Take it to the post office!
One might think that Sidcup Sorting Office post-box would be big enough to accommodate a letter of size A-4 without folding it in half to get it through the mouth of the box.
But no, at a mere 8 inches wide it is not possible to send a 10 inch by 8 inch picture in an envelope with a board back.
‘So take it into the sorting office’ I hear you say. I tried that and the man at the counter said ‘I can take it in, but it won’t go off until tomorrow. They only collect from inside at noon and you’ve missed that one now.’
Forgive me for being churlish, but I would have thought it not beyond the means of our highly computerised postal services to give a bit of old fashioned common sense service. How about the man who collects from the post-box outside collecting inside at around five or six o’clock, or maybe how about installing a sensible sized letter box to take A-4 in this ‘Metric Age’ ?
‘Try the Post office’ said the man cheerfully. I reminded him that the Post Office at Sidcup Station was closed some time ago. ‘I know he sighed, there’s always the one in the High Street, or the one much further down Halfway St. Being on foot (You can’t park anywhere near the sorting office) I decided to leave it with him! Come on Post Office, stop living in the dark ages and sort out this
silly lack of service.
Derek Hope
Kent Photonews - Sidcup
Pedestrians shouldn’t run!
I’ve always found it strange, that there is no safe place for pedestrians to cross in Hatherly Crescent. I have often had my backside scraped by impatient late signallers who seem to think I should break into a trot.
The island, by the grass triangle is not meant for pedestrians, which is why buses often stop across your face rather than let you cross to the island. The reason is the road is not wide enough according to Bexley cpuncils traffic dept. Widening the road at this triangle can’t be that expensive especially as they removed a traffic island and replaced it TWICE in 6 months in adjoining Hatherly Road. There is an old peoples home where many commuters and old people cross.
If and when Athena House gets planning permission I’m sure the well healed tax payers will get something done about it.
Dave Blackman
• Don’t hold your breath Dave. Ed
By Pass development
The large scale development at Crittals Corner and Edgington Way, Foots Cray promoted by B&Q plc, Sidcup By pass is opposed by people and organisations in this southern corner of the Borough.
The development will have a disastrous affect on the lives of residents and on the environment generally. It will also have a direct bearing on any future developments which are contrary to the guidelines adopted in the UDP.
Both Bexley and Bromley - whose residents will also be affected - planning officials had advised refusal for this development and was expecting the issues would be dealt with at the Planning Inquiry to be held by the Ministry Inspector!
Despite all this professional advice, Bexley’s Planning Committee gave approval for the development on the casting vote from the Chair. It would be interesting to know what additional information, if any, the Chair had that warranted voting against all the professional advice of two boroughs and the wishes of residents!
Such major developments and complicated issues should never be passed on a casting vote when a full Public Inquiry gives residents the opportunity to state their objections and have their views considered.
They have been ill-served by this casting vote.
Elizabeth Rhodes,
Chairman Cray Meadows Ward,
Labour Party
• The planning appeal for the duplicate B&Q application has been withdrawn and the Planning Inspectorate enquiry has been cancelled! Ed
Where are our Police?
I am the Chair of a local Residents Association and I am very concerned at the small number of police expected to look after Erith, there are just six officers in the local police team 1 sergeant, 2 PC’s and 3 PCSO’s, that’s right just 3 full time police officers and 3 community officers who as we know have limited powers, a fact that is not lost on offending teenagers!
Bexley, like most boroughs in London has its fair share of crime but what stands out more in our borough is the high incidence of youth crime. I know this as I have been told first hand by not one but several police officers; the problem is so bad that a police office has been opened opposite the offices of Orbit Bexley Housing Association on the Ocean Park Estate in West Street, Erith to combat local crime.
We have heard reports recently of mini riots on the Ocean Park Estate where injuries have been sustained by police officers, one could say that reporting as a mini riot is an understatement but what it highlight’s is that respect for law and order has broken down, certainly with a small number of youths that are more akin to anarchists than teenagers!
I live on the Rutland Gate Estate on the Erith/Belvedere ward border at Brook Street as such we come under the local Erith Police Team. Over the last few months or so we have been blighted on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights with a gang of youths, about 30 in total, that use our estate and stairwells, and surrounding communal grassed areas as their own. We understand that they have to go somewhere but when they descend, mob handed, on Rutland Gate you can imagine that there is cause for concern. It wouldn’t be so bad if the youths behave themselves, not so I’m afraid, what we witness on a nightly basis at weekends is their consummation of rather large quantities of alcohol, their smoking of questionable substances on our stairwells, leaving their residual filth, phlegm, cigarette wrappers, small plastic pouches etc and that’s not to mention they use our stairwells and garage areas as their own personal urinals; and we have to wash down after them! I have complained to the police on many occasions but nothing gets done, the marauding youths are free to do what they want.
As Chair of our Residents’ Association, I am in regular contact with the Erith Police Team, well I was until recently as when I call them now their mobile phones are switched to voice-mail, I leave messages and there is never a reply. When this happens as it always seems to do, I call Bexleyheath Police Station for their assistance where 90% of the time I am left waiting on line for over 20 minutes to speak to someone; it was so bad last week that I was cut of after my call was on hold for nearly 25 minutes! I gave up!
I have been told by the Erith Police Team if I am unable to contact them and I experience problems getting through to Bexleyheath then I should call 999. I am loathed to call the emergency services when in reality our problem is local and should be handled by our local police!
The problem at Rutland Gate is a weekly occurrence, yet there are no moves by the local police to try and combat this, so regular in fact, they should be taking affirmative action but no, we are told they have too many problems elsewhere to tend to us!
As mentioned I have conversations with the local Erith Police Team and with Bexleyheath Police, each bemoan their position of budget cuts and stagnant recruitment, so what is to be done? We can ask Mr Blair, or should that be both Mr Blair’s, the prime minister and the Police Commissioner and while were at it I suppose we should include Mr Reid our Home Secretary? Residents, that’s people with a vote, are fed up to their back teeth with the rhetoric we are being fed of increased police numbers when in reality all that is happening is a recruitment drive to add to the already overloaded police administrative bureaucracy, it’s police on the streets that’s needed not more pen pushers.
Recently I received a questionnaire from the Metropolitan Police, ÔProblem Solving Team’, asking ‘The impact on the community as the result of a murder taking place’? I am at a loss as to why this questionnaire was sent out, of course a murder on one’s doorstep is shocking but to receive this from the ÔProblem Solving Team’ has confused me, I thought the police were the ÔProblem Solving Team’ full stop!
It astounds me that the ÔMet’ has a ÔProblem Solving Team’ asking about the impact of a particular crime when in simplistic terms the real question should have been is what is ‘The impact on the community as the result of too few police on the street is having upon us’?
I could write volumes on this subject but I am mindful if this is published there isn’t a lot of editorial space left, so I’ll close with my opening question É Where are our Police?
Jim Parsons
Chair, Rutland Gate Residents Association
Erith
Bollards 2
Following the letter in the last issue by Laurence Williams about the bollards situated on the corner of Knoll Road and Sidcup Hill.
Cllr Michael Slaughter told us they were his idea about twenty years ago when he witnessed pedestrians on the corner and lorries turning down the hill actually crossing the pavement area. He rightly felt this was really a place where a serious accident was waiting happen and suggested the bollards were erected to protect people, not equipment buried underground. He told us they were regularly knocked down and eventually the council responded by putting in the heavy metal bollard right on the corner.
Traffic, traffic, traffic...
How long will it be before the combined might of Tesco, B&Q, Schweppes etc collectively kick Bexley Council into reality?
Motorists are merely inconvenienced, but businesses are losing money.
Why didn’t the Council advise Tfl of the road works? Why weren’t the lights re-sequenced, it really isn’t much more than a couple of e-mails surely?
The Chronicle and Mike Low are the voices of sanity in this over-trafficked bit of suburbia.
Councillor Craske in a recent e-mail to me said ‘they were discussing with them (Tfl) constantly.’ He also said he ‘intended to publish some initial ideas (!) after the summer’.
Anecdotal evidence from a senior engineer in Westminster Council suggests Tfl actually encourage the removal of traffic lights where there is no pedestrian phase, and need input from local councils when serious works like the Gas disruption are planned.
Again Bexley is sitting on its hands, Cllr. Craske seems well intentioned, but the Council officers need to be told, not asked to do things.
Re-phase Footscray Rd / Cray Rd; & Church Rd / Sidcup High St. junctions to reflect the tidal flows, oh and open up Church Avenue!
Am I dreaming!
Malcolm Greening
Sidcup
• We have a certain amount of sympathy with Cllr. Craske but he is like so many councillors either being kept in the dark by council staff (they like to be called officers) who hide behind their vacillating and craven opinions when making their recommendations. Perhaps our Chief Executive should send a memo to his ÔOfficers’ reminding them what one of his predecessors once said ‘Officers advise, Councillors decide’. We would add that it would be nice to know that Ôofficers’ giving advice do actually live in Bexley! Ed
One year not two!
They say that a week is a long time in politics, and clearly a year is too long for the Editor to cope with!
In your ‘My Month’ page, you refer to Sidcup’s traffic problems and say ‘Here we are two years later and still nothing has been done.’
Of course it is just one year since Conservatives regained control in Bexley, not two years. During that time Cllr Peter Craske has indeed been busy on this subject as you should be well aware.
You may be forgiven for not knowing about the meetings he has had with officers and local members to talk about this subject, but have you forgotten the very well attended meetings arranged to give residents the opportunity to air their concerns and put forward their views? I recall that in December’s edition you reported that you had attended one of the meetings which you said was one of the best run and best attended you had ever been to.
Work has been ongoing since then and of course this includes discussions with others - including Transport for London, which unfortunately controls so much of what boroughs can and cannot do.
‘Listening to you working for you’ is the bye-line of this administration . I know that Cllr Craske will have more to announce soon. Personally I would prefer a solid piece of work rather than a ‘quick fix.’
Cllr Mrs June Slaughter,
Sidcup
PS. I wonder how it is that your Editor, who lives in the Borough of Bexley, is paying 8.3% more in Council Tax this year when everyone else found that Bexley’s new Conservative Council had managed to keep the increase down to 3.5%?
• The Chronicle owes a debt of gratitude to Cllr J.Slaughter, one of our most hard working councillors for keeping us up-to-date with Cllr Craskes activities. Neither he nor any other councillor has done so since the two very well supported meetings back in 2006 (27th November and 7th December) which we all left feeling something would be done about the towns burgeoning traffic problems. Now we are beginning the second year of the new administration still traffic gridlocked with Grassington Road unusable and other roads still gated. We live in hope! With respect to Cllr. Slaughters Council Tax PS I can only add that before the the new tax was forced upon us this year I was paying the GLA 5% less and Bexley Council 3.5% less! And I’m certainly paying a lot more than most of my richer neighbours for the same basic services! Ed
Caffe Nero
Sarah Payne has completely missed the point! (Chronicle May issue). The opposition to Caffe Nero has nothing whatsoever to do with old fashioned element in Sidcup not moving with the times.
It’s about a large company blatantly ignoring basic planning regulations by opening without permission. They then used their vast sums of money to win their appeal.
In other words there is one law for the rich and one for the poor! This is proved by the sad case of Cafe Moca.
Finally, it is completely unfair competition to existing businesses who will lose trade to a concern who deliberately and knowingly flouted planning regulations.
Doug Walters,
Sidcup
A & E will not close!
I read in The Chronicle that Derek Conway MP had been assured that Queen Mary’s Accident and Emergency will not close. That is fine if you can get there. Last week I found an elderly gentleman collapsed on his landing. He had been there for hours dehydrated and confused. I immediately dialled 999 and then after three further calls an ambulance finally arrived an hour later. He was taken to Queen Mary’s A and E. - then was in the Assessment Unit for three days before finally being admitted to Reeve Ward!
B & Q site
On a separate issue I read of planners giving B&Q the green light at the end of Cray Road. At the moment or for the next seven months, the Cray Road is one way and traffic often gridlocked at Crittals as a result. Also, traffic trying to get into Sidcup at Queen Mary’s roundabout is one solid queue and if you go along Church Road, the lights only let out a few vehicles at a time causing enormous tailbacks. When are Sidcup’s traffic problems going to be addressed?
Mrs V.M. Loader, Sidcup
• Had the new planning application been turned down by our planners and B&Q went to appeal what do you think the councils defence would be? The traffic officers would be ordered to appeal on the grounds of traffic. Simple as that! As to sorting out the traffic problems in Sidcup your guess is as good as ours. Ed
Prudent thought!
As I am sure you are in touch with our MPs from time to time. And David Cameron is out on the stump. I wonder if the next Conservative Government have any plans to dispense with the London Assembly, and return us to a more economical method of local government. Now we have had a Mayor for some time perhaps the public should be given an opportunity to vote on whether we wish to continue with the GLA. Instead may I suggest that each borough sends a representative to something like the Association of London Boroughs. and its chairman be called mayor (if he/she so wishes) The money saved could be spent on health and education. And perhaps we would have no more fears of losing our A&E. Knowing Mr Brown is keen on prudence and economy, I am surprised he hasn’t thought of it himself!
Peter Smith, Sidcup
New tennis court
Regarding your report on the proposed new tennis court at Sidcup Recreation Club and the destruction of a perfectly good existing court to make way for a car park, I find it amazing that there is any debate about this when two of the main priorities of central government are climate change and obesity.
The proposed new court would be crammed into a picturesque area, completely ruining the current ambiance and, incidentally, in the wrong direction as required by the LTA.
Perhaps members should be encouraged to car share and those living close to the club could leave their cars at home. It seems incredulous that a sporting facility should be destroyed to make way for a car park!
Cheryl Osborne
Old Forge Way, Sidcup
Expectations from the ‘Listening Council’
At the ‘Working Together’ Conference on 28 November 2006, the Chairman indicated that if there were any matters members of the public felt needed to be revisited because of decisions made by the former Labour Council, they would be listened to sympathetically.
I wrote concerning the restrictions placed on allotment holders as to whom they may permit to come to help them - only immediate family living at the tenant’s registered address, subject to written permission from the Council on application. No friends, colleagues, or other interested parties. No help for the elderly from younger people!
I got an acknowledgement dated 12th December saying the matter had been referred to Cllr Gareth Bacon, Cabinet Member for the Environment. Since then I have heard NOTHING in spite of further letters direct to Cllr Bacon on 16th February, and to Cllr. Clement, Leader of the Council on 31st March!
Does this constitute ‘listening’?
P. Scopes, Sidcup
Five year leak!
The residents of Wimborne and Chudleigh flats in Highview Road have been plagued with constant water in the kerbsides outside their premises. It has been there for over five years. At the Wimborne end it is filthy and stagnant and we believe there is a leak under one specific part of the road.
The water board denies all responsibility and we contacted the Highways Dept. of the council (once again) for a gully to be installed to take the water away. They came last September and put a gully outside Chudleigh flats but it is set too high to take the water. The cul-de-sac end of Highview Road has no gullies. We have asked them to come back and have been told they will when their new financial year starts!
So appealing is our own Ôpond’ that last summer, even during the heatwave, a pair of Mallard ducks were semi-resident here. They come to my window for food and sleep on the lawn outside my window. They are back this year and cause a lot of amusement to us all.
Mary Griggs, Sidcup
Monstrosity!
When I moved into Jubilee Way ten years ago it was a very nice road, except for the traffic.
Then someone chopped down most of the woodland at the side of the railway (which has fortunately partly grown up again).
Now we are told developers want to build three storey flats at the back of us, and a monstrosity at the front. What has happened to modern day architects?
I am eighty-three and hoped for a reasonably pleasant retirement, but with the sky line ruined and an excessive traffic volume in which is basically a residential road it will be hell.
V.Scher, Sidcup
Longlands Road Conservation Area
Fifteen years ago the Council proposed to form a Conservation area which would cover about fifty houses in Longlands Road. As an owner of one of the houses involved, I was invited to comment on the efficacy of the proposal. My opinion was that it was too late to conserve what in very many cases had already been altered.
I don’t know if the Council received my letter - it was never acknowledged. However, the proposal was soon followed by an arbitrary decision to go ahead with the scheme.
Now comes a twenty-one page document, pompously entitled ‘Draft Area Appraisal and Management Plan - Public Consultation’.
In order to inflate the document to its absurd length, many phrases are repeated, sometimes more than once, and subjective opinions are presented as fact. We are invited to look at ‘inappropriate developments’ and to consider the fine view looking east along Longlands Road from York Avenue. Perhaps the aesthete who wrote this rubbish failed to notice the monstrous Marlowe House, the most inappropriate building in the district, and one which the Council allowed to ruin the amenity of the whole of Longlands Road. Now they want to continue to impose this nonsense and have another consultation. Like the last one, I suppose.
Is there no way to rid ourselves of this bureaucratic poppycock?
D.W.Henderson
Sidcup
• Alas Mr Henderson this seems to be the way of our council these days. On the one hand they cry poverty. All the people they employ have desk jobs writing long-winded reports and handing out contracts to the private sector willy nilly. Even the Danson Park event has been given to a firm in Bristol probably with free office space and telephones in the Civic offices. Another £100,000 of our money being spent on an out of borough contract that could have been handled by local firms. It seems the council now get hold of a directory and select three firms they think could handle a contract and ask them to tender instead of openly advertising. A mild form of democracy.
More people are beginning to question the motives of a council that has to ask residents what they should be doing eating up time and money. One might ask the question are our councillors judgements always wrong that they are forever asking us for our opinion. The police are the same. It seems if a dialogue is ongoing they are seen to be doing a good job yet the statistics say they are clearly not. Ed
Council Whistleblowers
The measure of a civilised society is how well it treats its most vulnerable members. Local councils have a duty to provide services to those most in need and should do so fairly and lawfully and without any abuse of their authority. Local authorities also have a duty to promote good race relations.
If we don’t want to live in a society where vulnerable and minority members are abused then there is a collective responsibility to speak out and object to wrongdoing. ‘It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph’. Racist jokes are a form of abuse. The holocaust did not happen overnight. It began by marginalising ethnic groups and the disabled, by ignoring their rights and creating an environment in which they were deemed inferior and deserving of the abuse they received.
A council employee highlights a failure to promote race equality and she is mocked and ridiculed by a Councillor telling her to display a sense of humour, what sort of message does that send out?
If whistleblowers are not protected it is all the more likely that your council tax will not be spent on the services you voted for and that maladministration will increase. Who will say anything when they see staff stealing your council tax by falsly completing their timesheets, who will comment when poor value contracts are awarded to the council’s own staff or their friends for them to line their own pockets, who will speak out when the vulnerable are abused and who will stop staff trying to jump the queue for social housing by completing false waiting list applications. Certainly not Ms Gravell, she was dismissed and no longer works for Bexley Council.
Yours sincerely
Name withheld
• This letter was received by email in response to the editorial comment in the last Chronicle by John Steward. It is our policy not to publish letters from anonymous persons. In this case we have the full mailing address and if any reader wishes to comment further we shall be pleased to pass them on. Ed
Legal Aid
Chronicle readers may, quite understandably, feel concerned about recent action taken by some solicitors in their campaign against reforms to the Legal Aid system.
This action centred on a new contract between Legal Services Commission and solicitors doing Legal Aid work. It is unfortunate for people seeking legal help that the debate on the proposed reforms has probably produced more heat than light.
1 would like to reassure readers there is no shortage of Legal Aid advice available to people in Bexley. Across the capital, more than 90% of Legal Aid solicitors signed the new contract.
This is more than sufficient for us to continue to provide comprehensive, high quality, legal advice to those often vulnerable people who need our help most.
I would like to thank those skilled and dedicated advice providers who share our commitment to Legal Aid and look forward to working with them to develop new local Community Legal Advice services that will improve access to justice and promote social inclusion.
Martin Seel,
Regional Director, London
Legal Services Commission
Free travel
Incidents of anti-social and violent behaviour towards passengers and drivers on buses are growing.
TFL has released figures for the period September 2005 to 2006 which show a huge increase of over 50 percent in code red calls made by bus drivers specifically relating to anti-social behaviour. This coincides with the first year in which the Mayor’s policy of unlimited free travel for young people on London’s buses was implemented.
The London Assembly Conservatives are not against free travel for under 18s going to school, but at the very least we have to realise that the problem of anti social behaviour on our buses is on the increase and is aggravated by allowing under 18s to travel free on buses at all times, including late nights and weekends, in large gangs. Not wishing to accuse all youngsters of bad behaviour, nevertheless this is a growing problem which must be addressed and the policy reviewed.
I would be very interested to hear from constituents and bus drivers about their own experiences of using the London bus network either by writing to me at the address below or by e-mailing me at Robert.Neill@london.gov.uk.
Bob Neill AM MP
Assembly Member for Bexley and Bromley
• Isn’t the answer to continue providing free travel passes for students but restrict their use to school opening and closing times and not to allow them during holiday periods! Say 8am to 10am and 3pm to 5pm. Ed
Lib/Dems challenge Livingstone
Everyone from local councils and the Government to the Mayor of London, keeps urging us to ‘do our bit’ for the environment. Then we go to the supermarket and their clubcard schemes persuade us to buy more and more, often rewarding our loyalty with free flights. So how about a reward card that actually helps save the planet? I’m working on a plan to allow Londoners to earn points by recycling more or switching to renewable energy. We’d be rewarded by discounts on activities that don’t leave a large carbon footprint, like free public transport or cinema tickets. Technically it could also be linked with the Oyster smart-card. I’m asking Chronicle readers to give me their ideas on what to include (email to Mike.Tuffrey@london.gov.uk). Then I’ll challenge Ken Livingstone to take a lead and get it going.
Mike Tuffrey
London Assembly Liberal Democrats