more productive line of enquiry. One resident did that and the response was clear that the Court appearance in May was indeed about fly tipping and the blocked Right of Way. Why were the facts excluded from the FOI response? I thought replying dishonestly to FOI requests was a criminal offence, but with Bexley Council’s long record of dishonesty, why should I be surprised?

Additionally we learned that the Court case was deferred to “the end of September”.

I imagine another enquiry to the Councillor is now in order.

It remains very mysterious as to why a building developer being pursued through the Courts is also pursued as a good friend and political ally of certain Bexley Councillors.

 

18 October - Bexley road issues

As the two hour mark passed and the doormen went off duty there was a move towards bringing the Transport Users’ Committee meeting to an end and Highways Manager Andrew Bashford did his bit with a shorter than usual report.

There was nothing new about the proposed Bexleyheath to Erith cycle route. Sadiq Khan being awkward again by favouring the longer - but potentially safer - route which cyclists are unlikely to favour.

Salt wardens were briefly discussed. They are supposed to monitor use of a salt bin and use it sensibly during freezing weather but too often sell it off to, well I am not quite sure, fellow crooks presumably. What is this country coming to?

The figure of 4,400 potholes fixed in the past year was trotted out again. How many are repeats I do not know but I expect everyone has seen their favourite hole repaired and reappear a few months later.

As owner of an electric car for more than eight years which has only twice been charged away from home, I do not fully understand why anyone without a home charger would want one. The Government’s idiotic pressure on manufacturers, tax advantages, green fanaticism perhaps? If I paid for all the electricity used - and I don’t in summer - my fuel costs would be nearer one penny per mile than two.

Bexley now has 504 EV charging points on lamp posts. Very slow charging points obviously which would take 20 hours to fully fill my car’s battery. 48 of the 504 have never been used and the average gets 2·15% usage. Fortunately the costs fall entirely on contractors, not Bexley taxpayers.

The lamp post points are not associated with EV only parking spaces so they are frequently blocked by non-EVs. Mr. Bashford said this is because the previous Cabinet Member would not allow it. Surprising because I once saw him park his expensive electric car right outside my house! Bexley’s policy is to get as many charging points installed as possible in the expectation that one should always be available not too far away. So far this year the 504 lamp posts have seen 12,169 charging sessions.

MoP Rebecca (Jeremy Fosten’s invitee) said her nearest lamp post charging point is always blocked by a car owned by the adjacent resident who has his own private driveway. The amount of selfish parking I see around the borough astounds me. I would have vehicles picked up by a grabber and crushed.

Thames Water continues to wreak havoc on the borough. The Northumberland Heath, Colyers Lane, Bexley Road, Fraser Road scheme will take up to three years to complete and the Sidcup, Frognal Corner, Chislehurst Road, Elm Road and Station Road scheme will take 18 months. Whether from now or from when it was started last January was not stated.

The serious e-bike incident in Danson Park which leaves a man in a central London hospital has resulted in a ban. Its legality was questioned, a park not being a public highway to which the law would apply. (I saw an e-scooter user apprehended by the police on the Danson Underpass yesterday afternoon.)

The Chairman remembered my comment from three months ago about the direction sign on Woolwich Road and the nearby traffic light being totally obscured by overgrowing trees. The Highway’s Manager obviously agreed that it was unacceptable as his people had approached the land owner who has now been served notice to trim the trees, The owner insists that it is the Council’s responsibility to maintain the trees in his garden. Some people are simply nuts, but thanks are due to Andrew for pursuing the matter.

 

17 October - Bexley rail issues

One thing you can say about Southeastern’s contribution to the Transport Users’ Committee is that they come well prepared and as usual opened with a slide show.

With nothing much new to say beyond the Charing Cross closure being completed on time it was mainly a repeat of the claim - backed by data - that they run one of the better railways in regard to cancellations and late running. Typically nearly 90% of trains being no more than 3% late. I am not sure what that means exactly but it is how Train Operating Companies report punctuality. Average cancellations run at not much over 1%.

The main lines were affected more than the Metro by the hot weather which in extreme cases distorted the trackbed. The Autumn timetable changes (skipped stops) have not much affected Bexley.

As we have heard before, Abbey Wood is far and away the most crime-ridden station.

There will be a significant timetable change in December and the all day (8 until 8 approximately) Greenwich/Sidcup rounder service, will be fully restored Monday to Saturday.

It was noted by Councillor Thomas Clapperton (Conservative, West Heath) that 8:30 is not late enough for Charlton fans to get back to Sidcup and despite four trains an hour from Dartford being restored there are still 26 minute gaps.

It was a surprise to learn that passenger numbers are assessed by attaching scales to the train suspension and weighing the load rather than counting tickets.

Councillor Jeremy Fosten (Labour) was frustrated by the fact he could not get a train from Belvedere to Charing Cross - he is not alone - but there are no plans to restore that service.

The SE railman said that Lewisham remained a problem and trains using crossings to switch to the right track in the time honoured fashion cause late running.

I teased Jeremy by reminding the Committee that the North Kent line once had a choice of Cannon Street, Charing Cross or Victoria. That there was a cross-platform interchange at London Bridge and trains were typically getting to Abbey Wood in under 25 minutes. The fastest was only 19 against the regular 28 minutes in 2026 - even after spending millions on flyovers some years ago.

The Southeastern man said that London Bridge provides an easy Charing Cross/Cannon Street interchange. No it does not. An architectural masterpiece perhaps but descending a long escalator, checking the time of day and a departure board and then rushing up another escalator is in my opinion an abomination and nothing like as simple as when I first commuted to London Bridge 60 years ago.

Mr. Southeastern believed that passenger inconvenience was a price worth paying for improved performance. (See the late running stats.)

Jeremy pushed the Thameslink man appearing for the first time at a Bexley Council meeting on the vexed issue of Rainham services not stopping at Belvedere or Erith. We heard the usual excuses about getting trains through junctions in London on time and a new one about platform occupancy times at Rainham. As MoP Rebecca said, if the dwell times were not so long maybe the problem could be solved.

Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour, Slade Green), whose job keeps him in central London until late at night was especially frustrated by there being no trains from Charing Cross in the late evening and he and theatre goers were made to travel to Cannon Street. It makes no sense to shut Charing Cross instead of Cannon Street when all the late night passenger traffic comes from the West End of London, not the City of London.

He is not wrong is he?

it would be easy to suppose that trains are run for the convenience of the TOCs with passengers a poor second. As if to confirm that, Abbey Wood will lose its Luton Airport service.

 

16 October (Part 2) - TfL buses. How poor can they get?

It has been said before that Councillor Steven Hall chairs the most democratic of Council meetings, inviting members of the public to sit at his table and contribute to meetings. His ‘fame’ must have spread widely because yesterday there were four MoPs present instead of it being just me.

The ‘downside’ is that they all made significant contributions so the meeting was quite a lot longer than usual, but it was all good stuff. No Cabinet Member showed up in support.

Ignore the clock, it has not worked all year.

The first subject was as always buses and as usual how the services are not very good. Just after 6 p.m. my Bus App said there was no 229 to Bexleyheath due in the next half hour but then one popped up for six minutes time. I can be at the stop within two minutes and five minutes later a bus went by without stopping. Then there was another which later decided it was only going as far as Sidcup station and I eventually got a seat at Erith.

Councillor Jeremy Fosten (Labour) who lives not far from me and a regular bus user has similar experiences. Five years ago Abbey Road was served by ten buses an hour and now it gets five on a good day. TfL thinks this is perfectly adequate. A MoP told the TfL rep in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t.

But before we get to that what did the TFL lady have to say? There is to be a new bus garage in Thamesmead in just a few month’s time and the SL11 and N472 will be the first routes to transfer to it. Routes 51, 178, 244, 286, 291, 385, 469, 601, 624, 625 and 658 will follow.

A Council suggestion that the B15, currently on long term diversion, should permanently use Wickham Lane and Central Avenue was rejected because journey times would increase. [I was on it yesterday and the driver left his cab to announce the diversion and hoped passengers would not get too aggressive with him for the delay as they had earlier in the day.]

Jeremy said that the published excess waiting times for buses, particularly the 229, are “not true in my experience”. He was disappointed at the rejection of his request for an extra service on Abbey Road because there is no demand while an extra vehicle now serves the route because of over-crowding. Despite that the 229 still skips stops because it is full.

It is overcrowded at the Sidcup Hospital end too when the school opposite empties. The 492 has not met its on-time target in a whole year but the operator had its contract renewed.

TfL acknowledged that the 229 service still doesn’t meet its service requirements in respect of intervals and “curtailments”.

Jeremy’s MoP guest Rebecca, had plenty to say about the 229 having lived in Lower Belvedere for 25 years and seen services there decline from twelve buses an hour to a scheduled five. In practice she sees only three or four. The 469 was withdrawn based on the findings of a five year old survey. “It set alarm bells ringing with the regulator but to TfL that is just another day at the office”. To compound their misjudgment TfL annoucced that the further service reduction in January 2026 was ‘a Service Improvement’.

The 229 suffers persistent failures and intervals are “frequently 20 minutes and occasionally 40 minutes”. [I have experienced 35 although not this year.]

TfL’s response has been “deeply disappointing”. The MP has been “a glorified postbox” merely cutting and pasting TfL’s comments. “When services are so poor people stop using them.” [I generally walk to Abbey Wood station for a greater choice of routes but Rebecca is a little too far away to enjoy such an alternative.]

The alleged decline in demand is being engineered to be a “self-fulfilling” prophecy. A 244 extension to Belvedere would relieve the Gayton Road bus parking situation. [I once saw eleven buses queued there.]

Moving to TfL’s Elizabeth line, Councillor Fosten complained that there are no late night Sunday services from Heathrow to Abbey Wood and passengers have to get themselves to Paddington from which the only late running route back is the Hammersmith & City line but after making the four minute hike from the Liz line platform to H&C he found the last train to be cancelled and there are no Night bus alternatives. He managed to get himself to Charlton by 2 a.m. and hitch a lift.

There was of course no satisfactory answer to the late night services question other than use the Journey Planner.

In better news the Abbey Wood escalators which wore out after three years of use are to be replaced, but God knows when! [As an aside I will say that the Network Rail project manager for Crossrail told me years ago that the chosen escalators would not be up to the job.]

Councillor Borella said the stairs at Abbey Wood are a bit of a nightmare, “a joke” and they should have had escalators. I agree they can be but I remember at the Crossrail Liaison meetings it being said there was no room, not even for an Up/Down Division barrier. Stefano was very concerned at the number of people who use buses without paying. (It is at the driver’s discretion.) TfL said that 96% of people pay but it wasn’t clear how they knew.

I imagine the TfL lady was glad to get away after only 40 minutes.

 

16 October (Part 1) - Insurance, Artificial Intelligence and psychiatry

A big part of Wednesday’s Finance Scrutiny meeting was taken up by the Council’s upcoming (July 2027) Insurance renewal which I doubt will interest many readers so here are just a few highlights, if that is not a misnomer.

Currently the main insurer is Zurich and its broker has been Marsh Ltd. Zurich will have provided cover for nine years by next July but premiums have been reducing in recent times.

As is normal when looking for insurance, whether something should be insured at all and if so the level of excess balanced against the higher costs involved were debated.. Schools typically have a £250,000 excess, public liability £125,000 and vehicles £25,000. Cyber attacks were considered, the risks having grown considerably since 2018 and a specialist insurer may be engaged.

A similar debate concerned future technology issues. Microsoft licencing and delivery of digital services etc. Councillor Jeremy Fosten (Labour, Belvedere) said he had been using Windows 11 for five years; why was the Council only now beginning to roll it out? Not unreasonably the answer was that Windows 11 imposed hardware restrictions and you cannot just throw away otherwise good computers. (It is easy to bypass those hardware restrictions. I run Windows 11 on a nine year old computer. Maybe corporates are not so adventurous.)

Bexley Council adopted Artificial Intelligence webchats on 1st July and they claimed that 86% of questions were answered with a target of 95%+. There is an increasing tendency for residents to use AI to generate complaints which might in extreme cases be 100 pages long. (In my limited experience AI can improve short letters of complaint but my advice would be do not, as a friend did, audio record an angry phone call and get ChatGPT to do a psychiatrical analysis of the speaker!)

Complaints from residents are being run through AI so that they are fully understood and hopefully get better answers. (A big and long term failure of Bexley Council is that they reply but don’t answer questions or complaints at all.)

Closing FixMyStreet complaints when the problem is not resolved is a major source of frustration by residents.

Cabinet Member David Leaf provided a brief report to the Committee. He is concerned about rising interest rates and the forthcoming budget. The outlook is nothing but “uncertainty”. Local Government generally, “including Labour Leaders across the country” is totally confused about what the new Prime Minister has been saying and unsaying. He is a “TikTok PM”.

Labour Leader Stefano Borella said he did not recognise David Leaf’s assessment especially his comments about other Labour Leaders. Stefano was critical of BexleyCo while David said it had “delivered homes in our borough and returns to the Council”.

 

15 October (Part 2) - A Lodge of Crooks?

The most amazing things are coming to light as the Golf Pod application for Crook Log is probed ever more deeply. It is not impossible that Bexley Council’s abysmal handling - very easily arguable as negligent or dishonest - could end up in Court.

Because of that the following gives only a flavour of what has been going on.

While you and I are not allowed to look at the objections, the Planning Officer, while agreeing that the Council’s policy is not to reveal the objections it considers, sent a summary to the applicant so that he could more easily make his case for countering them.

The Environment Department said “Environmental Health has No Objection on the Application”. That’s it. A one line capitulation to commercial pressure. (The applicant was complaining about the delay and how they had so much invested in the project.)

When pressed further, Environmental Health responded with “The noise would be no different to cricket or hockey. We wouldn’t look at the noise impact assessment for loss of amenity”.

From boundary to the wicket at Lords is a distance of 90 metres. Pods to gardens at Crook Log will be 16 metres. In cricket there is the occasional thud of willow on leather. One stroke at a time and possibly minutes apart. Titanium drivers can hit 130dB and there will be ten Golf Pods each firing a rapid succession of balls. Cricket matches last for a matter of hours and not every day of the week.

The name of the Environmental Health Officer is redacted but whoever it is is clearly an imbecile.

The whole tone of the correspondence with the applicant is far too friendly and clearly aimed at getting the plan through the Committee. Indeed at one point there is a reference to not going to Committee. None of the detail was communicated to the Planning Committee. Incompetence or corruption is getting ever harder to tell.

Never has the misspelled Crook Log sign seemed more appropriate.

Note: The foregoing comments and quotations result directly from an examination of documents submitted by Reform UK (Bexley) and published with their prior approval with no edit requests. What Reform has discovered is quite staggering. No other party has bothered to take an interest.

 

15 October (Part 1) - An enforcement or not?

There was a reference here last week to plannng enforcement notices issued by Bexley Council against Kulvinder Singh and his companies. One concerned the old Drayman public house at Crook Log.

It was demolished and permission was granted for eight small flats and a house on the site. Quite when they were constructed is hard to tell but building was in progress in November 2018.

An Amendment to a 2013 application.

In 2023 the Council realised that something wasn’t quite right. There were more than eight flats.

They believed that there was a very retrospective application in June 2023 but it was withdrawn two months later leaving the flats “illegal”. Hence the enforcement notice.

What became of that is yet to be determined but in January 2024 another retrospective application was submitted; a mere eleven years late, so one might assume that once again Bexley Council did not pursue the case as far as it could have done.

You may note that these documents do not refer directly to Mr. Singh but the covering letter refers to his company Balmonza Ltd and the documents were released following an FOI about Mr. Singh’s activities.

As usual one must wonder why the Council’s planners are so favourably disposed towards someone who constantly and skillfully pushes the legal boundaries.

Note: Eight Drayman entries have been added to the Index of Singh related blogs.

 

14 October (Part 2) - Children first

Councillor Craske chairing the Children’s Services and Education Scrutiny Committee always strikes me as an odd choice for reasons I shall keep to myself. Or it may be it merely backs my opinion that the May election would “decimate the talent pool”. How else do you explain David Leaf’s choice of Cabinet?

Tuesday’s meeting began with Cabinet Member Caroline Newton (Education) being allowed to introduce an item of late business. Bexley missing out on an OFSTED ‘Good’ rating for SEND children by one point has been overturned following improvement plan submissions to the DfE by Bexley Council. They no longer officially ‘Need Improvement’.

The parent of a child attending an Erith Family Hub addressed the Committee to express her appreciation of the Hubs and her son “absolutely loves it”.

There was a further report on the Safeguarding Partnership and it was pronounced “effective and very strong and incredible”.

Click image for website.

The discussion revolved around the age old problem of teenagers with nothing to do wandering around causing trouble.

 

14 October (Part 1) - Places. Call for Action!

Believe it or not Bexley Council devoted a big chunk of its four hour Places meeting to flags and whether they should have been removed sooner. My own view is that after a while they looked tatty and we could easily do without them, but that is a very different view to what comes from left wing politicians who simply don’t like national flags except when there is a football match on. Their reasons are fairly well known, they think anything English offends some of their core voters which might not be true.

Councillor Nicola Taylor (Labour, Erith) had, in the Council’s jargon, Called for Action over flags. She said that “some flags were deliberately installed outside the homes of people from the BAME community and residents reported increased hate crime in the area. Eight months on, they continue to intimidate and are tatty and torn. All should be removed, not just the tatty ones. They are divisive and do not present a good picture of our town”.

Council Leader David Leaf said he was pleased to have returned to Bexley having spent a week in Birmingham, “a city wrecked by Socialism and all sorts of terrible politics”. A small number of flags were removed in Bexley because of road safety issues and elsewhere widespread removal had increased community tensions and simply resulted in reflagging. Despite the need for caution, about 700 flags were removed last month at a much lower cost than had there been a rush job some months ago,

Councillor Taylor that she had just celebrated the 90th anniversary of Cable Street. She felt that those who installed the illegal flags in Bexley, quoting the campaign’s leader, that the flag flyers may have hatred in their heart. “Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone.”

“They brought disgrace to our borough” and according to Donna Briant (Labour, Slade Green) reduced twelve year old children to tears. Councillor proposed a Task and Finish Group to settle policy.

The Council Leader acknowledged that some flag wavers might do so for all the wrong reasons but immediate removal would have provoked immediate reinstallation.

He claimed that his pragmatic approach to flag removal had successfully avoided community tensions while keeping costs low. Councillor Taylor said that non-removal of flags emboldened those who favoured flags and they were disrespectful to veterans etc.

In Birmingham flag removal cost £130 per flag (2·5million) and in Bexley such costs were avoided. He suggested that Councillor Taylor’s expression of very different views could themselves raise community tensions and removing flags before St. George’s Day and the football World Cup would not have been a good idea,

Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) was, with some caveats, inclined to agree that the Leader’s approach was the correct one. (Chris and Nicola represent the same ward.) Councillor Terry Barcock (Conservative, Sidcup) was more of an enthusiast for early removal whatever the cost.

Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour Leader) said that those he saw erecting flags in Welling were all drunk and they damaged lamp posts. “They were criminals.” He “was absolutely confident" that most residents did not want the flags. I suppose that includes me so maybe he is right.

Councillor Michael Gillespie (Conservative, Barnehurst) found that his door knocking activities resulted in comments that were generally supportive of flags.

Councillor Jeremy Fosten (Labour, Belvedere) said he thought the anti-immigration posters which appeared on the Horse roundabout in Belvedere were disgraceful.

Councillor Frazer Brooks (Conservative, Blackfen and Lamorbey) said his canvassing experience showed very few anti-flaggers.

Councillor Taylor, as is to be expected, was argumentative until the very end, disputing every reason David Leaf offered for his measured decision. She proposed the Task and Finish Group. Councillor Leaf was scared of scrutiny and not a Leader.

The proposal was seconded by Councillor Ball but it was defeated. While he was being “shouted down and heckled” Councillor Leaf offered to meet opposition Members to discuss things that could not be made available publicly.

At twenty to midnight, the meeting continued, but there will be no further reports here.

To quote from Wikipedia, the British Union of Fascists in 1936 had become increasingly anti-Semitic and Cable Street (Aldgate, East London) was very much a Jewish area, The Labour and Communist Parties along with the Jewish People’s Council attempted to block the BUF’s march and things became violent. I am not sure how it came to be that in 90 years it is the left wing of politics that is now generally anti-Semitic.

 

13 October (Part 2) - Places. Yet more Cabinet Members’ reports

I had forgotten that rearranged Cabinet responsibilities mean that the Places Scrutiny Committee now needs three Cabinet Members so Councillor Brian Bishop (Blackfen and Lamorbey) was asked to make his case.

He said that it was National Hate Crime Awareness Week and a campaign against gender based violence “kicks off” on 25th November. There was a reference to the new Crime and Policing Act and then as 10 p.m. approached he drew to a welcome close.

He was questioned about the new facility to seize empty homes after six months instead of two years and he was of the opinion it would make very little difference to the homelessness situation. “There are many hoops to be jumped through before a house can be taken.”

Both the Chairman and the Cabinet Member objected to questions which were not about what the Cabinet Member had said which was a near untenable position given that he had not announced what he was going to say in advance and he said very little. Councillor Ball (Labour, Erith) not unreasonably objected to the decision because his questions were thereby disallowed. Councillor Bishop responded that his portfolio was so wide that he could go on for 40 minutes and that would be impractical and the Agenda would become Any Other Business.

[The ruling means that any Cabinet Member with something to hide has the double protection of avoiding questions by keeping his mouth shut.]

After Councillor Bishop’s slightly bad tempered retort, Cabinet Member Cameron Smith said he had some good news but then disappointed every resident by saying he “would email it around”. Why would he want to hide good news from public view?

Thames Water is spending £150 million across the borough (and likely hitting its economy for even more) and he said he knew where all its projects are, but once again residents are to be kept in the dark. His list will go to Councillors by email. All we learned is that the five biggest projects involve 14 kilometres of trunk main and 21 kilometres of more ordinary mains expected to last for 150 years.

Consultations are underway for four new pedestrian crossings. Danson Lane, Halfway Street, Wickham Street and Manor Road in Crayford. Penhill Road may be added to the list in the future. Erith Pier will be improved with new lighting and CCTV to deter vandalism. The river bed is littered with paving blocks and shopping trollies.

The Government has restricted the public’s ability to contest planning applications resulting “in less transparency in decision making”. The Government has continued to erode local democracy with a new ability to override Local Plans. “Bexley’s will be given very little weight.” Green Belt protection is similarly eroded by the Socialists in Westminster.

The revised London Plan will reduce Bexley’s housing target from 685 units a year to 622. The Government has accepted that its promises are not deliverable and of those planned only 12% will have more than two bedrooms. Bexley’s need for family sized homes is 62% and the local assessment has been dismissed by the Mayor. He imposes rules designed for Camden on every borough. There is bad news on parking allocations too but Councillor Smith did not elaborate.

In response to a question critical of the Prime Minister the Cabinet Member said we will soon have “the best trained but least influential” planners ever. “It is thoroughly wrong.”

Councillor Frazer Brooks (Conservative, Blackfen and Lamorbey) asked if residents could at least have a rough idea when the Thames Water created chaos might come to an end. Cabinet Member Smith disappointed every resident by once again deciding to answer via an email to Councillors. However it was revealed that the project running from Oxleas to Blackfen via Sidcup will not end until 2030.

 

13 October (Part 1) - Places. Cabinet Member’s report

I should perhaps mention following the microphone debacle at the General Purposes meeting that the audio is now fixed and very noticeably improved when heard on my computer sound system.

Councillor Rags Sandhu Cabinet Member for Environment, Leisure and Culture said that despite the hot weather Country Style had not encountered any serious issues. 6,000 new food caddies had been distributed following direct engagement with residents. Food recycling has increased by 24%.

The Government has gone back on its plans for the recycling of soft plastics. A dust cart has been converted to a classroom to educate children, presumably about recycling rather than mathematics. Weed spraying was completed on schedule.

Danson Park and Royal Park (Footscray) children’s playground equipment has been replaced, the latter following vandalism. There were three musical events in Danson Park this year. The dry summer made the old excuse of poor ground conditions which led to the permanent cancellation of The Danson Festival, untenable.

Councillor June Slaughter (Conservative, Sidcup) asked why the recycling of soft plastics has been deferred by DEFRA. The Cabinet Member didn’t know; it is just another unfathomable policy decision but Bexley is so advanced that it has been chosen to be one of the pilots should the scheme be resurrected.

Councillor Donna Briant (Labour, Slade Green) had heard that soft plastics was delayed because the recycling facility had gone off line or similar.

Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) estimated that 100% food recycling could be worth £2 million a year. How much is the 24% increase worth? There was no direct answer but all the food collected is worth about £770,000. The Cabinet Member said “it takes it out of the incinerator” which is a bold claim given that all mine goes into the compost heap.

On average the green lidded general waste bins still contain around 60% of recyclable materials and Bexley remains stuck at third on the list of best London recycling boroughs.

 

12 October (Part 2) - Three years of Council neglect

It is probably longer but Bexley Council has still done nothing about the traffic congestion that regularly occurs on New Road in Abbey Wood.

A combination of more than 30 buses an hour and almost no parking restrictions from 1 p.m. Friday until 11 a.m. Monday guarantees almost non-stop problems. Yesterday a bus driver misjudged the gap and got stuck. A parked car was wrecked.

Local Councillors have proved to be ineffective against Bexley Council’s intransigence. More traffic than ever uses New Road because Knee Hill is too narrow and blighted by a Yellow Money Box Junction.

At Elizabeth line pick up and set down times New Road becomes close to impassable. For how much longer will Bexley Council’s Highways Department turn a blind eye?

And Bexley Council allowed its favourite property developer to build flats exactly where this bus crash occurred.

 

12 October (Part 1) - Three months of Council neglect

For the record the three months of failure by Country Style to empty the paper bin came to an end on Friday.

The fly tip had been cleared a week earlier along with some of the accumulatred cardboard. Now it has all gone.

What stopped them emptying it a couple of months ago? Incompetence and lack of care presumably.

 

11 October (Part 2) - Too much AI?

The following item was circulated by The Open Council Network today. One can only assume that it knows something we don’t know or it relies too heavily on Artificial Intelligence. Or Bexley Council is even more crooked than I had assumed.

Only one minor house extension was approved at last Thursday’s 20 minute meeting.

 

11 October (Part 1) - Missing meetings

The past week has not been a good one. Without going into too much detail I spent three days unable to do anything very much due to illness and for the day before and two days following partial recovery I was in Bromley caring for elderly friends who had something like the flu and running out of food. Usually helpful neighbours were ill too! Despite a 90th birthday being just around the corner their GP is simply not interested in them. And that in brief is my excuse for failing to provide any Council meeting reports this week.

While I was almost totally incapacitated I missed six hours of Council meetings and before I will be able to catch up on them there will likely be another six. Something has got to go.

The Adult Social Care and Health Scrutiny meeting rarely produces anything of interest beyond Thamesmead being an unhealthy place to live so the initial response is to give it a complete miss. ‘Places’ on the other hand is often of general interest and in dribs and drabs it will be covered, at least in part. At an unprecedented 230 minutes long it surely must have had something special going for it.

It began with a question and answer session about the 3,000 (known) 16 to 24 year olds in Bexley who are not in education or training. Covid is still to some extent getting the blame. Six in ten of that age group nationally have never had a job. In Bexley the 16-24 year olds number around 25,000 and 3,000 was said to be 1 in 9. This dubious arithmetic allows Bexley to claim 11% NEETs and not 12%. However it was accepted that the numbers were all best guesses so it doesn’t really matter. Whatever the number is, it is clearly getting worse. What little work there is for young people in Britain’s failing economy is in warehousing, hospitality, retail and delivery.

Highway Maintenance was next on the Agenda and I wish to place on record that last Monday I drove from Abbey Wood to Bromley without encountering a single road closure, an extremely unusual event. However by Thursday there were two sets of temporary traffic lights, the one in Brampton Road doing nothing but protecting a dozen cones. Passing by eight times over two days there was never anyone working there until I saw the lights being removed late on Friday afternoon. No one at Bexley Council ever bothers to inspect the efficiency or lack thereof, with which road maintenance is effected. The economy suffers and the costs of disruption mount unnecessarily.

The Highway Manager delivered a slide show and his comments were relatively few saying almost nothing that has not been reported here before, but maybe Councillors are forgetful and some are new. He is expecting to get a Government grant of £941,000 within the next month or so which will have to be spent this financial year. He has planned what to do with it on the assumption the money will be forthcoming.

‘A’ roads are currently in very slightly poorer condition (DfT ratings) than they were a year ago but in percentage terms barely measurable. B and C roads are slightly improved. Each street is walked at least twice each year and 4,403 potholes were filled in the past twelve months. There have been 26 significant resurfacings (5·8 kilometres) so far this year with another 13 scheduled for before next April.

Councillor Frazer Brooks (Conservative, Blackfen and Lamorbey) commented on FixMyStreets reports so often being dismissed as not meeting whatever criteria apply and residents get the impression that the Council doesn’t care. (I regularly receive such comments from aggrieved residents.)

Potholes on roads comprised of a thin layer of asphalt over concrete are never likely to be fixed because their depth is never likely to exceed the depth criterion.

Councillor Donna Briant (Labour, Slade Green) asked if there was an asphalt versus slabs policy on footpaths. She personally prefers asphalt. The Highways Manager said he prefers asphalt too, it’s only half the price, but tries to avoid small patches on otherwise paved footpaths.

The Cabinet Member said that £14 million would be spent on roads this year, twice as much as a year ago and residents should be able to see the improvements.

The slide show was to be circulated to Committee Members the day after the meeting. Members of the public are to be deprived of that information. It is not in the Agenda although some slides are visible via the webcast. It is supposed to be a Public Meeting but maybe not completely so.

 

10 October (Part 3) - In 15 years, nothing has changed

Mr. Shvorob's request for the reason why his Full Council question “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?” was rejected for being defamatory has been answered; he implies by the Mayor, without actually providing the evidence.

Apparently the Council’s Constitution was amended six months ago and now forbids any criticism “that makes or relates to allegations against, or comprises comments about, the conduct of individual Members or officers”. These are Mr. Shvorob’s words; as is so often the case the Council’s link to their own Constitution PDF is currently unavailable.

If this is true it means Bexley Council’s attitude towards criticism has not changed one jot since 2011.

I have the police’s own confirmation that criticism was forbidden by the then Council Leader Teresa O’Neill and they reacted because she personally said that Bexley Council would not tolerate criticism.

Nothing changes.

Note: The letter was signed by a police officer who was subsequently found not to exist.

 

10 October (Part 2) - Another name to remember

Last week it was mentioned here that the associate of a Cabinet Member and former Planning Committee Chairman had been on the receiving end of several planning enforcement notices and a small number of prosecutions. I have now seen the Council’s official list.

There have been nine within the past three years.

I have lost count of how many companies are registered to the same man at the same address but here is a relatively new one linked to 16 New Road, Abbey Road where I am less than welcome.

 

10 October (Part 1) - Crook Log Golf Pods

Now that the dust has settled on the withdrawal of Golf Pods from last Thursday’s Planning Committee Agenda it is time to assess the situation.

It is inconceivable that the application has been withdrawn which means that in all probability the Planning Officer will be belatedly assessing the noise issues, assisted by the documentation submitted by Reform UK. It includes the medical research that 110dB is the critical threshold beyond which hearing damage can occur and that the latest titanium drivers can reach 130dB.

The Reform UK official sent a copy of the company’s own report to Planning Committee Members as there was no evidence that they had been properly informed of it beforehand. The report was based on the company’s hired consultant’s visit to their Cranham facility before it opened. The Cranham pods are not comparable to those proposed for Crook Log, they being sited on an existing Golf Course. No Council has yet been stupid enough to authorise Golf Pods within 50 feet of houses. Sound levels of 102dB were recorded and among the comments in the report are…

• The robot movements were not reliably measurable given the sound from the M25. [So no real idea of the actual sound levels.]
• There is a metallic “clang” sound for around six seconds until all the balls have been released.
• The owners are expecting 40% use on average, but there is likely to be times of 100% occupancy. [Another guess.]
• The owners are also expecting no more than 70 balls per bay, (when in use) per hour, and a 20/80 split between drivers and irons. [Guessing again and drivers are much louder. 70 balls per bay is 700 balls for every hour of intensive use. One every five seconds.]
• According to the initial estimation, therefore, there is a chance of an adverse impact. Not necessarily a significant one, but not necessarily low, either.

So the consultant concedes that his report is based on a very different installation, that much of it is estimation and there could very well be an adverse noise impact. Yet the Planning Officer decided that it was appropriate to keep Planning Committee Members in ignorance.

If you argued that Bexley's Planning Department was corrupt I would be very short of ammunition with which to refute the suggestion.

 

8 October - Incompetence or corruption? It’s impossible to be sure

A prelude to this blog should have appeared earlier in the week but various things including illness got in the way. It concerns the deferred decision on the Crook Log Golf Pods which threatened to blight the lives of South Gipsy Road residents with intense noise and light pollution, not to mention the adjacent Aspire SEND Academy.

I thought it was perhaps the most outrageous assault by planning application that I had ever seen and one must thank the good sense of the Committee Chairman for backing the deferred decision.

Following that meeting Reform UK officials took on the task of supporting the residents who were relatively small in number and maybe overwhelmed by officialdom. There were objections from the MP and elsewhere but Bexley Council made none of them available so the Reform people undertook some more basic research.

They ended up with literally hundreds of pages of evidence suggesting that the noise calculations were horribly wrong. The claim that the impact noise of club on ball would hover around the 100dB mark were very wide of the mark. 130dB was not impossible which bearing in mind the logarithmic nature of sound measurement puts the loudness into an entirely different and painful range.

Enquiries revealed that the applicant himself admitted that his noise calculations were flawed and the figures submitted to Bexley Council were based on his own best guess. There was no evidence that the Planning Officer had told the Committee Members that they were deciding the future well-being of residents on the unscientific opinion of just one man. Certainly there were no indications at the August meeting that Members were aware of this vital fact.

The Reform objections went well beyond noise issues; Security, Anti-Social Behaviour, Parking, Highway Safety, Lighting and Ecology were all examined in great detail.

With no assurance that the situation was to be made absolutely clear to Committee Members one of the Reform activists circulated his findings to Planning Committee Members late last night.

By mid-afternoon today the Planning Officer had withdrawn his submission and recommendation to grant permission from this evening’s meeting. It’s unlikely to be pure coincidence. Recently I have been balancing the probability of corruption against incompetence in planning affairs. I am still not sure but this case shakes one’s confidence somewhat.

 

5 October - Stupidity is not corruption

My belief that there is nothing provably corrupt in the close and apparently inappropriate relationship between Bexley Council and its favoured property developer did not go down especially well in some quarters. One in particular reminded me that the Planning Committee Chairman and his wife both voted to approve the Care Home proposed for the Heron Hill (Leather Bottle) site.

My recollection is that the application was rejected by the Head of the Planning Department in July 2020 on the grounds that Bexley had more than enough Care Homes already, and six months later the same plan was approved with both Councillors Bishop sitting on the Planning Committee as ordinary Members; Mrs. Bishop a substitute. no one voted against the plan. I have to admit that is a strange one but maybe Bexley Council is simply incompetent. Never rule that out.

Having caused puzzlement over the off-on Care Home, Councillor Christine Bishop thought it was wise to use the inside of the developer’s home as the setting for her 2022 election publicity shots. But stupidity is not corruption.

I have been informed, but yet to see the evidence which is promised for later, that Singh has been on the receiving end of several planning infractions and we know that he has been taken to Court by Bexley Council at least a couple of times, yet he apparently remains a favourite with them. He has repaid their gullibility with spending many thousands on trying to wriggle out of the Metropolitan Open Land restrictions at the VCD athletics ground while the Mayor feels obliged to honour him with her presence.

He needs to build houses on that site or it is £1·2 million down the drain. I suspect Mr. Singh knows exactly what he is doing. The former Planning Committee Chairman is now the Cabinet Member for Housing.

 

4 October - General Purposes and Audit Committee meeting

Maybe next time they could call it the General Purposes and Audio Committee meeting and let us hear it properly but meanwhile it is only possible to give a flavour of what I think may have been said from my own less than clear audio recording; the brand new radio mics all being an abysmal failure.

Not everyone was inaudible of course, Councillors Munur and Craske were furthest from me and Councillor Borella nearest and all three were heard reasonably well. Actually that is not quite true, two Reform Councillors were a bit closer than Stefano but neither of them said anything. There were six significant items on the Agenda and Chairman Cafer Munur raced through them in an hour, so well done him.

Council support staff was almost entirely female although it should be noted that the two nearest the camera were from the Council’s auditors. (Ernst & Young.)

The Boundaries Commission is looking at Bexley because the number of residents per Councillor is getting out of balance. Councillor Craske (Conservative, Blackfen and Lamorbey) said he was not happy at the prospect of the number of Councillors being increased which is what happened when other boroughs were reviewed. Council Leader David Leaf said he didn’t think there was much appetite in Bexley for increasing numbers. “We will have to make the case for 45.”

Councillor Borella (Labour, Slade Green and Northend) said he was “on the same page as Councillor Craske”. Councillor Terry Barcock (Conservative, Sidcup) said he would like to have the numbers of residents in each ward this year and last to get an idea of the direction of travel. The Chairman promised to provide it.

The Local Government Boundaries Commission for England is due to report on 14th March 2028.

The report on staff appraisals is probably not of general interest and is reported fully in Agenda item 6. There have been no Union objections.

The auditor briefly introduced her report. Ernst and Young has audited nine London Boroughs and Bexley remains in third place as it has in the previous two years. The ranking includes Risk, Technology, Governance, Leadership, Financial Capacity and the mysteriously named Assurance.

The discussion on Internal Audit and Fraud revealed that in the last two months alone there were 18 Blue Badge frauds and a dubious Single Person Council Tax Discount.

Councillor Andrew Curtois (Conservative, Sidcup) asked a question about Risk Management but the Council Officer did not speak loudly enough to hear his reply. (Not helped by the ladies in the next room enjoying some sort of joke while not shutting their door. This obliterated replies to Councillors Borella and Eliot Smith’s questions too.)

On the sixth item, Debt Recovery, Councillor Borella asked if the recurring bad debts figure, currently £12·376 million would ever be recovered. The biggest single debtor is the National Health Service but they always pay eventually. Bromley Council owes Bexley £263,000 for SEND transport and are arguing about it.

 

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.

 

2 October (Part 2) - A little progress

There has been some progress made on the long neglected rubbish dump across the road from my house. The irresponsibly fly tipped heap was cleared two days ago.

However the paper bin remains unemptied after an interval of about three months. For some inexplicable reason some of the largest sheets of cardboard have gone.

Don’t expect logic from Bexley Council.

 

2 October (Part 1) - No, of course not!

I have had some strange emails over the years but never before have I been asked if I seek permission for my street photography. Maybe a quick reminder of the law is in order.

If it wasn’t so, news reporting, especially live TV, would be near impossible. All the rules may be found on Government websites and those aimed at professional photographers.

 

1 October - General Purposes. Total waste of time

It is nearly nine years since I last went to a General Purposes meeting and my report of the proceedings was entitled ‘Generally dull’. Maybe that is why I stopped attending, however a BiB reader who is housebound has complained about the lack of webcasting so I volunteered to do him a favour and go to see what was being said at GP&A.

The evening did not start well with no 229 bus showing on the TfL app in the half hour following 18:19 so I decided to make the longer hike to Abbey Wood station. A few minutes later, immediately after I passed the 229 stop, one passed by.

Fortunately an SL3 turned up at the station quite quickly and I was outside the Civic Offices door at 18:59 just in time for the Community Safety meeting which began at seven. However the doors were locked and not opened until 19:11 so had that been my meeting of choice I would have been late.

The General Purposes and Audit Committee meeting was a disaster in terms of being a public meeting because the brand new wireless microphone system was not working. Maybe it is my failing but I find that unless things are reasonably loud that after concentrating on barely audible speech, I have insufficient brain power left to process the audio. I heard very little and was reminded of the old days when Mick Barnbrook complained to the Equalities Commission when the Hearing Loop didn’t function, as is the case when the microphones are not in use.

I will listen to my audio recording in a day or two but I doubt there can be any meaningful report on last night’s meeting.

It was perhaps not a complete waste of time because I had a pleasant chat with Councillors Stefano Borella, Eliot Smith, Sean Brackstone and Debbie Ryan and discovered that Debbie and I worked in the same building at the same time 45 years ago.

There will not be another General Purposes and Audit meeting until the end of January.