Care staff cared...
I would like to publicly thank all of Bexley’s Home Care staff from many different agencies who in last weeks treacherous snowy conditions still endeavoured to reach the homes of Bexley’s vulnerable residents to ensure they had the support and care they needed.
Many staff made heroic journeys, often walking long distances to reach the homes of our customers.
Also the snowy conditions meant many residential night care staff were unable to get home and they stayed with residents until the day staff could reach them.
These carers are a credit to Bexley and its residents and I am very grateful for their commitment to their vital jobs.
Bexley’s gritting team were also on hand to support our local hospital, Queen Mary’s to ensure ambulances and patients were able to reach the hospital safely.
A team effort we can be rightly proud of.
Councillor Sharon Massey - Cabinet Member Health and Adult Social Care
New council houses
After years of restricting local authorities’ freedom to build new council housing, the Prime Minister has finally agreed to relax the rules. About time, too. The urgency of building good quality public sector housing is heightened by the recession, with private developers struggling to find the cash to provide enough homes. Councils must plug the gap that has opened up.
London has over 200,000 overcrowded homes and a further 55,000 households without a permanent place to live.
I hope each borough council will soon set out how they will ensure that local residents benefit from any new freedom for councils to borrow money for building. But I urge councils to go further, and pledge that new council housing in their area would be built to high environmental standards and that local people will benefit from the training and work opportunities that such a building programme ought to provide.
Cllr. Darren Johnson AM
London Assembly
City Hall.
• Bexley Council sold all of its housing stock for an average of £9,000 per home. It must have been a good deal for the housing association because they recently loaned up to £100,000,000 to Genesis to keep its two year plan on track. The head of one of the UK’s largest builders said he thought at least twenty two housing associations were in dire straights. Could the credit crunch be why ‘council’ affordable housing rents are spiralling upwards and well beyond inflation rates. Ed
Are Councils fit for purpose?
The answer to this is no! It’s great that “The voice of Bexleyheath” has exposed the scandal our councillors and full-time council staff , as the muppets they are. What is the point of shelling out our council tax on these people, who are supposed to be experts in their field only to have them subcontract work to higher paid experts to advise them? So sack the lot and save the large salaries / index-linked pensions they earn and employ persons capable of running our town in the most efficient way. It is becoming clear that those persons in charge have lost control of most of England. I can’t comment on Wales or Scotland as they have home rule but we know they are on a gravy train and the tax-payer pays for it.
It’s time for the people who pay to withdraw their support of “ The Money Wasters “!
E.S. - THE SILVER SURFER - Bexleyheath
• I guess it also brings in to question peoples’ judgement if Councils have to employ so many consultants!. Ed
Energy-saving light bulbs
I realise Ron Gee’s letter (February) is more of a wind-up than an serious contribution, but yes, he’s right, having “Edison” bulbs helps to heat the house, providing you want your heat at ceiling level, you want heat on summer evenings, and you can buy electricity for the same price as gas (My supplier charges nearly four times as much for electricity as for gas).
Smashed bulbs? We’ve never done that. Disposal costs? Some of ours have passed the 18-year mark now, so any charge would be trivial in comparison with the energy saved in that time.
Anyway, Ron, nip down to your incandescent bulb supplier if you want, the rest of us are going in the opposite direction, but I guess we’ll survive until you realise your mistake.
GL Cope - Sidcup
Oldest at Woolworths
With reference to the caption under my picture in the February edition of the Chronicle ref. closing of Woolworths. I would like to point out that I was definitely the oldest member of staff not the longest serving.
This goes to Molly with twenty two years and Dawn and Denny who would have celebrated twenty one years during 2009!
My time at Woollies was great and I would like to say a big thank you to the many customers I got to know over my seventeen years with the company and hope to see them when I visit Sidcup. Also for my many happy memories of all my friends in store.
Sally Brockies - Swanley
Sprats in Brussels!
I am writing with a warning to all recreational anglers. The European Commission wants to regulate you - as part of the Common Fisheries Policy!
Under plans unveiled to the European Parliament last week, sporting fishermen will be required to purchase licenses and to log every fish they catch. Now fisherman will have to pack their laptops or logbooks with their rods and suncreen. Europe wants to make a Sunday sitting on the canal feel like another day at the office.
Why? Where is the need for this cumbersome scheme? The Common Fisheries Policy has already wiped out what used to be Britain’s best renewable resource off our coasts. Now recreational anglers are to be penalised like the British fishing fleet.
It is so sad that European bureaucracy has come to this. You really couldn’t make it up.
Syed Kamall MEP
• Thanks Syed. Our only MEP who keeps the local press informed about what’s going on in the European Parliament. Ed
Tories blame Labour!
Why does Mrs. Massey always blame the Labour Party for the state of this borough. Has she forgotten that when she and her party came to power, I wrote and said “hopefully Bexley would be a better place to live in”. How wrong I was.
Personally I see no difference between the two. If they were so concerned about the cut-backs to residents front line services why did they give themselves and their staff a pay rise - back dated?
As the Chief Executive of Bexley Care Trust and Bexley Council state “It is our (residents) money they are spending “Are we getting value for money”? I think not. especially as £1,600,000 was spent calling in qualified people for professional help. Surely if the people the council employ, and our part-time councillors - are not qualified then they should be sacked without paying them a Golden Handshake and employ qualified people. It surely must be cheaper in the long run.
I agree there should be an independent person appointed to act of behalf of the Council Tax Payers. No wonder Bexley is the worse borough of all the thirty two London boroughs.
J.J.Rouse (Mrs) - Sidcup
Transport for London Incompetent
Transport for London fully accepts the Local Government Ombudsman’s findings in relation to our handling of three traffic enforcement cases (“Transport for London incompetent”, February 2009) and has apologised to the motorists affected for the inconvenience they have experienced and the distress caused.
We have changed our processes to improve the handling of such cases and also made some significant changes to the team at TfL managing this activity. As a result we believe we have made some significant strides recently in ensuring that our work in enforcing traffic regulations on London’s red routes is fair and proportionate.
Jeroen Weimar - Chief Operating Officer of Enforcement and Compliance, Transport for London
Fit for purpose
Further to your article in this month’s “Chron”, I have observed that several local authorities (Greenwich most prominently springs to mind having, apparently, sacked its force of teaching assistants) warning of dire consequences if they don’t receive a lavish increase in their grant.
However, in their responses I think I can detect a pattern. Take Greenwich Council. In one corner are the professional bureaucrats - function and purpose of dubious value, in the other those - nurses, teachers, teaching assistants who actually DO perform a useful function.
The question of where to cut budgets comes up. Here the Doers are at a disadvantage to the bureaucrats as they hold few levers of power.
To maintain their jobs the bureaucrats recommend that “front line services” be cut (when anyone with slightly more than two braincells knows it should be the bureaucrats’ jobs that should be cut) in the full knowledge that the public will protest.
Which they duly do!
This protest allows the bureaucrats graciously to accede to the public’s wishes without even having to bother to put their “thinking caps” on and deal with the real problems - overmanning and over-payment in public services (may I remind readers again that the private sector does not enjoy the lavish pensions and conditions that the public sector does).
Start asking what the bureaucrats do. If they need all these consultants to do their jobs then clearly we don’t need them! Employ the consultants to do the thinking and the jobs and sack the bureaucrats! Problem solved.
C.Price - Sidcup
Equality for your elders!
In June last year, the government took an important step forward- they finally acknowledged the injustices faced by older people every day in accessing basic goods and services. They promised to abolish the lost ‘ism’ permitted in our society, by banning age discrimination in the planned Equality Bill, this decision was long overdue, but now senior citizens face an even longer wait before they get any protection from discrimination. An 18 month government review of dealing with ageism in health & social care threatens to push the passing of any new law well past the next election- and at that point the chance for change could well be lost.
This is a huge disappointment I’ve written to my MP to ask them to sign Early Day Motion 458 to call for swift action to ban age discrimination. I urge Chronicle readers to do the same by supporting the Help the Aged Just Equal Treatment Campaign. They can take action by calling 0207 239 1982 or going to www.helptheacied.org.uk/.justequaltreatment.
Older people who are being denied vital health care or struggle to buy insurance, cannot afford to wait.
Mr T. Murphy - Bexleyheath
Our health, our wealth!
It is difficult to understand why your correspondent Mike Milford should complain that Boris Johnson has scrapped the plans for the bridge. Perhaps this is a new breed, an ‘IMBY’; ‘In My Back Yard’ as apposed to the more common NIMBY.
The history of the bridge started in Woolwich when, after the bridge had been agreed Ken Livingstone then said he wanted a motorway through Oxleas woods. Result no bridge in Woolwich.
Then he goes for Thamesmead and a ‘little local bridge’ so residents could get to the gas works across the river more easily. After protests, Hazel Blears appoints an independent inspector who reports that the bridge is not a practical proposition based on poor traffic modelling. Ms Blears response was to reject the independent inspector’s findings. Long live democracy. At least Boris was trying to do the right thing for the people and by the independent inspector.
But more to the point, in September 2007 the BBC website declared that about 1,000 Londoners were dying prematurely due to poor air quality. At the same time they reported that the government were being pursued by the International Court for breaches in air quality in Bexley Borough. They ignored the warnings and it is likely that a fine will ensue – our money, our health. The report said we suffered 108 bad air days a year when 35 was an acceptable number.
It seems that this New Labour Government is not only cavalier with our money but our health too. Reports of between 5,000 and 10,000 people per year are dying of illnesses acquired in hospital, MRSA, C.diff etc. Over 12 years of this Labour government that’s between 60,000 and 120,000 preventable deaths.
The procession of Health Secretaries have spent unlimited billions of pounds but have still failed to sort this out and it is with no pride that national newspapers have berated them with names like Patricia Halfwit for Patricia Hewitt’s efforts and present incumbent Alan Johnson, previously a postman, who, they say, at least knows how the postcode lottery works for treatment.
Before people start pushing for a new bridge and the extra millions of cars that will use it and pollute us, perhaps due consideration should be given to the very serious health implications, at least by the people who live around here.
But the way these New Labour numbtys are going on, and their friends, they will be able to hold their conference, after the next general election, in a telephone box because people are not willing to put up with their sort of nonsense any more.
Alex Moore - Belvedere
A&E working well!
Accident & Emergency is working well at Queen Marys. Is that why it is set to disappear? Like Don Anthony I remember when the NHS was responsive to patients. Now patients can get neglect and malnourishment with modern management systems.
A better option than closing A&E and installing a polyclinic staffed by Barnard and another Sidcup surgery at Queen Mary’s, would be to make the former Lamorbey baths site into a cottage hospital, physiotherapy centre and convalescent home. A small unit based on the Lamorbey site would be accessible for all with excellent transport links.
It appears to me that official thinking, from central DoH and Care Trusts, encourages medics to put their own gain and advancement before that of public health and patient welfare. Politicians’ actions speak louder than their hypocritical words. Health tourism is available for those that can afford to find it, others fall between into the pit of postcode lottery and savage cutbacks on care and attention to our health.
Doctors and dentists are trained and paid by us, why do we not get better care and conditions?
Rita Grootendorst - Sidcup
Athena House - Lift Provision
In its submission to the Appeals Committee, the applicants say in para 5.1 :If the density of development exceeds that of wider areas, the design of the buildings (should be) of exceptional quality so that the building responds in a positive way to the local context.
In one glaring particular, this is NOT the case in the drawings submitted in that for each “core” (4, 6 or 9 storeys) only ONE lift has been provided. In each case one would have expected at least two lifts (particularly in the nine storey block):
(a) to cut down on waiting times, and
(b) for health and safety reasons, for if that one lift goes out of action, residents and visitors would be expected to use the stairs (up to nine Flights), and those who are old and infirm, or not well or in wheel chairs would be “stuck” completely.
I urge that if the Committee is minded to authorise the development, then a condition be imposed requiring the applicants to re-appraise the lift provision and make the necessary alterations.
P. Scopes - Sidcup
• The Appeal is to be heard on the 5/6 March in Room 105 at the Civic offices in the Broadway, Bexleyheath starting at 10 am.