Banking.

Thanks very much to regular reader and occasional contributor, Leslie for sending me the following story prior to it being published in the Bexley edition of the News Shopper. A development company has engaged an architect to design a block of flats which it is proposed would be built in a designated conservation area in the centre of Erith. In addition to the main story, I have been doing some research into the developer, which is called Dhillon's Development Limited, a company that was founded in 2025, with what would appear to be the specific purpose of redeveloping the site. This development is almost certain to be controversial, and cause potential local protests, as it is intended to create a block of flats, five storeys high, directly behind the Running Horses pub in the conservation area of Erith High Street. The proposed block would consist of five one-bedroom, seven two-bedroom and three three-bedroom flats. At the time of writing, it is unclear whether these would be for rental or for sale. Not only would the proposed block overlook the Running Horses, but it would also overlook both sheltered housing and nearby other blocks of flats. It would also change the skyline overlooking the River Thames. This would be the second proposed redevelopment in recent times on Erith High Street, after another high density block of flats is planned for the current site of the popular and well used Post Office, opposite Erith Playhouse theatre. As previously mentioned, Dhillons Development Limited seems to have been set up specifically to redevelop the Running Horses car park. After checking with Companies House, Dhillon's Development Limited was established in February 2025 and has a postal address of 13 Montpelier Avenue, Bexley Village. The address is the former retail unit operated by Independent Television Systems, a company that installed and maintained closed circuit TV equipment and other security devices. I have heard several people's opinions on the proposed block of flats, and none of them have been complementary. The general feeling is that this may be something which will lead to the demolition of the Running Horses building, and another block of flats built on its site. I have also heard that this appears to be building by stealth. I also wonder how the proposed construction of both this block, and the block destined for the Post Office site can be constructed when that area is a designated conservation one. Several people have rather cynically, although probably accurately said that in their opinion, the Council will do whatever they can to build more high density properties, as this generates additional council tax for them. This would be consistent with the behaviour of Bexley Council in recent years when, despite a concerted campaign by local residents to block the construction of flats on the small area of park land in West Street, Erith was overturned by the council and the site was built on. Ironically, at the time of writing I do not believe any of the West Street flats, whilst completed, have actually been sold. I am also of the opinion that local people might also become concerned that the recently renovated Riverside Gardens, which are directly opposite the Running Horses, may once again be threatened with building yet more unwanted flats. I also wonder who exactly the tenants or potential owners of any new flats in the local area would actually be. If the experience in Abbey Wood is anything to go by, then it may well be investors from overseas, who never actually live in or indeed visit their properties, but land bank them as an investment and a way of profiteering. Certain sectors of the public might be of the impression that immigrants would occupy them, but I find this highly unlikely. Whilst a small percentage of people coming to the UK do so with professional qualifications, and go to work for large corporations or set up their own successful businesses. A majority of those asylum seekers who come to the UK legally - or indeed illegally do so with little or no money or other liquidity. They simply could not afford the rent or the mortgage payments on any of the aforementioned apartment blocks. I do find it quite interesting that the majority of the areas being slated for development approval by the council tend to be in the less affluent North of the London Borough of Bexley, rather than in the Southern wards of the borough, which tend to be populated by people more likely to vote for the incumbent Conservative administration. In my opinion, the key to the whole thing is to follow the money. Comments as usual to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

I feel a rant coming on; I have not had one for quite a while – but there is a subject I feel is hiding in plain sight – so called “Clickbait” – websites that exist only to get as many visits as possible to increase the rates that they can charge for online advertising. You often find photos at the bottom of the page on some relatively otherwise reputable websites with titles such as “Hurry up before this video gets banned”, “Eat this and never diet again”, “Rich people try anything to ban this”, “Diet trick that melts fat like butter” and so on. You will have no doubt come across these many times before. You also get what appear to be ads personally directed at yourself. These have titles like “Moms in Dartford earn $30 an hour” – it does not take a genius to work out that an automated script on the web server looks at the I.P address of the incoming page request, does a basic lookup of the I.P address and where it is geographically located, then inserts the name of a nearby town to try and attract your attention. Obviously the word “Mom” instead of “Mum” and the dollar rate quoted give the game away. Click bait is a pox on the web. Not only do they fill your browser with annoying animated adverts, but some pages have code that hijacks your browser and takes you to other unwanted sites. What amazes me is that these Click Baiters have used exactly the same techniques to elicit visits to their tawdry websites in exactly the same way for years; it seems like the techniques still work – as soon as they post an announcement along the lines of “you have to check this out before it is banned” (they love using the threat of something posted online being “banned”) – as to who or what could actually ban something is left unsaid for the reason that the whole thing is blatant tosh designed to farm clicks to create advertising revenue. 

Many readers will be acutely aware of the drastic reduction in the number of high street banks over the last few years. Banks in Erith, Belvedere, Northumberland Heath and Bexleyheath (the former HSBC in Bexleyheath Broadway is shown above, which is to be redeveloped as apartments) have all closed their doors for good. The banks claim that most people now do their banking online, and that they cannot justify maintaining a large network of physical bank branches. This has been challenged in the last week, with a major IT systems outage affecting a number of high street banks online services - principally, but not exclusively Lloyd's. The situation became so bad at Lloyd's that not only was their smartphone app and the web based banking offline, but internal systems were crippled. It became so bad that staff in the few remaining branches, and even in Lloyd's head office buildings in London were sent home, as they were unable to carry out any work, as most of their critical IT systems were down. If this was not challenging enough, there is a new type of bank which is starting to spread around the country – a bank that does not handle cash. It has been known for many years in the wider business community that banks don’t like cash, but this has now been expanded. there are now at least three banks in the UK where the King's face is nowhere to be seen. Barclays – which operates two of the branches in King’s Cross and Hanover Square, both in London – said they are designed for customer meetings with bank staff, while Santander said its cashless branch in Leeds is primarily a co-working hub. Both banks pointed out that the branches are within easy reach of others which do facilitate cash deposits, and Barclays said it has no current plans to expand them elsewhere. For many, paying with notes and coins has become a forgotten habit – leaving us at a loss when we need a pound for the trolley at the supermarket or the locker at the gym.  As many as 23 million people in the UK used cash only once or not at all in 2025, according to the banking trade body UK Finance, an increase of 10 million in just one year. Cash has gone from accounting for more than 17 billion payments – 45 percent of the total number of transactions in 2015 – to just six billion in 2024. The figures for 2025 are as yet unavailable. The number of bank branches has fallen by 5,500, a reduction of more than a third since 2012.

Erith Model Railway Society have recently published the following announcement:- "Erith Model Railway Society CIC is proud to support the annual Charity and Toy Train Fair due to be held on Thursday 27th August 2026 (5.00pm to 9.30pm). The event will be held at its usual location: Falconwood Community Cente, The Green, Welling, Kent DA16 2PG. Tickets available on the door: Adults £1.50, accompanied children Free. A variety of stalls will be attending selling Railway, Transport, Toys and collectables and light refreshments will also be on sale. Free parking on-site and nearby and venue is fully accessible. Nearest bus stop B16 from Welling and Falconwood railway stations. Enquiries: 020 8310 5018 or david.boneafcw1@gmail.com".

Forty one years ago this month, Dire Straits released their fifth album, “Brothers in Arms". It went on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time, it revolutionised the music industry. For the first time, an album sold more on compact disc than on vinyl, and passed the one million units sold  mark. Three years after the first silver discs had appeared in record shops,”Brothers in Arms” was the symbolic milestone that marked the true beginning of the CD era. “Brothers in Arms was the first flag in the ground that made the industry and the wider public aware of the CD’s potential,” said the British Phonographic Industry spokesperson Gennaro Castaldo, who began a long career in retail that year. “It was clear this was a format whose time had come.” CD sales overtook vinyl in 1988 and cassettes in 1991. The 12 centimetre optical disc became the biggest money-spinner the music industry had ever seen, or will ever be likely to see. In 1974, 28-year-old electronic engineer Kees Schouhamer Immink was assigned to the Optics Group of Philips Research in Eindhoven, Holland. His team’s task was to create a 30 centimetre videodisc called Laservision (Laserdisc in Europe), but that flopped (the quality was pretty poor, and the disks were notorious for skipping and stopping dead for no apparent reason) and the focus shifted to designing a smaller audio-only disc. “There were 101 problems to be solved,” Immink said. Meanwhile, in Japan, Sony engineers were working on a similar project. In 1979, Sony and Philips made an unprecedented agreement to pool resources. For example, Sony engineers perfected the error correction code, CIRC, while Immink himself developed the channel code, EFM, which struck a workable balance between reliability and playing time. “We never had people from other companies in our experimental premises,” Immink said. “It was unheard of. Usually you become foes, but in this case we really became good friends, and we're still friends after so many years. It was remarkable, actually.” In June 1980, after complicated negotiations in Tokyo and Eindhoven, the so-called Red Book set standard specifications for the compact disc digital audio format. The story goes that the size (12 cm) and length (74 minutes, 33 seconds) were changed at the eleventh hour when Sony’s executive vice president Norio Ohga allegedly insisted that the disc should have enough space for the longest recorded performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, his wife’s favourite piece of music, but I and others suspect that is an urban myth. There were so many technical and financial considerations that it is unlikely such a key decision came down to one woman’s love of Beethoven – there were simply too many other factors.  The CD was introduced to the British public in a 1981 episode of the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World, in which Kieran Prendiville famously mauled a test disc of the Bee Gees’ Living Eyes to demonstrate the format’s alleged indestructibility – the spreading of jam on the test disc is something that has passed into popular legend.  It caught the public imagination, but Immink found the claim puzzling and embarrassing because it was clearly untrue. “We should not put emphasis on the fact it will last for ever because it will not last forever,” he said. “We should put emphasis on the quality of sound and ease of handling.” (I read an article recently where Paul McCartney recalled the first time George Martin showed him a CD. George said, ‘This will change the world.’ He told us it was indestructible, you can’t smash it. Look! And – whack – it broke in half.” Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler was an early convert (the second track on Pure, Perfect Sound Forever, the promotional 1982 compilation that came free with early CD players, was Dire Straits’ Once Upon a Time in the West). Knopfler insisted on recording Brothers in Arms on state-of-the-art digital equipment, so a promotional partnership was a natural fit. Philips sponsored Dire Straits’ world tour and featured the band in TV commercials with the slogan, attributed to Knopfler: “I want the best. How about you?” Brothers in Arms was an iconic release, the CD came to symbolise the so-called yuppie generation, representing new material success and aspiration. If you owned a CD player it showed you were upwardly mobile. Its significance seemed to go beyond music to a lifestyle statement. CD’s still sell nowadays, but the emphasis on convenience and ease of use of digital download services such as Apple’s ITunes have reduced the demand for physical recordings – it was It was the 2001 launch of the iPod, an aspirational premium product which made MP3s portable, that turned the tide. Before that the MP3 was an inferior good; Once you had the iPod, the CD was an inferior good. It could get cracked or lost, whereas MP3 files lasted.  Not pure, not perfect, but sound for ever. It is just a pity that unless recorded at very high bit rates, MP3 files sound inferior to CD, and way worse that vinyl – my own format of choice to this day. What do you think? Are CD’s on the way out for you? Do you still have a much loved collection of vinyl? 

The end video this week is a bit of local history. It is a 9-minute black and white film comparing the towns of Crayford and Erith, and was shot back in 1966. There is a great deal of footage of both places, showing what the area looked like 60 years ago. Much of the old Erith Town Centre is shown, and it has changed remarkably over the years, whereas Crayford has not changed nearly as much. Give it a watch and if you feel like it, then drop me a line at the usual address - hugh.neal@gmail.com.