Self Service? No Service.

An event took place earlier this week that many had hoped would not happen. Bexley College in Walnut Tree Road was taken over by Bromley College. It has been marketed as a merger by Bromley College, who have also taken over Greenwich Community College. This is to form a new conglomerate called the South East London College Group. Unfortunately in the process, several key members of staff have fallen by the wayside, most notably Danny Ridgeway, the former Principal of Bexley College who has “retired”. The combined college organisation will be headed up by Sam Parrett, the former principal at Bromley College, who is now leading the newly-formed London South East Colleges. The financial success of Bexley College had been in doubt for some time. A combination of cuts in central funding, and a change in the law caused them all sorts of headaches. When the law changed, requiring all young people to remain in full time education or training until the age of eighteen has been very problematic for many further education and community colleges. There is a significant minority for whom education is not suitable, and who would rather be out working (or not, as may be the case). They leave school, sign up for a college course which they don’t attend, and they drop out of education. The funding their sign – up generates is soon cut when their non – attendance is noticed.  Many colleges suffer from “ghost” students to some degree or other. I think the whole ruling that young people should be in full time training or education until the age of eighteen is fundamentally flawed, and really needs to be revisited.

Another piece of bad, but not unexpected news happened this week; Harriet Harper, the Project Manager for Regeneration and Assets for Bexley Council sent the following message to members of Erith Town Forum:- "I am emailing to update you on Erith Market; unfortunately a number of stall holders are unable to attend the market tomorrow and it has therefore had to be cancelled. As you are aware, the market launched as a trial in March and it has proved difficult to establish it as a weekly event in Erith due to a number of reasons. We feel this gives us a good opportunity to evaluate the lessons learned from the trial period and assess it in light of the feedback received. We will be instigating a temporary break for the market and will be working with key partners to re-launch a market later in the year. I trust the above is if assistance and we will continue to keep you informed. Please get in touch with erith@bexley.gov.uk with any feedback on the market that you would like us to consider". Last Wednesday I walked through the market area and there were four traders with stalls; this Wednesday there were none whatsoever. As several readers have told me in the past, it has been held on the wrong day. The most telling content was from a regular reader called Derek:- "I hear are giving Erith Market a trial go. When they know it will fail before they start. They only seem to be catering for the unemployed and the elderly. Because they are the only one that can go to the market. The market should have been bigger and on Wednesdays and Saturdays like it used to be. Saturdays for the people that go to work all week." Several local people have expressed the opinion that the revamped market had been "set up to fail". I must admit that the evidence would seem to support this view at present. It will be interesting to see what happens in future.

Bexley Council are proceeding with the next phase of the selloff of the family silver. Six open spaces are being offered for sale to the highest bidder. The sites being offered for sale are: - a plot of land adjacent to the railway in Gable Close, Crayford, the piece of land at the junction of Bexley Road and Kempton Close, Erith, the Millfield Open Space in Iron Mill Lane, Crayford, the junction of Napier Road and Wellington road in Belvedere;  the land on Holly Hill Road, Erith and the spit of land that separates Fraser Road and Alford Road in Erith. These are all relatively small parcels of land, some of which would have minimal commercial value. One thing that I do notice when looking at the list is that all of the areas are located once again in the Northern part of the London Borough of Bexley. Not one of the areas to be sold off is located in Bexleyheath, Welling, Sidcup or the other wealthier Southern parts of the Borough. This comes as absolutely no surprise; just as Bexley Council forcibly closed (against massive and very well organised opposition) the Belvedere Splash Park, but did not even consider closing the smaller and less popular one in Danson Park. The reason for this is sad, but pretty simple. Bexley Council concentrate on the South of the borough – the reason is that the Conservative majority council see no votes being either won or lost in the predominantly less wealthy, Labour voting North of the Borough. For this reason all of the unpopular money saving / money generating sell off projects the council undertake happen in the North – as this does not affect their primary electoral base in the wealthier, predominantly Conservative voting South. In essence in their eyes they have little or nothing to lose by ignoring the North of the borough.

More promotion is currently being done to encourage local people to book an appointment for a Smart Meter “upgrade”. These meters are part of the "internet of things". I have noticed that several of the national energy companies are currently targeting local residents with letters asking them to make an appointment to get their current electricity and gas meters replaced with a smart meter. Personally I have received three such letters from my energy supplier, EDF. As I have mentioned before, Smart Meters send real – time power usage data back to the supplier via a 3G mobile phone signal. This means that the meter does not have to be connected to a home data network. This sounds all well and good; the power company can bill you without having to send a meter reader to your house, and you get the option to monitor your power usage in an almost real – time way. There are however, problems. The data sent from the Smart Meter to the supplier is sent unencrypted, and “in the clear”; it is possible to intercept the data stream, and also a malicious attacker can potentially send instructions to the meter remotely. Several Smart Meter companies do tacitly admit this, but they play the whole lack of security aspect down. Secondly if one discounts the security implications, the various energy companies all supply different makes of Smart Meters, many of which are incompatible with each other. If you choose to change your energy supplier at some point in the future, you will need to have your Smart Meter changed again – with the associated additional cost to you that this implies. Tellingly on the EDF letter there are a series of frequently asked questions. EDF initially state in the letter that “your current meter is old and now needs to be replaced – you need to book an appointment for an engineer to carry out this work”. They then go on to stress how old meters can be inaccurate and possibly unsafe. There is a giveaway in the FAQ’s that follow though – and I quote verbatim:- “Occasionally we may be unable to install a Smart Meter, usually due to communications issues with signal strength. If this happens we will not replace your meter, but will contact you again when we believe the Smart Meter national infrastructure will be able to support a Smart Meter in your premises.” There is the smoking gun – they don't actually need to replace the meter for the accuracy and safety concerns expressed earlier – they purely want to do it to make you have a Smart Meter, with all the security, privacy and expense worries that they entail. I have a preferred technique for dealing with such unwanted attention – I ignore everything they send me until they eventually give up and go away. Smart Meters primarily benefit the energy companies, because they no longer need to employ meter readers. The benefits to the consumer are minimal at best, and when allied to the security and compatibility concerns mentioned earlier, they don't add up for me. As always, your mileage may vary.

Work continues on the Crossrail development, with much development continuing on the stretch between Plumstead and the terminus at Abbey Wood. In many ways this is one of the most complex parts of the entire Crossrail project (and before anyone comments “it is called the Elizabeth Line now” – it will only take on the new name when the entire project is completed and officially opened – until then it is still the Crossrail project). The Crossrail project will arguably be more transformational at Abbey Wood than anywhere else along the route. The Elizabeth line will halve journey times to many central London destinations and add twelve trains an hour to the services already provided by the operator Southeastern. The new station will open for Southeastern passengers in December 2017. From December 2018, an Elizabeth line train every five minutes at peak times will allow passengers to travel right through central London to Paddington. From December 2019, when the full route opens, passengers will be able to catch one train right through central London to Heathrow or Reading in the west. When fully open in 2019 it will add ten percent capacity to central London’s rail network, bringing an extra 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of central London. The Crossrail project is also helping to drive regeneration along the length of the route. It has been projected that new line will support the delivery of over 57,000 new houses. Nearly half of planning applications within a kilometre of an Elizabeth line station has cited the new railway as a justification for the development proceeding, equating to around 5.3 million square feet of residential, commercial and retail space. One quite eye opening example is the journey time from the new Abbey Wood Station to Heathrow Terminal Four (the furthest terminal by train) will be only fifty one minutes. This figure is going to be the cause of much worry to mini cab operators all around the local area; a cab from Abbey Wood to Heathrow costs around £55 and can take up to a couple of hours, depending on the level of traffic congestion. Whilst the fare structure for Crossrail has yet to be published, I think it will be highly unlikely that the fare from Abbey Wood will cost anything like £55, and the journey time will be so much shorter. This is going to prove a real challenge to mini cab companies. I am aware that for many of them, airport trips are their “bread and butter”, as they are far more profitable than short tips to and from pubs or shops. I wonder how many companies will go under once the rail service is fully operational? It seems to me that mini cabs will be mainly confined to running short journeys rather than the profitable long haul journeys of yore with a consequent drop in income. What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The photo above shows Erith Odeon cinema and the RACS shop adjacent to it, on opposite sides of James Watt Way. The photo was taken in July 1966. In 1936 Coles designed the "Odeon", Erith as an absolutely typical Odeon, with its slim faience-faced advertising tower contrasting with the more horizontally emphasized brick and faience body of the cinema. It opened on 26 February 1938 and seated 1,240 people. The cinema was later used as a bingo hall but was later illegally demolished (it was a Grade 2* listed building) and now a block of flats with offices and the new Erith Library stand in its place. The RACS shop has also long been demolished, and is now the site of a KFC drive through takeaway. The dockside cranes that can be seen in the distance between the buildings are now where the giant Morrison's supermarket is now located. 

Malcolm Knight of “Bexley is Bonkers” reported earlier this week on a meeting of Bexley Transport User’s Sub Committee that took place on the 21st July. An issue was raised at the meeting which struck me as being of particular interest. Malcolm wrote:- “The police reported that they had issued a couple of speeding tickets but “the big issue” for the borough is people riding motorcycles without helmets. “They are very much aware that by not wearing a helmet there is nothing we can do. There is a group of people who will not wear a helmet specifically so that we can't pursue them.” Councillor Brian Beckwith (Conservative, Blackfen and Lamorbey) asked how many hand held speed cameras there were to cover the whole borough. The answer was two. Councillor John Davey (Conservative, Crayford) said the helmetless riders were wearing balaclavas and they were doing “wheelies on the pavement” and “not chasing them was absolutely ludicrous. It sends out completely the wrong message”. The police officer agreed but then dropped back into politically correct mode. Sometimes air support is called in to track the bikers “but it is not always practical. I don’t know what the answer is and I don’t see it changing”. From the research that I have carried out, it would seem that the Police are in a very difficult situation. One quotation I have read from an inside source said “British police very rarely engage in pursuits of any kind and need to get permission before they do engage. Police have a responsibility to protect the wellbeing of both those being pursued as well as the general public. Being pursued by the police frequently causes collisions that can kill or injure those being pursued and/or innocent bystanders. Motorcyclists are at such high risk of injury or death that police would never pursue, a motorcyclist without a helmet is a full scale deflection on the "will this pursuit kill someone" scale”. The problem with this policy is the message that it sends to the offenders and potential offenders – if you don’t wear a helmet (an offence in itself) you will in essence be immune from consequence. The Metropolitan Police have a set of guidelines that state that criminals on motorbikes or scooters that are not wearing crash helmets should only be pursued by Police helicopters. The demands on the helicopter crews are high, as anyone who has watched any of the numerous TV documentary series on Police chases will understand. It costs somewhere between £850 and £1000 per hour to operate a Police helicopter – which is usually considerably more expensive than the resale value of any bike or scooter being ridden illegally. It is a conundrum what to do in situations such as this, though I do feel that the current position of the Police Service actually does nobody any benefit. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

As I have previously written, I am of the opinion that other than for very specific uses (such as exercise and health monitoring) Smart Watches are a solution in need of a problem. Now, for some users a serious health related matter has come up with one fairly popular brand. Intel has recalled every single one of its Basis Peak smartwatches – as well as urging people to stop using them – because they can become dangerously hot. In June, San Francisco-based Basis Sciences – which Intel bought in 2014 – warned that its Peak smartwatches can cause skin burns and blistering, and hoped to issue a firmware update to correct the problem. It turns out that was impossible without stripping out most or all of its features. An Intel spokesperson said "We are issuing this safety recall of the Basis Peak watch because the watch can overheat, which could result in burns or blisters on the skin surface. It is important that you stop using your watch immediately and return it. Although we are stopping support for Basis Peak immediately, you can access your data until December 31, 2016. After that date, the Basis Peak services will be turned off. Once we shut down the services, your watch will no longer be able to sync, which will cause it to stop working". Some commentators have observed that it is entirely possible that Intel just got bored of running a smartwatch cloud service and pulled the plug, using the overheating problem as a convenient stopping point.

A report was published this week, the findings of which surprise me not in the slightest. A new report from its Department of Criminology at the University of Leicester suggests that supermarket self-checkout technology encourages even normally honest shoppers to commit theft. The report found that installing self-service checkouts raises lost revenue by 122 percent. Some of it is accidental – people forget to scan items, or get confused by instructions; other times shoppers get so frustrated with self-service kiosks that they feel justified in not paying. But the report  states that mostly people shoplift because the technology makes it so easy. Mobile phone scanning technology is just as vulnerable – the study found that at the end of a typical shopping trip, up to ten percent of items had not been scanned, leading to “shrinkage” (loss through wastage or theft) of about 3.9 percent of turnover. Unfortunately the technology makes it very difficult to prove that customers are deliberately stealing. One retailer admitted they almost never prosecute people. For that reason supermarkets are now introducing tagging systems so un-scanned items trigger alarms. Supermarkets such as Morrison’s in Erith have now expanded the number of self – service checkouts so that now half of all tills are of this type. Finding an open, traditionally staffed checkouts are becoming a challenge to find.  I have been told that the cost savings in checkout staff wage reductions is more than offset by both the increase in stock theft and the requirement to hire more security guards – who in any case are usually on a higher hourly rate than the checkout staff that they replace. I have always wondered why you have to pay the same price for an item when it is purchased via a self – service till when compared to a traditional one – after all, you are doing work on behalf of the supermarket, and surely this should be reflected in a cheaper cost? Personally I refuse to ever use self-service tills – why have a dog and bark yourself? I would not be at all surprised if the losses incurred via self-service till thefts cause the big supermarkets to re-think their strategy – which at no point is aimed at helping the customer – it is purely about making it as easy for the supermarket to collect money as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

You may have heard that the BBC is going to start enforcing licence fee payment by people watching BBC iPlayer. People who watch BBC programmes only on iPlayer will be required to buy a TV licence to view the content from 1 September. Previously a licence was only needed to watch live broadcasts, so catch-up content was technically exempt from the £145-50 annual fee. But due to a change in the law, a licence will be needed to download or watch BBC programmes on demand. Those who already have a TV licence will not be affected. Personally I have a licence, so will not be affected by this change, but I can foresee a lot of problems in enforcing this new regulation - in fact I think the BBC are making a rod for their own back - but they seem not to have realised this yet. In the "olden days" of analogue televisions with Cathode Ray Tube displays, BBC Detector Vans could patrol the streets - the vans detected the leaked local oscillator from the first stage of the radio receivers that picked up the TV signal. Colour TVs had more receivers to pick up the colour signals, and so could be distinguished from black and white sets. The local oscillators themselves could be quite powerful (as these things go), around about 1mW, so they were easily detected in the street having leaked back through cheap mixers and up the aerial cable. The same thing still applies today for Freeview digital sets. One of the problems I think they'll have with this new technology is that they cannot identify the people using devices. I will explain with the following theoretical scenario:- I have a TV licence, I'm entitled to watch BBC anywhere in the UK, including when I use a public WiFi network such as BT WiFi. I go to a friend's house, who has a BT hub. I use the BT WiFi that their BT hub has switched on by default. That friend has not got a TV licence, and I'm watching BBC at their place but not on their private WiFi that comes from the same BT Hub. However the BBC cannot tell the difference; they are not allowed to examine the network data packet contents, encrypted or not. Effectively they are doing a primitive traffic flow analysis attack on encrypted communications. Only the likes of the NSA and GCHQ have the kind of hardware, software and skilled operators to successfully undertake this kind of work. Another problem - two adjoined houses have their living rooms next to each other. The WiFi routers are in the same corner of the rooms, separated by only a couple of feet and the partition wall. One of the houses has a TV licence, the other one does not. I bet they are unable to direction find the emissions to the accuracy required to tell which of those WiFi routers is in which house. My fear is that the BBC will be too aggressive with prosecutions, and the courts will take an unreasonably optimistic view of the reliability of the technology. The UK courts have not exactly been that clever at sorting scientific fact from pseudo-fact, and there's too many holes in this technique for it to be relied upon as the sole evidence required to jail someone. The Courts have been appallingly willing to accept scientific evidence with low probabilities of correctness as being evidential fact. If an 'expert' states in court that something is fact then the court accepts that, and no amount of dissenting scientific opinion will change their mind. As defence you're not even allowed to challenge the "expert" evidence in court or even discuss probabilities. I feel the new licence conditions will be un - policeable, and unenforceable. 

The ending video this week shows the work that has been going on at London Bridge Station for the last few years. For those who use the station on a regular basis during the construction work, it has been a real pain, but when one sees what has been going on behind the scenes, the transformation and renewal is extremely impressive, and will be even more so when it is all finished in another couple of years from now.  See what you think. 

The Osprey.

As I scooped back in March, Bexley College have now signed up to a "merger" with Bromley College, which should put the Erith based Bexley College in a better financial position. This will happen on the 1st of August. Several heads have rolled in the process, most notably that of Bexley College Principal Danny Ridgeway. I predicted he would be sacrificed when I first wrote about the situation back on the 20th March. I copped quite a lot of flak back then for what I wrote. I had been contacted by two Bexley College insiders with the "smoking gun" regarding the effective takeover of the institution by Bromley College, and I then carried out due dilligence by referring the story to someone with impeccable insight who shall remain anonymous. Suffice to say everything I wrote back then is about to, or has already come to pass. It is a sad situation for Bexley College to find itself in, only a scarce two years from opening its shiny new campus on Walnut Tree Road. I just hope that the college can come out of this stronger than before. On Wednesday the Bexley Times published details of the "merger" and announced that Danny Ridgeway would be retiring as Principal of Bexley College. Make of this what you will. Comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

News broke this week that the Peabody Trust is set to spend £1.5 billion in renovating and expanding the housing in and around Thamesmead. They intend extensively refurbishing many of the existing tower blocks, as well as building  a total of twenty five thousand new homes. This will make Thamesmead the same size as the city of Winchester. By the year 2024 more than £20 billion will have been invested in the area. The existing brutalist concrete tower blocks will be maintained, although they will be extensively refurbished inside and out, as well as being re – clad with a modern finish. The existing low level housing will be demolished and replaced with new housing. All of this investment and redevelopment is down to the imminent arrival of Crossrail at Abbey Wood. The travel times into central London will be drastically cut when the service opens – Abbey Wood to Canary Wharf will take eleven minutes, and to Tottenham Court Road will take around twenty minutes. The Peabody Trust owns eighty percent of the land in Thamesmead, and is understood to be lobbying Sadiq Khan, the new Mayor of London to extend the Docklands Light Railway to Thamesmead, and to get a river crossing between Thamesmead and Dagenham. It will be a tough task to rebuild and re – image Thamesmead – whilst it was conceived and constructed as a modern “city in the air”, due to poor design the town soon gained a reputation for crime and anti – social behaviour. The high level walkways were designed to avoid flooding, and the underground car parks which were designed to optimise the use of space actually acted as dark and unseen areas where drug dealing and vandalism could take place. As the town went downhill, it became a dumping ground for problem families from around Greater London, and the situation became a vicious circle.  In an interview with the Times on Monday this week, spokesperson for Peabody, Pauline Ford said “This is a great opportunity to release the potential of this sleeping beauty; the perceptions formed by A Clockwork Orange are just wrong, but we know that we need to spend a great deal of money on good design. This is a place on the cusp of something special”. In the same article, long time Thamesmead resident Douglas Rove said “We were promised the earth to move here; I hate living here now, all of the people have come in are riff – raff”. He also worries that Peabody will “gentrify” Thamesmead by building bistros and wine bars “Plans like that are not for people who live here now are they? They are hoping that the locals will move out, and the yuppies will move in”. The good news is that in addition to the refurbishment of the existing tower blocks, and the construction of new low level housing, there will be a new library, cinema, shops and public squares. The Times reports that between five and eight thousand new local jobs will be created to serve the new development, though the increase in property prices may well prevent locals from affording the new houses and apartments. Peabody admit that they are part funding the development by counting on the new property prices rising, and that they will be selling off some of the development in order to finance the rest. This may become a self – fulfilling prophesy if recent events can be taken into consideration; house prices in Abbey Wood have shot up by thirty five percent in the last year, and Thamesmead will surely follow suit. What do you think? Are you affected by the forthcoming redevelopment work? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Online shopping is hitting a major problem. The keen prices many online retailers can offer when compared to a high street shop may soon be at an end. The reason is straightforward – the huge number of items ordered on the web which are subsequently returned to the vendor – usually at the vendor’s expense. A quarter of handbags and a fifth of shoes are returned as unsuitable. There is a discernible pattern of returns; women are far more likely to return an item bought online compared with men, who seem to only return items when they are actually faulty. A study by Barclaycard found that one in four women admitted to ordering more goods online than they intended to keep. In comparison only one man in ten did the same thing. The practice is driving up the cost of internet shopping as websites struggle the sheer volume of items  coming back. The study also discovered that one in six items of clothing bought online is returned, with twenty percent of women admitting to ordering the same garment in several sizes to see one fits best. Man apparently are far less likely to do this. “The speed and convenience of online shopping, and the speed and convenience of returning has led to the emergence of the serial returner, and women are far more likely to fall into this category. Shoppers are deliberately over purchasing safe in the knowledge that they can choose from the ever growing number of ways to quickly and easily send items back, such as hourly courier services and local drop – off points. With six in ten consumers saying that a website’s returns policy impacts their purchasing decision, online retailers are caught between trying to attract customers and remaining competitive whilst also ensuring that they protect their bottom line”. The study pointed out that online businesses did not always lose out, as more than a quarter of shoppers saying that they had intended to return an unwanted or faulty item bought online, but they had never go round to it.

The photo above was taken by me last Sunday, as I returned home from the “Our Erith” art exhibition held at Christ Church, Erith. I was walking over the railway bridge at Bexley Road when I noticed some workers on the railway line. I surmised that as the line was shut for further engineering work on the Crossrail development between Abbey Wood and Plumstead, it would appear that the local maintenance teams are taking the opportunity of the closed line to carry out some repairs. The photo shows the workers a couple of hundred metres outside of Erith station, on the Slade Green and Dartford bound line. The freight trains one sees on a fairly regular basis travelling on the North Kent line almost exclusively transport sand and gravel to various sites in the region. They load up at Angerstein Wharf, which is located on the banks of the River Thames between Charlton and Greenwich. There is a branch line which connects to the main line just outside of Charlton station on the London bound side. This branch line is believed to be the oldest privately owned standard gauge siding in the world. Angerstein Wharf was built and opened by Russian born Charlton landowner John Angerstein in 1852 in order to get rail access to the to Angerstein Wharf on the River Thames; it also ran deep into the old East Greenwich gas works. Nowadays it is purely used for freight. Many of the ballast and gravel trains one sees passing along the North Kent line divert onto the Angerstein Wharf branch line. Gravel and sand that has been dredged from the sea is collected by the freight trains for use in the construction industry. No passenger trains run on the branch line, with the notable exception of the very rare special trains run by railway enthusiasts, which as far as I can tell, last travelled along the Angerstein Wharf branch line back on the 8th of November 2014. You can see a video of this unusual journey by clicking here. 

One of the problems associated with increased density of housing in any area is the requirement for improved infrastructure to cope – better water, electricity gas and drainage are needed whenever new properties are built. Unfortunately this is not always the case. Once again the residents of Sandcliff Road have got raw sewage flowing down their road. They are intensely annoyed - and with good reason. They are blighted by the incompetence of Thames Water. Ever since 1998 the road has had drainage problems – a giant chemical effluent leak caused several thousand gallons of industrial liquid waste to seep up through the drains and flood a number of houses in the road; I recall at the time that several houses were evacuated for months on end – and one was condemned as unfit for human habitation. Thames Water were subsequently fined £250,000 by the Department of the Environment for the spillage, and their apparent inability to properly organise the subsequent clean up. There have been a number of sewage floods in the road since, to the point where locals re – named the road “Poo Mews”. It strikes me that the local residents are blighted not just by the actual floods, but by the damage to the reputation of the road. I would be surprised if house prices are badly affected by the situation – after all, who would want to live in an area where you had a strong chance of ending up knee deep in other people’s number twos when you ventured outside your front door? From Thames Water’s perspective, it is a PR disaster; I think the main reason that they don’t take a more proactive approach to the problem is that Sandcliff Road is a little travelled side lane, with a predominantly working class population. If a flood of dung was to happen in somewhere rather more affluent (rather than effluent) like Bexley Village, I reckon that the “sharp elbowed middle classes” would have got a rather better reaction from the powers that be. I have walked down Sandcliff Road several times recently, and I can confirm the aroma of multiple bowel movements is hard to ignore; it is just as well I am a non-smoker, as the volume of methane in the air could well be close to a combustible level. I feel sorry for the residents, and hope that the problem can eventually be resolved. The existing drains are not up to the job(by), and really need to be completely replaced. The problem will only get worse when the nearby Erith Quarry site becomes operational.

Commercially viable (rather than just experimental) magnetic tape recording had its seventieth birthday last week - an event which has not been covered in the press.  Thanks to the good fortune of suffering from insomnia, a curious observation by John T. "Jack" Mullin led to the introduction of tape recording and, by extension, the entire home media business. Mullin, a slight and surprisingly humble man, considering his future status in the recording business, graduated from the University of Santa Clara with a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1937, then worked for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph in San Francisco until the war started. By 1944, he had attained the rank of major in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and was attached to the RAF's radar research labs in Farnborough, England. While working late that spring night, Mullin was happy to find something pleasing playing on the radio — the Berlin Philharmonic playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on Radio Berlin. But Mullin was mystified: The performance's fidelity was far too fine to be a 16-inch wax disc recording, the prevailing radio recording technology at the time. And since there were no breaks every 15 minutes to change discs, Mullin figured it had to be a live broadcast. But it couldn't be — if it was 2 am in London, it was 3 am in Berlin. Mullin was right — the orchestra wasn’t up late, and it was a recording. Just not the usual kind, which is why Mullin was confused. After the war, Mullin was assigned to the Technical Liaison Division of the Signal Corp in Paris. "Our task, amongst other things, was to discover what the Germans had been working on in communications stuff — radio, radar, wireless, telegraph, teletype," explained Mullin. Mullin ended up in Frankfurt on one such expedition. There he encountered a British officer, who told him a rumour about a new type of recorder at a Radio Frankfurt station in Bad Nauheim. Mullin didn't exactly believe the report — he had encountered dozens of low-fi magnetic recorders all over Germany. He pondered his decision of pursuing the rumour, literally, at a fork in the road. To his right lay Paris, to the left, Radio Frankfurt. Fortuitously for the future of the home media business, Mullin turned left. He found four hi-fi Magnetophons and some 50 reels of red oxide BASF tape. He tinkered with them a bit back in Paris and made a report to the Army. "We now had a number of these lying around. I packed up two of them and sent them home (to San Francisco). Souvenirs of war. "(You could take) almost anything you could find that was not of great value. (And) anything Germany had done was public domain — it was not patentable." He also sent himself the 50 reels of the red-oxide coated tape. When Mullin returned home, he started tinkering to improve the Magnetophons. On May 16, 1946, exactly 70 years ago last week, Mullin stunned attendees at the annual Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) conference in San Francisco by switching between a live jazz combo and a recording, literally asking the question "Is it live or...?" None of the golden ears in the audience could tell. It was the world's first public demonstration of audio tape recording. Bing Crosby hated doing live radio. And he hated recording his shows on wax records because the fidelity sounded terrible to the noted aural perfectionist performer. When Crosby's engineers heard about Mullin and his Magnetophons, they quickly hired him and his machine. In August 1947, Crosby became the first performer to record a radio programme on tape; the show was broadcast on October 1st. Bing Crosby wasn't the only one interested in Mullin's Magnetophons. Up in Redwood City, California, a small company called Ampex was looking for something to replace the radar gear they'd been producing for the government. Ampex hooked up with Mullin and, in April 1948, perfected and started selling the first commercially available audio tape recorder, the Ampex Model 200. Crosby, Mullin, Ampex and American electronics giant RCA all sort of formulated the same follow-up thought at around the same time: If you could record audio on tape, why not video? Crosby and Mullin teamed up. Ampex formed a team that included a high school student named Ray Dolby. And David Sarnoff gave his engineers their marching orders. A highly-public race began to see who could invent the video tape recorder. Ampex had a leg up on its more well-heeled competition. It had a deal with a Chicago research consortium called Armour Research Institute, now the Illinois Institute of Technology. Working for Armour was none other than wire recording maven Marvin Camras, who solved the most vexing problem facing all the video tape inventor wannabees: Tape speed. Audio recording is accomplished by pulling tape past a stationary recording head. Video, however, is a far fatter signal, which meant tape had to be pulled past the recording heads at ridiculous speeds. A two-foot wide reel of tape could hold, tops, 15 minutes of video — not exactly practical. So instead of spinning the tape, Camras, who got the idea from watching vacuum cleaner brushes, he calculated that he would spin the recording heads instead. Once Ampex got ahold of this key, its engineers shot past Crosby/Mullin and RCA. Even with the spinning head secret, it took five years for Ampex's sometimes part-time six-member team to get things right. On April 14, 1956 — 60 years ago last month — Ampex introduced the desk-sized Mark IV, the first commercial video tape recorder, to a stunned group of TV execs and engineers at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Chicago. To say that this machine changed the world is an obvious understatement. It would take almost another 10 years before Philips reduced audio tape to a cassette and ignited the home audio recording craze, and another nearly 10 years before Sony introduced the Betamax and won a U.S Supreme Court case to allow users to legally record TV shows at home and create the home video business. The U.K had few such concerns - one of the reasons why Britain had the largest number of video recorders per head of population back in the 80's / 90's. Ultimately it was the introduction of Jack Mullin's rebuilt Magnetophons that were the first shots fired in the home media revolution, 70 years ago last week - and nothing got mentioned in the popular press, more is the pity.

If you were around the Northumberland Heath / Erith / Slade Green area on Wednesday afternoon, you might well have seen something extremely unusual flying overhead at around 4.45pm. A rather strange machine called a Bell – Boeing V-22 Osprey. The Osprey is  an American multi-mission, tiltrotor military aircraft with both vertical take - off and landing (VTOL), and short take - off and landing (STOL) capabilities. It is designed to combine the functionality of a conventional helicopter with the long-range, high-speed cruise performance of a turboprop aircraft. I have found out that several of these unusual aircraft are being leased by the Ministry of Defence from the Americans, and British pilots are currently undergoing training from U.S Marine and Army flying instructors here in the U.K. The Ospreys are going to be used to transport special forces troops in the event of a Paris – type terrorist attack in the U.K. The Osprey is almost twice as fast as the SAS’s current fleet of transport helicopters and can carry at least 24 fully equipped personnel. With a top speed of 360 mph it can deploy soldiers from Hereford to London in 30 minutes to bolster the SAS’s anti-terror squad which is permanently based in the capital, and to Manchester in about the same time. The Osprey has machine guns installed in the nose and on the rear ramp. Its range is also much greater than transport helicopters currently in service. It can fly for up to 1,000 miles or eight hours without refuelling, meaning that if terrorists launch strikes across the UK, the same aircraft could fly troops to several locations. I am guessing that the Osprey seen over Erith on Wednesday afternoon was travelling from London down to Chatham, where The Royal Engineers have a large base. The Chinook helicopters currently used for anti – terrorist operations also travel down to Chatham for weekly maintenance and repair sessions. I would expect that we will see more of the Ospreys flying over the local area from now on. At least now you know why.

One of Britain's oldest people died this week - and he lived in Erith. 105 year old Frederick ‘Fred’ Salter died in the Queen Elizabeth hospital on Sunday, May 8. In 2010 he was presented with his Pride of Britain award by Strictly Come Dancing host Bruce Forsyth, with Prince Charles and prime minister David Cameron present at the ceremony. The reason for this was that he took up competitive ballroom dancing at the age of 90, after his family encouraged him to get out of the house more often. Although he suffered a minor stroke in 2010, which caused him to lose the power of speech for about a month, he recovered and returned to the dancefloor. He was also a keen football fan; he was made a patron of Charlton Athletic - he had a great love of the club. Mr Salter is survived by four of his five children and more than 35 great grandchildren.

The end video this week is a piece of local history; it shows Abbey Wood and Thamesmead back in 1968, just as the first phases of Thamesmead opened to residents. I have to say that the amateur footage does make the newly completed apartment towers look very fresh and inviting. Much of the brutalist architecture has now already been demolished, or shortly will be as part of the Peabody funded regeneration, as discussed earlier. If you have any memories of Thamesmead's early days that you would like to share, then drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Bexley College on the brink.

Jane and Cliff Murphy of the Bexley Brewery, accompanied by their son Cameron, were guests of local MP David Evennett at the House of Commons on Wednesday. Their excellent BOB (Bexley's Own Beer) is now being sold in the Strangers Bar in the Palace of Westminster. Bearing in mind that Bexley Brewery only opened in September 2014, they have come a hell of a long way in a very short time. They have won multiple awards for the quality of their ales, and were also recognised as the best new business in Bexley last year.  Contact details for the brewery are above. I can heartily recommend them; you can usually find me visiting the brewery shop on a Friday lunchtime.

If you don't already read The Thamesmead Grump, then I would strongly advise you to do so. Richard produces some very interesting posts, and the quality of his photography is second to none. This week Richard covers the threat posed to the Crossness Nature Reserve, which is now under threat of being virtually wiped out by a massive development proposed by Cory Environmental on part of the brownfield site next to the reserve. If this were to go ahead, it would completely overwhelm the designated nature reserve and destroy most of the last remaining grazing marshes in South East London. Richard writes: "As part of a campaign against this proposal, there is going to be photoshoot at the nature reserve at 10:30am on Friday 1st April (this is not a hoax) where we hope to get as many people as possible for a group photograph that can be used for press release. There will be banners and Skylark kites for protesters to wave so please do come along if you can and bring your friends and family too. You can find directions easily by Googling Crossness Nature Reserve". I fully support both Richard, and the campaign to protect and preserve the nature reserve. If you get the chance, please do go along to support this worthwhile cause.

You may recall that a while ago I wrote an extensive piece on the rogue biker gang Bike Life TV UK, and how they had been causing all kinds of mayhem in Lower Belvedere, Abbey Wood and Thamesmead. I knew that the Police were well aware of the illegal activities of the gang, and had plans to take action against them. On Thursday morning Bexley police released the following statement “An operation was carried out on 28th February utilising approximately 40 officers from various specialist units across the Metropolitan Police Service. This included officers from the Roads and Transport Policing Command, the Territorial Support Group and local officers from Bexley. A group of 20 motor cycles were identified early by unmarked Police vehicles travelling to the area. The group were stopped dealt with by Police resulting in a large number of vehicle seizures for offences such as no insurance and no MOT. A large number of fixed penalty notices were also issued and several riders were reported and summonsed for court for various traffic offences. 4 arrests were also made for offences such as Burglary, Possession of drugs and driving under the influence of drugs.  Of note one of the main organisers of the activity, who was disqualified from driving, had been identified as being involved in activity the previous week on Sunday 21st February. He was arrested early on the Sunday morning and later charged and remanded to court the next morning. He appeared at Bexley Magistrates Court on Monday 29th February and received a 12 week custodial sentence. Police have continued with the same plans for the past two weeks deploying large numbers of officers to the area. We are pleased to report that there have been no incidents involving motor cycle related Anti-Social behaviour for three weeks running. The tactics will continue moving forward and robust action taken against anyone found engaging in such activity in the future". This is all excellent news; I know of many honest, law abiding bikers who were severely ticked off by the activities of the illegal bikers, which reflected badly on the honest ones. Hopefully the members of Bike Life TV UK will realise that their activities will not be tolerated. They are a menace to both the general public and themselves.

A very strange story broke earlier this week, and it seems to have grabbed the attention of a lot of local people. A two year old girl from Greenhithe made the local news after losing her soft toy rabbit outside of the National Westminster Bank in Townley Road, Bexleyheath. An eyewitness believes he saw the toy – called Bunny, being carried away by a woman five minutes after the discovery was made - but nobody else was able to verify this.  After a public appeal, the News Shopper published the story on their website, and it quickly became the most read subject. The toy bunny was later found abandoned in Erith – whoever had taken it had then decided to dump the stolen property. Fortunately the little girl was reunited with the toy, and the story has a happy ending.

In a notification letter dated March 10, American Express warned  cardholders that their account information might well have been exposed after a third-party service provider suffered a data breach. They sent an email to card owners which said "Account information of some of our Card Members, including some of your account information, may have been involved. It is important to note that American Express owned or controlled systems were not compromised by this incident,"  The third-party provider, which isn't named, is engaged by several merchants. Cardholders should expect that their account number, name, and other card details were compromised. The interesting aspect of this notification is that the incident being referenced by American Express happened on Saturday, December 7, 2013. It isn't clear why the there was such a delay. American Express says the notification is just a precaution. The fact that two and half years have elapsed since the security breach was detected and the announcement was made is extremely worrying. Any damage will have been long done – it really makes me wonder what security notification policies a large financial services organisation such as American Express have in place.

An interesting story has come to light this week, with a result that I must admit did somewhat surprise me. The survey results on the Transport for London proposals for the East of London river crossings have now been published. Consultation on the proposals, which closed last month, showed that 88 per cent of people who responded support a new crossing linking Thamesmead and Beckton, or Belvedere to Rainham. Around 3,500 (77 per cent) support new crossings at both locations, which TfL says would cater for public transport and road users and help secure London’s future success. Bearing in mind the anti-river crossing campaigns run by both Bexley Council and the campaign group Bexley Against River Crossings (BARC), the results are pretty conclusive. It would seem to me that after open consultation, both Bexley Council and BARC have demonstrably shown that they don’t have a mandate on the matter. BARC in particular seem to have positioned themselves against mainstream public opinion with their policy to keep Bexley isolated from the rest of London in order to “preserve its character”. In an interview with the Bexley Times, as spokesperson for BARC was quoted as saying "Overall the consultation was inadequate and certainly not fit for purpose. More than two million people will suffer because of the crossings - 4500 respondents is hardly representative. Further, the consultation was flawed and gave the misleading impression that the road crossings would reduce congestion; it is clear that many people responded on that basis. There is overwhelming evidence that this kind of road capacity always increases congestion and destroys communities, yet the consultation did not tell people that, nor did it point out the dangers posed by the increased pollution and decimation of housing that will result from the crossings.” Personally I understand and can sympathise with the sentiments, but it would seem that the public have sent a very strong message that they want more crossings. Getting 4500 responses is actually very high; these kind of consultations tend to have very low levels of response, as most people don't care enough to bother giving feedback, or they don't find out about the survey until they read the results. I think BARC overestimate the level of resident engagement. As if this was not enough, rent a gob champagne socialist Russell Brand has got involved. A third river crossing has been mooted to join East Thurrock and Eastern Gravesend. Brand made the following statement on Wednesday “To build this new crossing they’re going to have mess with green belt land, dig up green belt land, destroy some new homes that were built for people, those people are going to have to be jogged on from their homes, even though they’ve just moved in. And the thing that touches me most - is there’s a school called Treetops which helps kids with Asperger’s, autism and mild learning difficulties of all varieties - they were going to expand that school that school had won its dream for expansion but now not only is the expansion scrapped that school is going to be subsumed in fumes and pollution unless we do something to stop it. Now this was the birthplace of the peasant revolution Thurrock, that’s where Wat Taylor who led the peasants - and I’m not making any comparison - that’s where he came from”. The points made about Treetops School are very valid, and would normally deserve serious debate and examination. The problem is the person who has raised them. Brand would have been better off encouraging another public personality with better credibility taking on the campaign. For me, and many others Russell Brand is like Chris Evans – an instant turn – off; if I catch him on the TV or radio I immediately switch channels. He removes credibility from any argument against a road crossing East of the QEII bridge. It is not like he has any recent connections with the area around Thurrock nowadays – he famously moved out as soon as he was able. Nowadays his main residence is in the Hollywood Hills in California. I occasionally see Russell Brand on the London bound platform at Greenwich Station – when I then studiously ignore the blatant self-publicist. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

I have received some rather worrying news from one of my confidential sources. I have been informed that Bexley College is in dire financial straits, and that things are so bad the college may be forced into a hostile takeover by Bromley College, who are already taking over the failing and bankrupt Greenwich Community College. My contact tells me that the information about the terrible state of the finances of Bexley College is virtually unknown outside of college senior management, and a few people in Bexley Council. I have been shown meeting minutes from 6th July 2015 , which show Bexley College predicted a deficit of £689,000 for 2015/16 (college financial years are August to July) and a cash loss of £660,000,  and with £2 million in reserves, it would leave a cash balance of just £1.34m. However, it then said by the end of July 2017 it would be down to £500,000. A predicted loss of £840,000 is forecast in 2016/17. The “smoking gun” can be seen here – the takeover is being sold to Councillors as a “merger” but my source tells me that this is for political and face – saving reasons. I also understand that the final decision is being made on Monday evening during an extraordinary meeting of the governors of Bexley College. “Bromley College seems to be on a bid for world domination” was something told to me by another of my very well – placed and reliable informants. I hope to have more on this story next week.

Much to nobody’s surprise, Southeastern Trains have been named as the worst performing train company in respect of lateness and cancellations. Four Southeastern trains run up to two hours late every day, making up seven per cent of the country's delayed trains, according to Office of Rail and Road statistics. Think of it. One relatively small train operating company that has managed to rack up a whole seven percent of the entire UK’s train delays and cancellations. If there was an award for running a terrible rail service, surely Southeastern would win it . By contrast, Transport for London (TfL) was the best performing operator - only one in every 7,288 trains were significantly delayed, just 11 journeys-a-year. Surely yet another reason for Southeastern to lose their franchise to TfL. What do you think? Would a takeover by TfL be a good thing, or would it be substituting a known for an unknown? Before anyone points out that some of the blame for the delays and cancellations needs to fall at the feet of Network Rail, I agree; however, other rail companies also have to deal with Network Rail, and by and large they make a far better fist of it than Southeastern. As recently said by local MP Teresa Pearce – “I have just one train line running through my constituency, two tracks, three stations, one train rail line, what could go wrong? Well, Southeastern could go wrong. Before Southeastern we had Connex and Connex was terrible and we thought Southeastern would be better and we were wrong. I have a real appreciation of the frustration of the what it’s like to stand on a platform in the certain knowledge of the uncertainty of the train service.” Well said. Connex were indeed terrible, but Southeastern are demonstrably worse in almost every respect – and I speak as a regular commuter. Extensive works both in relation to the rebuilding of London Bridge station and further engineering activities on the Elizabeth Line between Plumstead and Abbey Wood will mean that there will be no trains whatsoever in and out of London over the long weekend. According to the Southeastern engineering works website:-"Planned engineering work will take place. Between Plumstead and Dartford From 04:00, Saturday 19 March 2016 to 02:00, Monday 21 March 2016. All lines will be closed. All services will be revised. Abbey Wood, Belvedere, Erith and Slade Green will not be served. . A replacement bus service will be in operation between Plumstead and Dartford.” Unlike many other parts of Greater London, there is little in the way of alternative public transport – we don’t have the tube, or even DLR, and to be honest, when the North Kent Line is closed, the only realistic option for travel into London is to get the bus to Woolwich Arsenal, and then pick up the Docklands Light Railway from there. I completely understand the need for line closures when the scale of the engineering work is taken into consideration, it just seems to me that the project managers think that nobody needs to travel into or out of London at weekends, when nothing could be further from the truth.

The Maggot Sandwich has been published every Sunday afternoon for what in July will be ten years; in all that time I have never missed an update – even when I lost my broadband connection at home on one occasion, I headed up to my mother’s house to make sure that an update did indeed get posted. Over all those years, and a total this week of 580 weekly updates, the entry that has had the most visits was a relatively recent one. You may recall that back in August last year I wrote a piece called The “Funky Clock” scam. Well, that piece got picked up by Google and made it onto the front page of for anyone that searched for anything to do with “Funky Clock”. As a result of people curious to find more about the widely publicised online fraud, that one blog update has now has had nearly 30,000 hits. I had Emails from a number of people who had been scammed by the “Funky Clock” website, and some of their stories were heart-breaking. Because of the adverse publicity the “Funky Clock” scam got, the criminals behind it went underground. I think they also got some serious heat from the lawyers employed by the BBC, as their website used the BBC website layout and graphics in an attempt to fool people into thinking it was legitimately from the BBC. For some time the scammers went quiet, but I am afraid that I have to report that they are now back; this time they call themselves “Happy Crocky”, and they still have the colour palette and design of the BBC News website, though they have removed the BBC branded logos. You can see the result in the screen capture above. In case you were unaware of the nature of the “Funky Clock” / “Happy Crocky” scam, it essentially functions thus:  Links can be found on “respectable” websites such as tabloid newspapers and other showbiz and gossip sites; the links lead to a website which appears to be a legitimate news site such as the BBC, where a story claims that a company is “giving away” brand new, current model iPhones for £1. The thing is, the website is actually a “honey trap” designed to fool readers into thinking it is legitimate. In fact it has been created by the scammers to redirect the gullible to their scam website. The second site used to be  called “Funky Clock” and is now “Happy Crocky” which runs “special offers” amongst “skill and speed” competitions, where participants purchase credits to use to play games, the winner of which supposedly wins an iPhone 6. When you sign up for the “free” service, you are prompted to enter your bank details “for verification purposes”. What is only displayed in microscopic text is that the “free” period only lasts for three days, and that after that Funky Clock / Happy Crocky will debit your bank account by £74 a month, from now until the end of time. No cheap iPhones, no deals – the whole thing is a massive scam. The new “Happy Crocky” site even uses the same photos and much of the same text from its predecessor – it is definitely being run by the same shameless bunch of thieving scumbags as before. It would appear that many Internet Service Providers, notably including Virgin have been duped into forwarding “Genuine offer” messages from Funky Clock Happy Crocky to their subscribers, thus giving a veneer of apparent respectability to the confidence trick. This is a classic case of “if it seems too good to be true, it generally is”. Be warned – treat anything that says they are giving away high value items for next to nothing as a con until it can be verifiably proved otherwise (a very fat chance indeed). Unfortunately the criminals will continue such scams for as long as there are vulnerable people to fall prey to them. This was only the first of two scams that have come back out of the woodwork over the last week; a second, much longer running and insidious scam has come to my attention. I have been receiving spam messages that have been successfully filtered out by Google, but every so often I like to sift through the spam, looking for anything of particular interest, prior to permanently deleting them. I came across the message which you can see below from “Chris” – a self-described “Astrologer, Psychic Medium and Parapsychologist” (ahem) the scam involves relieving vulnerable and credulous people of large amounts of their hard earned cash. The composition of the Email graphic is very interesting – the photo of Chris himself is hysterical – the theatrical bar of light over his eyes to symbolise his “special” insight, and the horrendously Photoshopped hair which makes him look like he is wearing a hairpiece made of fibreglass! You may well have received one of his scam messages yourself. I have been tracking the activities of “Chris”, and have found the following comments made on a scam - busting website:-  "please do not ever give your credit card details to this man..or excuse for a man !! be warned .. how can he sleep at night ?? i'm embarrassed to write this here but i must to warn others. he has unlawfully just taken $28 nzd out of my account just after christmas after i was told i could unsubscribe to his emails/hypno sessions (people you are quite capable of helping yourself find friendship and improve your life without his lies) i'm a honest vulnerable financially single mum and now thanks to him i'm broke !! they just took another $115 nzd out of my account without my consent even tho the emails say you can unsubscribe … 10 emails later no response.. been to my bank and will take this further.. how dare he prey on vulnerable people .. my Dad had a stroke recently and now in financial strife .. i've received nothing from him but a bunch of crap emails and exactly as others describe… “i had dreams about you… i care … yadeyada… my friend will pay half… you can have the reading for free… blah blah.. i heard from his so called personal assistant and he said he would stop emails 2 days later my account cleared out of $150 for what sweet fa (excuse me) you @#4$@!!! how can you sleep at night. yes i made a mistake huge lesson learned Scam artist big time … please don't ever send any bank debts to this guy.. i will expose him and please be weary people i got sucked in and i feel so embarrassed and upset o have no money for food or bills this week and i work 3 contract jobs in health care … take care people". Aside from the atrocious spelling and grammar, the message is clear. Avoid.

Here is a guest piece by Maggot Sandwich occasional contributor Dana Whiffen, and his views on War Memorials:- "Listening to the radio recently with a phone-in programme there was a lady saying how annoyed she was when she witnessed parents allowing their children to climb all over a memorial while they sat fiddling with their mobile-phones, she told them off pointing out their lack of respect, although she doubted if they understood her. This was followed by another call from another lady saying that she did not know what all the fuss was about and who cares about memorials, she felt that 90% of the population knew nothing about them and that in a few years no-one would be interested or would care. This comment infuriated me and I decided to investigate their origin and design further and a book that I was reading pointed me towards the Dartford War Memorial. This opened up another door as it turned out this wonderful monument was created by sculptor Arthur George Walker. He was selected after the Dartford War Memorial Committee had seen his soldier memorial in Sevenoaks and they asked him to use a similar British Tommy figure design for Dartford. It was built in 1922 to commemorate Dartford’s fallen soldiers from the Great War, it stands tall pointed towards Dartford library and attracts many admiring glances from passers-by. Although it was built for WWI, it now carries additional dedications to the fallen from WW2 and the Korean War. Such was the influence of Arthur Walkers “Tommy in full battledress” he went on to create similar memorials for Ironbridge in Shropshire, Chesham in Buckinghamshire and Heston in Middlesex as well as Sevenoaks and Dartford. His most famous work though was for the creation of the Derby War Memorial (of a mother holding her baby) and The Florence Nightingale Memorial near Waterloo Station in London. Arthur George Walker was born in 1861 and he died in 1939, he also created statues and plaques along with his numerous memorials across the country that will hopefully leave a lasting legacy for future generations that will outlive the disrespectful and apathetic. There are many other war memorials throughout London and the UK that could well have equal this wonderful design, why not investigate you local war memorial. Those that don’t care or are totally ignorant of our history seem to be absorbed in total oblivion and selfishness unaware of the sacrifices made so that they can live their lives this way. I hope they are only the minority but fear they may not be! The Dartford War Memorial is now Grade 2 listed". Interesting stuff; if anyone has special insight into local history, and would like to share it with others, please do get in contact with me. 

The end video this week is by way of a tribute to the late keyboard wizard Keith Emerson, who recently died. See him with progressive rock giants Emerson, Lake and Palmer in their 40th anniversary concert, filmed in London back in 2010. Comments below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

The building boom.

All of the construction work that is going on in the local area – the former LINPAC factory site in Slade Green, which will have 350 new homes built on it; the Erith Park development with around 700 dwellings, the demolition of the old Bexley College site in Tower Road for further housing, and the Erith Quarry site with a proposed 600 larger houses on it - the artists impression above shows how the primary school which forms an integral part of the development will look when viewed from Fraser Road - click on the picture for a larger view. These developments will all be significant employers of construction staff. When on top of this one takes into consideration the aforementioned Paramount Theme Park at Swanscombe, where building is scheduled to get under way early next year, there is going to be a lot of work for anyone employed in a building trade. In fact a recent report jointly published by consultants KPMG and the London Chamber of Commerce, found that approximately 605,000 skilled workers will be needed on building sites in London and the South East region by April 2015. The figures include 50,000 construction managers, 66,000 carpenters, 41,000 plumbers and 40,000 electricians, plus many other ancillary trades.  There is a skills shortage meaning that some of these roles may well go unfilled. Many older construction workers were forced to leave the industry in the recession, and do not appear to be returning now that the market has picked up – around 400,000 were laid off during the recession, and the business is now feeling the pain. The construction industry requires 29,000 newly qualified workers each year up to 2017, but less than half that number are currently being trained. The shortage of qualified and experienced construction staff has caused the wage bill to skyrocket. The London Evening Standard reported last week that a top bricklayer can earn around £100,000 a year, whilst carpenters are now charging £200 per eight hour shift. Average wages for construction workers in London and the South East have increased between ten and twenty percent in the last year, whilst average wages for general workers have only gone up by a tiny one percent. The message would seem to be that if you want a good income and are not happy with your current job, you should consider retraining as a construction worker. Ironically one of the biggest centres for construction training is actually located in Erith – The National Construction College South is situated in Manor Road. It is a large warehouse shaped building almost opposite the Erith Construction depot. The college building contains a large covered open space where the students learn the practical skills of the construction trade – they actually build houses inside the warehouse from scratch – they fit windows, install wiring and plumbing and once the house is complete, they then learn the techniques of demolition as they pull it down. The National Construction College South is one of those institutions that even many locals don't know exist, though it has been on Manor Road for many years. More on regional construction projects later.

The current system of paying a toll via a booth at the Dartford River Crossing is about to change; as from November the 30^th, drivers will no longer have to stop to pay the toll. Instead they will be able to use a pre-paid system called Dart Charge. It is reported that since the Dart Charge website went live on the 5^th November, an average of 2,200 drivers per hour have been pre – registering for an account. The system uses number plate recognition software to identify specific vehicles and when they use the crossing. The advantage is that drivers will no longer have to queue to pay the toll fee, and it is hoped that this will reduce congestion, which historically has always been a significant problem. Fleet operators and haulage firms have been keen on the change, and have been registering their corporate membership of Dart Charge well in advance of the “go live” date. To date over one hundred large haulage firms with over 22,000 trucks have pre – registered, and interest has been keen from overseas haulage organisations as well. This is all well and good, and any efforts to speed up traffic passing through the tunnels and over the bridge is to be welcomed – the current arrangement causes a bottleneck that all too often brings M25 traffic to a crawl, if not a halt. The problem is not so much with the new Dart Charge system, as with the method of enforcement via number plate recognition – there is already a serious problem around the country with false or stolen vehicle number plates in use by crooks trying to avoid both toll charges and fines for other traffic offences. I know for a fact that in the local area vehicles are illegally on the roads with suspect plates. Only a while ago I saw three young boys of around twelve or thirteen years of age, all crammed onto one asthmatic scooter, riding along the pavement in Erith as though it was a normal thing to do (which by the look of them, it probably was). I called my local Police contact and gave him the scooter registration details. He checked the computer, and said “that’s strange – it’s down here as a silver Bedford van!” The scooter had a false plate – probably why the kids were so unconcerned about being seen on it. This can be multiplied a hundredfold when businesses sense that they can save money by avoiding the NPR cameras. Overheads such as toll charges are always unpopular with businesses, and there are a minority of unscrupulous operators who will always seek ways around them, legal or not. This form of identity theft is becoming increasingly common, and in many cases it becomes the responsibility of the unwitting person who has had their vehicle ID cloned to prove their innocence, rather than the other way around. Unless some examples are made when perpetrators are actually caught in the act, I foresee this becoming a problem which will only increase over time. What do you think? Will the undoubted increase in traffic throughput be worth a strong likelihood in the level of identity theft? I must admit that personally I am ambivalent, but realise that some readers may hold strong opinions on the subject.

The campaign to Save Belvedere Splash Park continues; the organisers are strongly encouraging members of the campaign to write to their ward Councillors to complain, as it would appear that some Councillors have been gravely misinformed as to the reasons for the Splash Park closure, and have been duped into believing it is purely for health and safety reasons. There is evidence to suggest that Bexley Council have a plan (or are at the very least considering) relocating the current children's play area in the main "swings park" situated at the junction of Woolwich and Albert Road in Upper Belvedere, across the road and into the site currently occupied by the Splash Park. Along with closing the adjacent Belvedere Library, this would free up a large area of land, which the council could then sell off to property developers in order to build yet more shoe box sized flats. Not only would the money grabbing council make a packet out of the land sale, but they would get a sizable increase in council tax income from the site. If this is indeed potentially on the cards, it would once again underline the fact that Bexley Council don't give a stuff for residents in the North of the Borough, as most of their mandate comes from the wealthy and council pampered South. Nothing this morally bankrupt Council plans to do would surprise me any more.

Local news sources, including but not limited to the News Shopper have been reporting that the plans for the Swanscombe based Paramount theme park have been put on public display for residents to examine. The only trouble is the nearest place where the plans have been on show was Dartford FC football ground last Sunday. No consultation or information is being carried out in Slade Green, Erith, Belvedere or Thamesmead, even though it is highly likely that a substantial number of staff for the forthcoming park will live in the local area; the Paramount adventure park is planned to cover forty five Hectares and cost in excess of £2 billion. There are going to be twelve major rides, said to be of world class standard, along with Europe’s largest indoor water park, a total of eleven thousand covers in a number of different restaurants as well as a twenty square Kilometre indoor events space designed to rival the O2 Arena. There will be car parking for ten thousand visitors and four thousand staff – though many will be encouraged to visit via train from the nearby Ebbsfleet station. There are even rather optimistic ideas of getting at least five percent of the visitors to the site by ferry boat from London, further up the River Thames. Personally I think the journey time from around London Bridge / Waterloo to Swanscombe would be too long to be attractive to very many people. The developers have been a little short sighted in not having an information open day in the local area; this especially rings true when one considers that an open day was held in Grays, Essex on the opposite side of the river. I concede that if the promised additional river crossings do appear, the distinction between North Kent and South Essex will become increasingly blurred due to the effective removal of the Thames as a historic barrier. Nevertheless, the juncture of North West Kent and South East London is very likely to be the home of many who will both work in the park, and those who will be potential visitors – a bit more consideration would have been welcome. To be honest it is symptomatic of the attitude to Slade Green, Erith , Belvedere and Thamesmead that is shown by both local and national government. An independent observer reported to me that when Boris Johnson opened Bexley College recently, he apparently made an off – the – cuff remark that he did not know the area existed until his visit – something I find hard to believe since I saw him on a walkabout in Bexleyheath Broadway a couple of years ago – unless Boris has a particularly selective memory, which for a career politician would be no great surprise at all. Nevertheless, the North of the London Borough of Bexley has historically had a poor deal when it comes to investment, infrastructure and attention. It is heartening to see the money that is currently being invested locally by private enterprise – the Erith Park development, the LINPAC site in Slade Green, the redevelopment of the old Bexley College site in Tower Road (see the photo above - click on it for a larger view), and the proposed Erith Quarry development are all signs that whilst politicians have little faith in the area, hard-nosed business people do. Incidentally I was talking to a very senior person within the Bexley Council Environmental Services team earlier in the week. I mentioned about the degree of public consultation and care that the developers, The Anderson Group are taking.  The person agreed strongly with me – they said that in many years of dealing with property developers, The Anderson Group were amongst the best, and they had the most properly thought through environmental policies. I happened to mention the handful of local people who would like the development banned and the quarry site left as a nature reserve. We both agreed that this was never going to happen, as the area needs the housing and the jobs that will come with it; not only that but they confirmed something that I had long suspected – the quarry site suffers from a high level of ground pollution caused by a variety of illegally dumped chemicals. You may recall that some time ago I wrote about my recollections of the old Atlas Chemical and Paint factory that used to be located in Fraser Road, roughly where the Wickes DIY store is now situated. Atlas was owned and operated by Denis Thatcher, who rose from the shop floor to become the proprietor. When the factory was closed down in the 1980’s, many drums of chemicals were left on the site, only to mysteriously disappear apparently overnight. My contact from Environmental Services confirmed that the drums of noxious liquid were dumped on the quarry site – not only that, but apparently when the geological and ground contamination surveys were undertaken by an independent consulting company, they also found a World War II era military tank buried on the site – so much for it being ideal as a nature reserve! Apparently pre – construction remedial action is planned, which will remove all of the contaminated soil and other materials so that the site will be clean when the builders first move in and start work. It was interesting to speak to someone on the inside of the construction and planning process, and to get an insight into the relationships that develop between the parties. I feel that the development of Erith Quarry will be seen as a positive step overall, and that it is now down to The Anderson Group and their public relations consultants Lexington Communications to manage local people’s expectations and to maintain a steady stream of accurate and up to date information in respect of the multi million pound project.

I am not a great follower of sport; for the most part I fail to see the point of it, but once again I bow to my overall personal libertarian philosophy of “if it works for you”. One thing I have noticed recently is that minor league Formula One team Caterham Racing have filed for voluntary administration, and that finances are so bad that  the team’s 230 staff have not been paid  since the 30^th September. Caterham Racing were owned by Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes, who also owns the Caterham Group, which consists of a couple of high technology companies and the famous high performance car manufacturer. The principal concern is how financially healthy the non F1 Caterham Group companies are; there is a strong local interest here, as the Caterham Cars offices and factory are located in Kennet Road, off Thames Road in Crayford (see the photo above – click for a larger view), and many employees live locally. If the whole Caterham Group are in difficulty, it could have severe consequences for the highly skilled and experienced workforce.  There currently is no news to this effect, but it must be very worrying for all of those involved. If you work for Caterham, and would like to let me know what is going on in the Crayford factory in complete confidence, then drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The red telephone box (which incidentally was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott – who was the architect of the old Erith Odeon cinema) that has for so many years formed an integral part of the British high street is looking very much like an endangered species; fewer and fewer people use them to make calls, and nowadays they seem to be the de facto urinal – probably not helped by the fact that Bexley Council has done away with all the public toilets in the borough. If one is lucky, a fee taking automated “Turdis” loo may be available, but more often than not there is nothing. The widespread use of mobile phones has effectively made phone boxes obsolete. Much debate has been undertaken as to what the phone boxes can now be used for, but no definitive outcome has arisen. It may be worth the UK’s local authorities looking across the Atlantic Ocean to see what New York City are doing – they have come up with a solution that is both economically viable and also decidedly imaginative and creative. The city announced Monday that it had selected a consortium of advertising, technology and telecom companies to deploy throughout the city thousands of modern-day pay phones that will offer 24-hour, free gigabit Wi-Fi connections, free calls to anywhere in the U.S., touch-screen displays with direct access to city services, maps and directions for tourists, and charging stations (for the mobile phones that most residents would prefer to use). The devices will also be capable of connecting people straight to emergency responders, and broadcasting alerts from the city during emergencies like Hurricane Sandy. The whole system, city officials said, will constitute the largest free municipal Wi-Fi network in the world. All of it will be funded by what the providers say will be an astonishingly large revenue stream from sophisticated digital advertising — picture different and constantly fine-tuned ads depending on the block — that's projected to generate for the city $500 million over the next 12 years. Scott Goldsmith, the chief commercial officer at the advertising company Titan working on the contract, says the infrastructure will "revolutionize how advertising is delivered in the biggest media market in the world." Fifty percent of that revenue will go to the city. The end product will no longer be called a "pay phone." The city is calling the new devices "links”. This sounds interesting, and it looks like a very viable pointer to the future. New York City has a sufficient density of pay phones to make coverage pretty much guaranteed to be continuous. I am unsure if the same could be said of central London or Birmingham for example, as many phone kiosks have already been removed. The principle remains the same however, and with sufficient investment (not to mention civic will to do it) I see no reason why British cities could not offer the same model, especially as it would seem of be capable of returning a sizable profit, not just paying its way. It will be interesting to see what investigation local authorities undertake in respect of this – especially after the disastrous Rabbit Phone project of the early 1990’s. 

You can occasionally still see faded Rabbit Phone signs outside of post offices and other public buildings, many years after the plug was pulled on the service The photo above was taken many years ago on Watford Junction Station - somewhere that I know rather better than I care to - I have to travel there regularly for meetings for my day job. Rabbit Phone was a system set up by mobile phone company Hutchinson (later re – branded as Orange). Rabbit was what was termed a “Telepoint” service - Telepoint services such as Rabbit allowed subscribers to carry specially designed (CT2) home phone handsets with them and make outgoing calls whenever they were within one hundred metres of a Rabbit transmitter / receiver unit. Original plans were for twelve thousand base stations to be placed around the UK by December 1992. The first service was launched in Greater Manchester in May 1992 with the entire city centre of Manchester covered with Rabbit base stations. The service was then rolled out to the rest of the North of England and there was nationwide coverage in the autumn of 1993. At the height of Rabbit's operations there were 12,000 base stations and 10,000 customers in the UK. The service ceased in December 1993, only twenty months after being launched. Rabbit had two thousand subscribers at the time the service closed. The failure of Rabbit can be mainly attributed to the rapid fall in cost of analogue mobile phones from Cellnet and Vodafone, which also accepted incoming calls, and were not limited to a small number of  geographical contact points that the rabbit system was tied to. The imminent conversion of these mobile phone networks to the modern-day GSM standard sealed Rabbit's fate. Hutchison lost around $183 million from the failure of Rabbit, but soon made the money back with the very successful launch of the Orange mobile phone network. I think any organisation planning to deploy a modern city – wide WiFi service as per the New York model will need to ensure that both the technology and the business model meet with the users expectations; if this can be done, I can see no reason why it could not be a resounding success.  What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Further to my musings last week in relation to the possible future use of the White Hart / Potion bar, now that it has stood empty for such a time, I have had an Email from a reader who would rather remain anonymous; she tells me that the venue is definitely being researched as a possible retail outlet once again; whether it is Subway looking at it as previously mentioned, or if another company is looking at the former pub is still uncertain. From my own research it is clear that there is definite commercial interest in the place, but the potential occupants are taking great pains to keep their tracks covered for now. This is quite common in commercial property negotiations, and should not be seen as anything other than normal commercial practice. If any reader has any further information, please let me know – any discussions will be held in complete confidence.

I stumbled across the end video completely by chance; it is a piece of digitised 8mm cine film showing Bexleyheath and the Broadway shopping area "then and now", the "then" being the early 1930's, and the "now" being the autumn of 1987. The whole thing is a remarkable period piece, and it makes for fascinating viewing. Do give it a watch and please feel free to comment below, or alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.