Bexley Council are slamming motorists with a whacking increase in parking penalties - they will increase to £120 for Band ‘A’ and £100 for Band ‘B’ - coinciding with No Smoking day fines on July 1st.
These penalty charges are a joke. Local people we talked to wouldn’t believe it - they will when they see a charge stuck on their windscreen. I wonder where all the money goes?
Orpington Lake
Well, it’s not really a lake but the members of the Society of Model Shipwrights really look forward to their annual regatta at Orpington pond which is being held at 6pm on Friday 29th June. It’s situated on the left hand side of the Orpington bypass just before the traffic lights where you would turn right to the town centre. I wouldn’t miss it. Cruisers, battleships, cruise liners, submarines and sailing craft of every type are on the water, most with automatic steering gear. This year, model-maker supreme Arthur Sheldon, who lives in Sidcup, told me he might take his Tirpitz warship along. He has also made a model of the Bismarck with its formidable gun platforms. Why not go along and support our model makers. You would be welcome, especially with hand-held children, those on a lead and those with their hands in their pockets!
Music & Dance centre
Bexley pupils and their parents are quite rightly up in arms at the sudden closure of the Bexley Academy of Music and Performing Arts. The councils logic with regard to its providers is strange. For example they are only charging the nursery provider Mapalim in the new ｣4m North Cray Neighbourhood Centre a peppercorn rent and a five year lease yet they charged the Sidcup Music & Performing Arts company ｣70,000 a year rent! Now they tell us they are ready to provide special funding for music students. Bexley seems to spend an inordinate amount of money on the arts, music/ dance and the like but don’t appear to have the same appetite for teaching science or physics. Learning to play the recorder at school was always fun and those that wanted to go further made their own arrangements for piano lessons etc. If the public purse has to provide teachers why can’t it become part of Adult education?
Allotment insurance
The article in the Daily Mail about people in Monkton Heathfield, Somerset being ordered to take out a ｣5m liability insurance set allotment holders in Bexley wondering whether our council would do the same. Luckily they are more sensible than the local authorities in Somerset. Bexley does not require individual allotment holders to take out insurance.
In the borough there are eight delegated self-management allotments. They are required to take out public liability insurance, which they do at reasonable rates through the National Allotment Society.
Sheltered Homes
London & Quadrant Housing Association have an amazing relationship with Bexley Council whereby they bought the housing stock for a modest sum, taking rent and service charges from residents and leaseholders including those who moved in to sheltered homes six of which L&Q now want to close. They accept responsibility for the fabric of the buildings but not it seems for their residents leaving Bexley Council with the problem of staffing the sixteen sheltered homes with wardens, cleaners and gardeners. Despite the possible closure of six of the homes, the Chronicle understands that no less than four providers were keen to bid for the contract which Mr Tim Collett, Bexley’s Chief of Supporting People programme, has finally awarded to Kent Community Housing Trust.
It is understood that the decision whether to close the six homes will now be made sometime in September, somewhat later than had been originally forecast which was this February!
Bob Griffiths - Editor