London’s crumbling
I was pleased to read of Bob Bedwell’s success in Sidcup getting the pavement repaired.
I have been complaining to Bexley Council for weeks about a part of Barnehurst Avenue from the junction of Fairford Avenue up to Colyers Lane about the road and pavement. Repairs are piecemeal. On the pavement side a section about seventeen inches square close to the fence repaired but a hole in the road some thirty inches square and about 20mm deep remains untouched!
I met with Mr Saunders from Bexley Council and we walked this part of Barnehurst Avenue. Apart from what I have noted above other small, and I mean small areas are repaired whilst much larger sections badly in need of repair remain untouched.
Mr Saunders was eager to point out the constraints from central government which
control the amount of repairs the council are able to carry out, and also they have to prioritise that considered urgent. He did make notes of some repairs he felt called for immediate attention. Mind you I was advised that as the hole in the road was only twenty mm attention would not be given until it was forty mm deep!
This whole section of Barnehurst Avenue, in my opinion, road and pavement are badly in need of repair. Inspections are supposedly carried out every six months though frankly, I have my doubts. Some parts have still only been partly repaired Cementing those, these can be left for weeks until the final surface is put on.
Back in 2003/4 the Government took £59 billion from the road user with about 10% being actually spent on the roads. Where did the other 90% go? And this is repeated every year with ever increasing petrol tax. I wonder what the figures will be for 2009/10?
Malcolm Kirkup - Barnehurst
• The Mayor of London sits in his towering office block surrounded by consultants and committees and Bexley Council twiddle their thumbs trying to balance their books while London’s roads and pavements crumble away. Selborne Road in Sidcup hasn’t been repaired since WW2! Ed
Manor House
With all the “suggestions” quietly attempting to move us into accepting that this establishment is on its way out, what clever(?) so-and-so decided to spend heavens knows how much tax payers money on a brand new sign for the Registrars Office - situated at the junction of the Green and Elm Road.
The mind boggles.
Charles Owen - Sidcup
• Like the whole Bexley First building project it’s a flawed decision at this moment of time with commercial property prices down by a massive 45% and not expected to return to their 2009 values until at least 2015. But why should the council care about spending your money on a new sign! It’s their only investment in this fine property for ages. Ed
Red House garden party
The Friends of Red House held their biannual garden party at William Morris’s Red House in Bexleyheath, on Sunday 6 September. Councillor Bernard Clewes, MBE, Mayor of Bexley, was in attendance. We were blessed with sunny weather as we enjoyed that music of Strictly Brass. Pimm’s No. 1 was served, and a delicious tea, as the guests enjoyed the garden, while a busy programme of tours of the house took place.
Olive Mercer - Sidcup
Skidcup!
Will Bexley Council cabinet sell Sidcup registry office to developers, and disappear Hadlow Road pop-in-parlour? What about the ancient Black Horse pub?
Anything it seems that has cultural or social value to adults living in Bexley is too much for the council to bear, ie. The (mad, bad or sad) cabinet has put the K into Skidcup, despite claims of “listening”. Does Bexley council pass the consumer test, ie. does it do its civic duty? Does it perform satisfactorily? Is it fit for its original purpose: direct provision of essential services or has it strayed into being a tax & revenue collection front?
Without this recession would barrack-style flats have appeared on Lamorbey swimming baths and Athena House sites. Meanwhile Bexley council has got its paws on £1.2 million for its ill-starred traffic scheme for Station Road. Certainly a few £thousand would be ample to improve traffic light phasing but that would not use up all that cash.
Tesco Metro shoppers get prime parking bays where our station-connecting bus stop used to be. Pavements will shrink, raised impediments will appear (death traps for cyclists?) and the Somerfield traffic lights will become an obstacle zig-zag course requiring push buttons in the middle of the road – socially unacceptable perhaps?
Rita Grootendorst - Sidcup
Changing Places
This month you included a letter in regards to the lack of Changing Places toilets in and around the Bexley area.
The lack of these facilities has a huge impact on the lives of people with a profound and multiple learning disability and their families and supporters. The impact leads to families having their lives greatly restricted in how they are able to both, live and take part in their communities.
Mark Grainger - Sittingbourne
A Star (Stage Two) is born
I’m responding to Jill Cowne, who wrote a letter last month in the Chronicle about Sidcup Town Centres Stage One, and now Two of the Star scheme at Longlands and Station Road areas.
Like her I thought Stage One was a success, and I hope for Stage Two will also be another.
However, I’ve taken the bull by the horns and have got support from nearly all at Tudor Court where I live, Hatherly Crescent, for the proposed zebra crossing, which they have campaigned for, for over twenty years, outside our block - as in the Star scheme proposal.
I then caught commuters from Sidcup station, who are falling over to sign up too and expressing their feelings and concern for a safer crossing for themselves returning from work.
I would mention the local post box near to Tesco Express has been closed - the driver can’t stop because of restrictions to park. So we need free parking bays, plus the small businesses both sides of Tesco need delivery goods space surely.
Drastic change needs drastic measures for it.
Bob Bedwell - Sidcup
Labour surrender £7 billion!
Recent news that the UK’s EU contribution will rise by 60 percent shows the importance of having a British government that will fight our corner in Brussels.
Unfortunately we are still paying the price for Labour’s decision in 2005 to surrender seven billion Pounds of the British rebate between 2007 and 2013.
Worse still, the Labour government is not surrendering the rebate evenly across the EU’s seven year budget. Instead they have ‘backloaded’ it so that a disproportionate amount is being lost in the second half of the EU budget cycle - meaning that next year every household will contribute £260 to the EU.
We can all agree on the need for a government that delivers better value for money across the public sector. Unfortunately, Labour has given away more of our money to the EU without anything in return.
In the European Parliament I will campaign for the EU’s budget to be more accountable and to focus on the priorities of the taxpayers. In the meantime, we need a government that will demand the EU reforms itself before handing over British taxpayers’ cash.
Syed Kamall
Conservative MEP for London
Office WIB 5M 73
European Parliament
Brussels
Socially irresponsible
“Naughty” Ian Clement has chosen a crown court prosecution, maximising the cost to taxpayers. Will a jury believe he is naughty but nice?
What about socially irresponsible cabinet? Would a mayor be any better? Or would the corruption of power continue selective scapegoating, eg. Kebab Ye owner George. He and the Planning Inspector were hauled to the High Court by Bexley Council, which lost the case. George opened Kebab Ye in good faith; searches showed A3 use, without disclosing it had lapsed. If the council got it wrong why then put the boot into the innocent party? Because Local government Acts have given undefined powers to councils who do whatever they please, especially if their chosen prey is easily intimidated. Size matters to Bexley planners. Safeway, Tesco and Café Nero got what they wanted, no matter what.
Since 1990s banks and financial services, like local government, got out of control, with negligible checks or balances. Structured derivatives were sold off for profit even though they damaged both borrower & buyers of toxic mortgage debt. Bexley Council wanted to exonerate Ian Clement. It defends its indefensible conduct towards Kebab Ye. It regrets it was unable to break George’s resolve, even when they gained an injunction knowing he was post-operative from brain surgery for a tumour.
Rita Grootendorst - Sidcup (Campaigner for affordable living)
Sidcup Symphony Orchestra
What good news - Sidcup Symphony Orchestra is coming back to Sidcup, with
concerts at St. John’s Church and Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School.
However, I am very disappointed that there will not be a Christmas concert this year or a July 2010 “Prom”!
Let’s hope “political correctness” is not the reason for cancelling these two most popular events.
A. Ring - Sidcup
Harping on about the NHS
I wish to bring to the attention of readers of the Chronicle who harp on about our NHS, playing the same old boring gramophone record of doom and gloom, that they are the ones who are holding back the progress of real change for the better in Picture of Health locally.
By resisting change they themselves cause the services to provide the the vital and modern care at a snails pace, and less professional. The NHS is still the envy of the world, warts an all!
Those of us who have worked in the NHS, have been patients, and all who have benefitted from NHS services and its caring staff must surely make our voices heard more for change. Those against change are not our enemies they just play tunes only they themselves listen to, often out of tune with the rest of society. I know it was once a fiddle I played, and harp on about it.
Bob Bedwell, SRN, RMN, NDN - Sidcup