Nitrous Oxide.

It has been reported to me by a long time Maggot Sandwich reader that there is a serious drugs problem in the area in and around the former Bexley Mencap site in Lesney Park Road, Erith. The site, and the old house adjacent to it are shortly to be redeveloped for additional housing, with eighteen terraced houses and the third of the land  that the Council is retaining will have twelve supported living units for adults with learning difficulties built on it. In the meantime the old buildings are occupied by property guardians - individuals who get to live in the property at a very reduced rent, in return for caring for the building until such time as it is readied for redevelopment. The idea is not new, but it does have attractions - the building owner avoids their property being vandalised or squatted, with the attendant costs that this would involve, and people get the chance to legally live somewhere at a rent that is far below the norm for the area; the system should be a win / win for all involved. In this case it would appear to not be the outcome that had been anticipated. It is strongly suspected by local residents that one or more of the guardians occupying the old Mencap unit and the house next door to it are involved in the sale and consumption of illegal drugs, including Nitrous Oxide, as you can see in the photograph above - click on it for a larger version - the photo was taken by another concerned local resident. The situation was initially reported back in April, but it would appear that little has happened in the meantime to resolve it. The purchase, sale, storage or consumption of Nitrous Oxide as a stimulant has been a criminal offence since the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 came into effect on the 27th May 2016. One worried local resident initially wrote to the Council and said:- "There were dozens of the little silver capsules in the gutter, which I am told are in connection with drug taking.  This is not the first time there have been dozens of these capsules littered outside the premises.   A neighbour in Lesney Park Road has even seen a car parked nearby, and he watched the driver put on blue surgical gloves, sorted through some boxes (drugs presumably) and then drove a few yards up Lesney Park Road to the old Bexley Mencap site and carried on some business with the occupants.  I have also seen people coming out of the premises, late morning, in clothes similar to pyjamas and going to their car for something and then going back in.  So they are obviously being used as residential premises. Who owns these premises? Are the occupants being housed there at local rate payers' expense? This is totally unacceptable. These premises are just a few yards across the road from Christ Church Primary School. The children are surely at risk. Apart from the drug paraphernalia, there is often other debris outside, broken glass, old furniture etc.  The whole frontage is an absolute eye-sore.  The occupants are showing no respect at all for the surroundings, and are taking advantage. Lesney Park Road used to be one of the nicest roads in Erith. It is in a conservation area. What is happening now is a disgrace and very unfair on the local rate-paying residents.  Can the Council and the local Police please look into the goings on at the site and take control of the situation?" I hope to make further reports on this issue in the weeks to come; if you have any information to add, please contact me at the usual address.

As a follow-up on the broad daylight plant theft from The Cross Keys Centre reported on the Maggot Sandwich update published on the 4th of June,  thefts of more potted plants have come to light in the centre of Erith, including one splendid ornamental basket hanging from the Stone Court retirement home, an act also caught on CCTV.  Neighbours have reported seeing people not known to live in the immediate area looking at some of these items on display, but in every case except one it has been simply to admire these lovely additions to the streetscape, not to walk off with them. One person the plant owners would like to trace is shown in the pictures above - the upper one from CCTV recorded from The Cross Keys Centre, and the lower photo which was taken covertly in the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre, when the suspect was seen walking through it some time after the theft took place. His description matches that of a person seen carrying a large stolen oleander along the High Street on May 26th. The witness was struck by the odd behaviour of someone of strong stocky build, in a very distinctive polo shirt, walking very quickly along the street carrying an oversized plant. If you can identify the individual above, please contact me so that even if he is entirely innocent, he can be eliminated from Police enquiries. Email me in complete confidence at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

I don't normally comment on stories that have been covered by the mainstream press, but I am making a notable exception in this case, as the popular press have in general only reported on about half of the real story. Google has said it will no longer scan the content of Gmail messages to sell targeted adverts to users of the free service. Google made the announcement in a blog post on Friday touting the success of its G Suite, the cloud applications service for business. G Suite is advertising free and does not scan content – for the obvious reason that businesses wouldn't be very keen on that – and now Google says it will make the free Gmail service scanning-free too. In an interview in the Register website, a Google representative said:- "G Suite's Gmail is already not used as input for ads personalisation, and Google has decided to follow suit later this year in our free consumer Gmail service,  Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalisation after this change. This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalise ads for other Google products. Ads shown are based on users' settings. Users can change those settings at any time, including disabling ads personalisation." The Gmail scanning system was highly controversial ever since it was introduced in 2004, but the advantages of the service were clear. At the time, most webmail accounts offered pitiful amounts of storage – 2MB for Hotmail, for example – while Google was offering a gigabyte and promised to increase that later. While people weren't particularly enamoured with the idea of having their emails automatically scanned, they certainly liked the storage enough to continue using it. Nevertheless, Microsoft's advertising department used the practice as a stick to beat Google with – albeit to very limited effect. Many Gmail users do not receive targetted advertising anyway; if you have any kind of paid relationship with Google, such as having extended paid for cloud cased storage, you do not get adverts in Gmail, also, if like me, you were one of the first 500 people in the UK to set up a Gmail account, then you too see no targetted adverts. Google are very conscious that of the 3 billion people on Earth who have access to a computer or mobile phone, around 1.2 billion of them have a Gmail account. Whilst not all of those accounts will be in active use, that is still an absolutely staggering figure, and Google are acutely aware that they are in a contest with Microsoft in respect of cloud based office computing - Microsoft have Office 365, and Google have G Suite. If a large number of users are familiar with the Gmail user interface, they will find the G Suite very easy to use, as it is based on a very similar look and feel. Ironically this is how Microsoft locked users into Microsoft Office for years; once a user had become comfortable with MS Office they were strongly disinclined to switch to another product which would require a fresh learning curve. Microsoft came quite late to the cloud, and it is now playing catch up with Google, who are now kings of that particular hill. Nowadays for a vast majority of computer users, their web browser is by far the most used and most important piece of software on their computer or mobile device.

Local convicted multiple murderer Arthur Simpson - Kent lost his appeal against his whole life tariff when he appeared in court on Tuesday last week. Arthur Kent’s lawyers failed to persuade Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas and two other leading judges at the Court of Appeal in London that the term should be reduced. He killed his partner, the former EastEnders actress Sian Blake, 43, and their sons, Zachary, eight, and four-year-old Amon, after the actress, who was terminally-ill with motor neurone disease, planned to leave him and take the boys with her. Once he had killed the three, he buried their bodies in the garden of their rented bungalow in Pembroke Road, Erith. The bodies were not discovered by the Police for three weeks. They had been repeatedly beaten and stabbed in a series of frenzied attacks. Simpson-Kent, who admitted three counts of murder, was sentenced at the Old Bailey last October by a judge who said he had been left in "no doubt'' he should receive the most severe punishment available for his ''truly horrific'' crimes. He was thus awarded the very rare sentence of a Whole Life Tariff – which means the only way he will ever be let out of prison is on the written orders of the Home Secretary, something that has rarely if ever happened. In his case, life really does mean life in prison, with no chance of parole. I used to see Sian Blake with her children occasionally walking around Erith Riverside Shopping Centre, and every so often in Morrison’s. I did not know she was an actress, or had been in EastEnders at one time (I am not a soap watcher).  I had not seen them for some considerable time before their untimely demise, I guess as her Motor Neurone Disease got worse, and she was forced to limit her mobility; the whole case is tragic. As far as I am aware their former bungalow in Pembroke Road is still empty – see the photo above. When the case first broke, I used Google Maps / Google Street View to locate the property; when I did, the image that the Google Street View camera car had captured of the house showed one of the little boys standing in the left hand window, looking out into the street. It had obviously been taken some time prior to the tragic events. I immediately decided that I would not publish or make reference to the image out of respect to the deceased and their surviving family and friends. I might have well not have bothered, as a couple of days later, the Sun newspaper published the image of the “ghostly” child in the window. I felt that this was in the very poorest of taste, but then the Sun is not exactly known for letting propriety or good taste get in the way of a good story.

Riverdale Road, Erith based country and Western singer songwriter Wayne Jacobs has been nominated for another three music gongs in the 2017 UK Country Music Awards. One of the nominations is for Best UK Country Artist of the year. I also understand that Wayne Jacobs has also written a song dedicated to Donald Trump. Personally I think this is pretty unnecessary, as President Trump already has an ideal signature song - "If I only had a brain" from the Wizard of Oz.

It would seem that the riot in Northumberland Heath last September has resulted in a long term legacy of fear and intimidation. A large number of local residents met with representatives from Bexley Police last Thursday in the Northumberland Heath Social Club. An officer has been assigned as overall lead for keeping the peace in Northumberland Heath; his name is Inspector Darren Murphy; he is leading a crackdown on anti-social behaviour, which is now regarded as the priority policing issue in the area. It seems that a majority of the youths / school children that engaged in the riot and subsequent fights and anti-social behaviour in Northumberland Heath are not from the area at all – they have mostly come from Woolwich and Plumstead. During an interview with the Bexley Times, Inspector Murphy said:- "I want to develop the use of Section 60 stop and searches, so if we hear of any problems our officers can stop and search anyone in the area without grounds, we’ve come away from that recently but following an increase in violence and knife crime it’s come to a point where we need to do it. We’ve identified a number of the youths and have established most of them aren’t from here, for whatever reason there coming in from surrounding areas such as Woolwich and are doing what they do, we’ve upped resources here, you can imagine how difficult that’s been during the events in London, but we still manage to have a safer neighbourhood team as well as the two officers working later in the night. We’re working with businesses such as Tesco to cut down on theft and loitering as well as with TfL to get Oyster cards taken away so these youths can’t make their way into the area. Our intelligence is improving, three months ago I couldn’t have told residents when there were going to be problems, but now we’re getting calls from parents, neighbours and schools telling us what is going on, Once we know what’s happening we can put dispersal orders in place to stop it, and we need that support to continue by ensuring that concerned residents contact their local safer neighbourhood police team NorthumberlandHeath.snt@met.pnn.police.uk.” It seems that what seems like a quiet and friendly place is actually blighted by a culture of violence and intimidation mostly led by school children from outside of the area. Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association recently published the following report on the public meeting and the outcome from it:-"The Northumberland Heath Safer Neighbourhood Team along with Acting Chief Inspector Peter Bodley, Inspector Darren Murphy, The Bexley Council Neighbourhood Services and local Councillors held a meeting at the Social Club in Mill Road last Thursday. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the ongoing anti-social behaviour in and around Northumberland Heath. Although it was a sweltering evening, the meeting was well attended with approximately seventy local residents and business owners in attendance. Each attendee was asked to fill in a questionnaire and a question and answer session took place. The senior Management Team from Bexleyheath Police Station explained the locations of where the main issues are and what we are trying to do to resolve them. Several individuals have been issued with a Community Protection Warning Letter with conditions asking them not to congregate in groups in and around Northumberland Heath or act in a manner which local residents may find intimidating. The Warning Letter if not adhered to will then result in a Community Protection Notice issue and court proceedings to follow. One youth has already broken his agreement and has been spoken to along with his parents to highlight the seriousness of his actions. The Team have been working very hard to collate evidence against individuals who are choosing to break these agreements. Street Pastors conducted trial patrols last week to try to engage with local youths, we are hoping that we will receive positive feedback from this experiment with a view to further patrols and engagement. A cannabis Warning form was issued to a male found in possession of cannabis behind an alleyway in Bexley Road. On a happier note, there has been very little in the way of crime reported to us this week, with no burglaries or vehicle crime. The next drop in Surgery will be held in the Library at Mill Road on Friday July 7th at 2pm". If you have experienced any issues in Northumberland Heath relating to anti-social behaviour, please get in touch with me in complete confidence; you can Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

There has been another incident of a person in the River Thames off Erith; on Sunday evening last week, emergency services were notified that a man was in the river next to a couple of moored tugs. He was reported clinging to the side of a tug, but unable to get out of the water at approximately half past seven in the evening. The inshore lifeboat came from Gravesend to rescue the individual, but by the time it had arrived the man had been in the water for nearly an hour; if this had happened in the winter, the man would have died from exposure in that time. I once again call for the creation of an RNLI sub station at Erith to serve the area of the Thames between Woolwich and Dartford, plugging what appears to be a gap in the current lifeboat coverage. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Some worrying news has emerged over the last week or so; the main encryption system used in online banking, web based shops like eBay and Amazon, “Smart” payment cards and a host of other vital services has been cracked – in the laboratory at least. The crack is currently only experimental, and to the best of current knowledge it has not been employed in the real world, but as with any of these things, it is only a matter of time before crooks find a way to “weaponise” the discovery. The most common, and indeed until now the most effective form of data encryption is a system known as AES 256. AES stands for Advanced Encryption System. This advanced encryption algorithm is unclassified and is "capable of protecting sensitive government information well into the next century," according to an announcement by the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) and is the most trusted process the for development of an advanced encryption standard algorithm. It  is easy to implement in hardware and software, as well as in restricted environments (for example, in a smart card) and offer good defences against various attack techniques. In June 2003, the U.S. government announced that AES could be used to protect classified information, and it soon became the default encryption algorithm for protecting classified information as well as the first publicly accessible and open cipher approved by the NSA for top-secret information. The NSA chose AES as one of the cryptographic algorithms to be used by its Information Assurance Directorate to protect U.S national security systems. Its successful use by the U.S. government led to widespread use in the private sector, leading AES to become the most popular algorithm used in symmetric key cryptography internationally. The transparent selection process helped create a high level of confidence in AES among security and cryptography experts. AES is more secure than its predecessors - DES and 3DES - as the algorithm is stronger and uses longer key lengths. Until very recently AES encryption was considered to be pretty much bullet proof; that is, until information leaked online about a rather unusual method of trying to break it. Researchers at Fox‑IT have managed to wirelessly extract secret AES-256 encryption keys from a distance of one metre – using £200 worth of parts obtained from a standard electronics store – just by measuring electromagnetic radiation. At that distance sniffing the keys over the air took five minutes, but if an attacker got within 30 centimetres of a device, the extraction time is cut down to just 50 seconds. The research team used a simple loop antenna, attached it to an external amplifier and bandpass filters bought online, and then plugged it into a software defined radio USB stick they bought for £20. The entire cost of the setup was less than £200 and the device could be hidden in a jacket or laptop case. The researchers used this kit to record the radio signals generated by the power consumption of the target system running an ARM powered chip. By measuring the leakage between the processor and the data bus, the data showed the peaks and troughs of consumption as the encryption process was carried out. By running a different encryption run on a test rig, the researchers mapped out how the power consumption related to individual bytes of information. That allowed them to take guesses at the 256 possible values of a single byte and the correct choice showed the highest power spike. "Using this approach only requires us to spend a few seconds guessing the correct value for each byte in turn (256 options per byte, for 32 bytes – so a total of 8,192 guesses), In contrast, a direct brute-force attack on AES‑256 would require 2256 guesses and would not complete before the end of the universe." The electromagnetic signals drop off rapidly the farther away you are from the target, but the researchers still managed the extraction from a distance of one metre, even though it took much longer to do so. Spending more on the equipment, however, would increase the range and speed of the attack. There are, of course, some caveats. The tests took place under laboratory conditions, rather than in a busy office or server room where other signals might interfere with the data collection. Nevertheless it is an interesting example of how an attack previously thought of as unfeasible due to cost and distance has been made easier by smarter and cheaper technology.

A road tanker dropped a large volume of Rapeseed Oil on the roads of Erith on the evening of the 26th June. The oil spill closed Lower Road, Bronze Age Way, Queens Road, South Road and North End Road from around 6.30pm. The Fire Brigade put sand on the large spill, which trailed all of the way back to the ADM Oil processing facility in Church Manor Way, which employs nearly 1,200 local people. The company originally started up in 1908, when it was known as Erith Oil Works – the business then was similar to now; they crush and process all kinds of seeds, to extract their natural oils, which are used in foodstuffs, cooking oils and animal feeds. The seeds, then as now are brought upriver in large bulk freighter ships. The distinctive huge concrete silos that are still present on the ADM Oil site were constructed in 1916, where they were some of the earliest surviving examples of reinforced concrete construction in the UK. They were constructed by Danish structural engineering company Christiani and Nielsen, who invented reinforced concrete construction techniques. ADM oils have in the past been guilty of causing the terrible smells that we have experienced in the local area. The reason for this was that the filters on the oil seed boiler chimneys used to not be changed as often as they were supposed to be. Lately ADM's plant engineers seem to have been a lot more conscientious in this respect, and the sickly smell has now been largely absent, thankfully.

The end video this week shows a factory that has been very important to many people in the area over the last seventy years or so, but over the last couple of decades has seemingly gone very quiet. It is the huge Ford vehicle plant at Dagenham, just across the River Thames. Due to automation the plant does not employ nearly as many people as it did in the past, and it no longer produces complete vehicles; instead it produces a vast number of engines and transmissions for both private and commercial use throughout Ford production facilities in and around Europe.  Do give the short video a watch, and please feel free to comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The Plumstead Ripper.

You may recall that back in July of last year I featured some CCTV footage showing some youths breaking into the Cross Keys Centre in Erith High Street. You can view the photos here. All six of the youths who broke into the building and burgled the place were captured on High Definition video. Incidentally, all six of the youths were subsequently identified and the Police took appropriate action against them. You would have thought that the message that the Cross Keys Centre has a very advanced security system would have got around, but apparently not; as you can see from the still images above, a thief recently stole a very expensive potted plant from outside of the building in broad daylight. The man, in his mid thirties is stockily built, and very distinctively dressed. If any Maggot Sandwich reader can identify him, you can contact me at the usual Email address and I can take things from there. Alternatively you can contact the Erith Safer Neighbourhood Police team by clicking here.

The tropical foods store in Pier Road has been in hot water recently. They were subject to a unannounced inspection by Bexley Trading Standards team, who during their visit discovered that a faulty band saw that was being used to cut up joints of meat; it was being used by a young employee who had not been properly trained. The company who own the shop, Zion Tropical Foods appeared last week in Bexley Magistrate’s Court where the company pleaded guilty to four health and safety charges relating to its system of work, risk assessments, and the training and protection of young people. They were fined £2,000 in respect of one charge, and £1,000 each in respect of three others. The court imposed a victim surcharge of £170 and awarded the council costs of £2,500. It would appear from comments made to the Bexley Times subsequent to the prosecution that the husband and wife team who run the shop have sacked the young employee and are now running the shop on their own. It seems pretty tough to get rid of an employee due to errors and omissions from the management. I suppose that customers are able to vote with their feet.

It seems to me that almost every week I am reporting another local construction project; housing in the area seems to be one of the most contentious subjects at present. It seems that there is both a large requirement for new housing, and also a level of resistance to new building from existing residents. Another new development has been announced, this time to be constructed in Bexleyheath. Some retirement apartments are being constructed – the development is to be called Cardamom Court, and it will be located on Albion Road, just behind Bexleyheath Broadway. The development is most definitely not going to be affordable housing – the retirement apartments start at £318,950 for a small one bedroom apartment, to a still not really very big two bedroom apartment costing £469, 950. The service charges which will come on top of this are really quite eye watering. A one bedroom flat will have a service charge of £47.06 a week (£188.24 a month), and charges for a two bedroom flat will come to £67.75 a week (£271 a month). According to the property developer’s website, they have already sold around sixty percent of the apartments “off – plan” – that is before they have even been built. Personally I would not want to live on a busy main road – Avenue Road is a busy, and noisy thoroughfare with 24/7 traffic, and the nearby pedestrianised Broadway gets lots of rowdy passers by at night. It would seem that Cardamom Court is going to be a success – but how many of the units are being bought by property speculators is currently unclear. You can see more about the future development by clicking here.

I normally write about the positive aspects of living in the local area, along with pointing out where things could be done better; I have come across a story from the relatively recent past which a far darker side – it concerns an individual who the press at the time called “The Plumstead Ripper”. Robert Napper was the eldest child of Brian Napper, a driving instructor, and his wife Pauline. He was born in Erith in February 1966, Napper was brought up on the Abbey Road Estate in Plumstead. His background was troubled and dysfunctional. The marriage of his parents was violent and Napper witnessed violent attacks on his mother. His parents divorced when he was nine, and he and his siblings (two brothers and a sister) were placed in foster care and underwent psychiatric treatment. The psychiatric counselling Napper had at the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell lasted for six years. At age of thirteen, Napper underwent a personality change after a family friend sexually assaulted him on a camping holiday. The offender was jailed, but Napper became introverted, obsessively tidy and reclusive, according to his mother. His Asperger's Syndrome was worsened by his experiences, and he began to develop Paranoid Schizophrenia. He attended Abbey Wood Comprehensive School, where classmates said he was “despised”. One said: “No one wanted to sit next to him in class. He did not have any friends and he was teased a lot about his spots. In a game of football once, when he headed the ball, the game stopped because no other boy would go near the boy after it had touched his forehead". Napper left school at 16 with qualifications in seven subjects, lived at home until the age of 21 and took a variety of manual jobs, including work as a warehouse man in the publications and forms store for the Ministry of Defence. His workmates considered him dull and boring: he turned up on time and did not speak much. But undetected by his colleagues and later, the police, his sexual deviancy became ever more extreme. It started with flashing and voyeurism, then it escalated into rape and finally into murder. Before he killed Rachel Nickell, Napper was suspected of four rapes, and he has since been convicted of three of them. Those rapes were part of a series of 106 sexual assaults known as the Green Chain rapes, in south London in the early 1990s near where he lived. While Napper has admitted his involvement in four of them (one never got to trial), it is suspected, although has never been proved, that he committed all of them. In 1986, Napper first came to police attention after being convicted of an offence with a loaded air gun in a public place. In October 1989, police had rejected information conveyed in a phone call from Napper's mother that her son had admitted to perpetrating a rape on Plumstead Common. No case apparently matched the evidence. However, a month earlier a man armed with a knife had attacked a 30-year-old mother of two young children at her house in Plumstead. Police now believe that man was Robert Napper. He let himself in through a rear door which had been opened to let out the family cat after watching the property for some time. He gagged and raped the woman before making his escape. The investigating officers had not looked very hard. Some eight weeks earlier, a 31-year-old mother reported to police that she had been raped in her home in front of her children. The intruder entered the house through the rear door, armed with a Stanley knife and wearing a mask. The woman's house backed on to Plumstead Common. Police had taken DNA from the woman, which had they bothered to interview Napper and take a blood test, they might well have matched to him. It was after this that Napper's mother broke off all contact with him, and she burned all of the photos she had of him. Still in his early twenties, he moved into a bedsit, holding down a string of menial jobs but using his spare time to stalk and choose his victims. A major inquiry was set up after the 1992 attacks. Officers were hunting a perpetrator who showed extreme violence towards his victims, using a knife, and on more than one occasion attacking a woman with her children present. Throughout the inquiry, 106 crimes were identified involving 86 women. And it was in the middle of this inquiry that Rachel Nickell was attacked. Despite similarities between the cases, no one appeared to be joining up the dots. Paul Britton – the well-known criminal profiler a leading influence on the Nickell murder inquiry, was also working on the Green Chain rapes case. Professor Laurence Alison, the chair of forensic psychology at Liverpool University and the author of a new book on Napper, told the Guardian: "Frenzied random motiveless knife attacks on women are rare. Even more unusual are frenzied, random knife attacks on women with their young children present. Here was Britton with two of them under his nose and no one noticed." If the police were not drawing the threads together, others were attempting to point them in the right direction and bring Napper out of the darkness. In August 1992, one of his neighbours in Plumstead rang the police to say he looked like the photo fit of the Green Chain rapist. Detectives went to his house, questioned him and asked him to give a blood sample at the local police station. He failed to turn up. On 15 July 1992 on Wimbledon Common, Napper had stabbed the young mother Rachel Nickell forty-nine times in front of her son Alex, then aged two, who clung on to his mother's body begging her to wake up. Napper was questioned about unsolved attacks on other women during the year, but was eliminated from inquiries, as his false alibi that he had been at work at the time of the murder was not sufficiently investigated by detectives. Officers asked him to visit to a police station on 2 September 1992 and give a DNA sample, but he never turned up. The following day, he was again identified as the man in the E-fit by a caller who identified him as "Bob Napper". Again police visited and asked him to attend a police station to give a sample. An appointment was scheduled for 8 September 1992, but again he failed to turn up. Despite his unwillingness to provide the police with DNA, knowing it would match samples found on the three rape victims, Napper was then ruled out of the rape inquiry simply because he was 6ft 2in and police believed the man they were looking for was 5ft 9in. Three months later in October 1992, Napper was flagged up to the police again when he was arrested over suggestions that he had been stalking a civilian employee at Plumstead police station. Officers searched his bedsit and found a .22 pistol, 244 rounds of ammunition, two knives, a crossbow and six crossbow bolts. Police files from the inquiry show they also found pocket diaries, hand-drawn maps, notes written on the borders of newspapers, and a London A-Z.  Part of his fixation appeared to be to target mothers while they were with their young children. He preyed particularly upon women in parks and commons, but would also stalk them at their homes, watching them for days before choosing his moment to attack. In his rented a room at a house on Plumstead High Street, detectives found a padlocked red toolbox, inside of which were his darkest secrets. They discovered a torch, a restraining cord, and medical notes on how to torture people. There was an illustration of the neck showing how the various human muscles work and interact. Another showed the anatomy of the human torso. One hand-written note said “Mengele’s way” – an apparent reference to the Nazi doctor who practised surgical and psychological experiments on living and dead victims. In the notes were references to methods of restraining someone, including the phrase "cling film on the legs". Another note named particular streets and gave map references for them on the A-Z. Pages had been marked with black dots highlighting certain areas; other locations were marked with dashes. They were concentrated in the Plumstead, Eltham and Woolwich areas of South-East London. Three days later he was arrested for possession of a firearm and sentenced to two months in prison.  Napper pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm and ammunition. In court, references were made to his disturbed mental state and a psychiatric report was produced saying he was "without doubt an immediate threat to himself and the public". Napper was given an eight-week custodial sentence and no further inquiries were carried out into the disturbing evidence found at his flat. In April 1993, Napper's fingerprints were found on a tin box discovered buried on Winns Common, neighbouring Plumstead Common. Inside the box was a Mauser handgun. Despite the fingerprint link, Napper was never questioned about the find. In July of the same year, according to police files, Napper's name was logged on an intelligence report after a couple phoned the police to say they had seen a man spying on their neighbour, a young blonde woman who often walked in her flat semi-naked. The husband followed the man, and when police arrived they spoke to Napper, who gave his name and address. The officers' notes read: "Subject strange, abnormal, should be considered as a possible rapist, indecency type suspect." Shortly thereafter,  in November 1993, in a house in Plumstead, Napper stabbed 27-year-old Samantha Bisset in her neck and chest, killing her, and then sexually assaulted and smothered her four-year-old daughter, Jazmine Jemima Bisset.  In her sitting room, the 6' 2" Napper mutilated Samantha's body, taking away parts of her body as a trophy. The crime scene was reportedly so grisly that the police photographer assigned to the case was forced to take two years' leave after witnessing it. After a fingerprint belonging to Napper was recovered from Samantha's flat, he was arrested, and charged with the murders of Samantha and Jazmine Bisset, in May 1994. Napper was convicted at The Old Bailey in October 1995. He also admitted two rapes and two attempted rapes at this time. From the time of the first Old Bailey trial, he has been held at Broadmoor. In December 1995 he was questioned about Nickell's death but denied any involvement. Napper is also believed to be the "Green Chain Rapist", who carried out at least 70 savage attacks across south-east London over a four-year period ending in 1994. The earliest of the 'Green Chain' rapes have been linked to Napper, and were those he admitted to in 1995. Napper is known to have kept detailed records of the sites of potential and actual attacks on women. As if this was not bad enough, Colin Stagg, an entirely innocent man was initially charged with the murder of Rachel Nickell until, in 2004, advances in DNA profiling revealed Napper's connection to the case. On 18 December 2008, Napper was convicted of the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He also admitted to four other attacks on women. Napper was to be held indefinitely at Broadmoor Hospital. At the same time, Colin Stagg received a public apology from the police, and an unprecedented compensation payment from the Home Office which exceeded £735,000. As he progressed from peeping tom to stalker, then to multiple rapist and finally serial killer, Napper came on to the police radar at least seven times, on at least two occasions displaying behaviour that marked him out as a danger to women. But he was never pursued. Had the links been investigated, the connections would have led detectives to Napper earlier, preventing Colin Stagg from being made a pariah and saving another young mother and her child from murder and depraved mutilation. Now Robert Napper is spending the rest of his life in Broadmoor Hospital; recent accounts state that he is still highly delusional;  he believes he has a Master’s degree in Maths, had won the Nobel Peace Prize, been awarded medals for fighting in Angola and had millions stashed in a bank in Sidcup. He also believes that his fingers had been blown off by an IRA parcel bomb but had miraculously grown back. The only good news to come out of this sad and disturbing tale is that Napper will never be released, and cannot further threaten the public. 

Following the story that Bexley Council have agreed outline planning permission on part of Old Farm Park in Sidcup, and the widely held public belief that Bexley Council are relentless in their desire to sell off as much public land for commercial development as housing, a strong rumour has been forwarded to me by two separate and respected sources. The rumour (and it is only that at this stage) is that the owners of The Europa Industrial Estate in Fraser Road are having problems finding suitable tenants for much of the extensive site; the former Europa Gym is now converted into a House of Multiple Occupation (HMO), but many of the other industrial units especially at the Eastern end of the site lay empty. Consultation with an industrial estate agent suggests that around twenty units on the Europa Estate have been empty for some considerable time, with little interest from local businesses in occupying them. My information is that the owners of the Europa Estate are currently considering relocating the few businesses in the Eastern, Erith end of the estate into the Western end, nearer to the BATT Cables site; they would then sell the Eastern side of the estate to a property developer. I can see the thinking in this; the Erith Quarry site, only a couple of hundred metres further along Fraser Road is seeing exceedingly good business, with many units already sold "off plan". The owners of the Europa Estate may well wish to copy this - after all, if they can get the necessary planning permissions from Bexley Council (surely a formality with the track record of this local administration) then the land would be worth a king's ransom, situated as it is adjacent to Erith Station, Erith town centre and road links to the M25, the South Circular and the A2. I stress that what I have heard are merely rumours; if you have any concrete information confirming or denying this story, please drop me a line to hugh.neal@gmail.com in complete confidence.

On my way to work on Thursday morning, I saw a total of four, three piece suites dumped by the roadside – all of which were in Erith. One of the three was dumped by a post box, and the other three were left adjacent to the Sikh temple at the Pom Pom. The level of fly tipping seems to be increasing at an exponential rate. I know that this is a UK wide problem, and I have been doing some research into what may be the causes. Six of the ten worst hot spots for fly tipping in the UK are within the boundaries of Greater London. Haringey in North London tops the list, with about 25,000 cases of fly-tipping reported in the last year – the equivalent of one offence for every ten people who live there. Westminster comes in second, while Greenwich, Croydon, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea also appear in the top 10. Brent, also in Nhorth London, saw the biggest year-on-year rise in fly-tipping incidents – an 84 per cent hike between 2014/15 and 2016/17. A number of councils have mounted campaigns to discourage people from fly-tipping, and to encourage residents to report it. The London Borough of Bexley appears very low down on the list, something which surprises me greatly. How accurately the statistics have been compiled is not clear. As regular readers may be aware, I have been involved in a couple of successful prosecutions for fly tipping in the past, one of which led to the perpetrator getting an eight month prison sentence, on top of a heavy fine and the confiscation of his van. These however seem to be the exception rather than the rule – most fly tippers do so safe in the knowledge their chances of being caught and subsequently prosecuted are vanishingly slim.

The Penny Farthing micro pub in Crayford has done astonishingly well for itself; since it opened in September 2014. The Bexley Times have reported that the Penny Farthing sold its one thousandth cask of real ale on Thursday evening. The micro pub is located in the riverside at Crayford, cleverly located right next door to the Crayford Tandoori – a match made in heaven. In a very nice touch, the 1000th cask was of a locally produced  Motueka Pale Ale from the Bexley Brewery, which is located only up  the road in Erith. The Penny Farthing is a great success – when you hear of so many pubs closing and often being converted into flats, or just being demolished completely, it is a very good feeling that Micro Pubs are very much bucking this trend.

Radio Caroline will broadcast on the former BBC World Service medium wave frequency of 648 kHz, after being awarded a community radio licence for East Anglia. The station was given the go-ahead by Ofcom last month, and now says the regulator has also agreed to its request for a 1000-watt ERP (Effective Radiated Power). In a statement on the Radio Caroline website, the station said: “We can now announce that our AM frequency will be 648 kHz with a power of 1000 watts. This is ERP or simply the power radiated by the aerial. A transmitter was imported from the Continent a few days ago and is now being modified to suit the frequency. There are further hurdles, but as you can see progress is being made. Watch this space.” The new Radio Caroline will play album tracks and had proposed a coverage area from Ipswich to Diss and Bury St Edmunds to Saxmundham. Some programmes will be broadcast from studios in Kent, and others via a link to the Ross Revenge ship. The station has previously said that, if practical, it aims to get on air in time for the 50th anniversary of the Marine Offences Act on 14th August. Caroline already runs a service online and via a number of DAB multiplexes around the country. What is both surprising and welcome is the choice of frequency 648 kHz is the old BBC World Service channel that was in use by that station until March 2011. 648 kHz is what is known as a “clear channel” – one that is shared with no others in the transmission area. The nearest other broadcasters using 648 kHz are Murski Val located in Northern Slovenia, and RNE Radio Nacional in Bajadoz in Spain. Both of those stations use a transmission power of 10 kW – which should hopefully not interfere with the 1kW signal from Radio Caroline to the Eastern parts of the UK. I actually suspect that the forthcoming Caroline radio transmissions will be a big target for Medium Wave DXers (the radio equivalent of train spotters) – I think it will be only hours from launch before the first long range reception reports start coming in from parts of Scandinavia and well beyond.  There will be plenty of people getting their anoraks dry cleaned just waiting for the day. The amount of power granted by Ofcom to Radio Caroline is a bit of an eye opener; an ERP of a kilowatt is a lot of power for a local station. Good news all round.

I think everyone who uses the web has come across all sorts of pop ups and warning pages that tell you that your computer has been infected by malware and all sorts of nasties. Most people realise that these are scams; fraudulent pages trying to get you to part you with your money. The enterprising chap in the short video below has taken it upon himself to investigate exactly who is behind one range of these fraudulent web page pop ups. It makes for very enlightening, not to mention entertaining viewing. Have a look and see what you think. Feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at  hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The Pom Pom Womblers.

The photo above shows The Cross Keys Centre and Erith Playhouse, both located in the Erith High Street conservation area; out of the shot and to the right of the Playhouse is the White Hart (no longer referred to as the White Hart / Potion Bar, as all reference to that lager swilling, drug dealing, Chav infested abomination have now been completely and utterly expunged from the site as part of the ongoing restoration and conversion of that historic Victorian building). The new replica frontage of the White Hart is now well on the way to being completed; it is now in the process of being glazed and painted, and already it looks vastly superior to the anachronistic and shabby float glass frontage that was illegally installed by the owners of the hated Potion Bar. The whole High Street area is looking immeasurably better than it has done for many years, thanks to a handful of dedicated people who have put much time, effort and money into improving the historic part of Erith. 

As I recently mentioned, it would seem that London Mayor Sadiq Khan has quietly dropped plans for a river crossing between Rainham in Essex and Lower Belvedere. This is despite a survey of local residents which indicated that seventy seven percent were in favour of river crossings at both Thamesmead and Belvedere. In fact, Richard de Cani, managing director for planning at TfL, said in an interview almost exactly a year ago: “With the capital’s population rising rapidly and more much-needed housing being built, crossing the river will become ever more important. It’s great to see overwhelming support for these two new cross-river connections at Gallions Reach and Belvedere, which would provide better public transport links and help unlock opportunities for local people.” There is a degree of polarisation of opinion regarding the necessity of extra river crossings; Latest estimates have London’s population growing by 1.5 million in the next 15 years, with South East London already taking on vast new housing developments - Erith alone has Erith Park, Tower Hill, the redevelopment of the former Riverside Swimming Baths site, and the large development on Erith Quarry. Proponents of the scheme believe more road links linking the north and south banks should be built sooner rather than later to accommodate the extra traffic this would bring. There is also a discrepancy between crossings in the West and East of London – there are twenty six Thames crossings between London Bridge and Kew Bridge to the west, while there are only eleven from Tower Bridge to Dartford Crossing in the East. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Home in less than fashionable suburbs of outer London have become the fastest-selling in the capital, research released this week shows. An analysis by property website  Zoopla shows that properties in Sutton are the quickest to go under offer after they are put on the market. Experts said the study is further evidence of the strength of outer London’s property market in comparison to the “prime” central London market, which has stalled in recent years. More people are now willing to move to previously unpopular areas because of their affordability and improving transport links, they added. Sutton properties take an average of 28 days after being listed for sale to get an offer, the research suggests. Havering and our own Bexley were next at 29 days. I am certain that areas such as Plumstead and Abbey Wood will be strongly affected by the Crossrail development. I predict that the area around Plumstead Common will be a very popular area once the Elizabeth Line opens - in fact I predict that it will become like Blackheath Common in time - the shops, cafes and pubs will move upmarket within a very few years of the new transport hub opening. Mark my words. 

A little known fact is that the hospital that is now known as Queen Mary's in Sidcup was instrumental in pioneering several forms of surgery that have become vital in modern medicine.  A chap called Doctor Harold Gillies – a New Zealand born surgeon, who earned the title of “The father of plastic surgery” pioneered reconstructive surgery on wounded soldiers who had been injured in the trenches of the First World War, and who had a remarkable local connection. Harold Gillies initially opened a small unit in the Cambridge Hospital at Aldershot which had beds for two hundred injured men. He pioneered the use of skin grafting – a technique he adapted from one first used by professor Hippolyte – Morestin in France, he employed dental reconstruction techniques invented by Charles Valadier, coupled with the use of X-Rays, and photographs to detail the injuries of his patients; he was also fastidious about cleanliness and the use of antiseptics (a very important point, as antibiotics were yet to be discovered, and deaths from sepsis or blood poisoning were still very common). Harold Gillies also came up with the simple but effective policy of ensuring that all patients were attached to a luggage label listing their injuries, and where the injured soldier needed to be sent for treatment – many of the men were unable to speak through injury, or otherwise rendered unconscious. Once the Battle of the Somme took place, the two hundred bed unit in Aldershot was drastically overcrowded – at one point there were ten patients for every bed. A new home needed to be found for the plastic surgery unit, and one was found at Queen’s Hospital at Sidcup (what is nowadays Queen Mary’s).  The unit took up much of the hospital, and it was conveniently close to the Royal Artillery barracks at Woolwich, where a small number of patients were located during their convalescence. Doctor Gillies was an interesting man – on top of being a very early pioneer of plastic surgery, he was a great golfer, a professional standard violin player, rowed in a winning team for Cambridge University in the boat race, and created a comedic alter – ego called Doctor Scroggy which he used to entertain his patients. He would walk around the wards of Queen’s Hospital at night, dispensing champagne and oysters to the injured soldiers, despite the strict ban on alcohol within the hospital grounds. He encouraged the recovering men to perform theatrical productions and shorter skits, which often involved the recuperating soldiers dressing in drag. Harold Gillies was aware of the emotional as well as physical trauma he was treating – and his solution was to make recovery fun. His influence was such that later, in the Second World War, he was able to rebuild the burned faces and hands of airmen, alongside his better known cousin, Archibald Mcindoe, whose disfigured pilot patients later formed The Guinea Pig Club. Harold Gillies also performed the first gender reassignment operations, and became a leader in the field of sex change surgery.  He was ahead of his time in so many ways, and much of his work first undertaken at Sidcup has been used as the foundation for modern reconstructive surgery. It is a shame that the story is not better known.

A story broke early in the week in the local press, which as well as being serious and a matter for concern, also brought an element of black humour. In the early hours of Monday morning, a JCB load lifter was stolen from a building site in Erith. Normally when such vehicles are stolen, they are loaded onto a lorry and taken by a gang of organised criminals. Not so in this case. Instead a hardened criminal with what appears to be the I.Q of a small Begonia was the culprit. Alan Lamb, 34, of Star Lane in St Mary Cray was caught by Police after a (very slow) chase of the JCB along North End Road and into Thames Road. Bearing in mind such vehicles are limited to a top road speed of 35 miles per hour, the pursuing Police cars cannot have rivalled the car chases in Smokey and the Bandit or The Blues Brothers! Alan Lamb was promptly arrested, and appeared in court on the 14th March. He claimed that he had  attempted to drive the JCB to Dartford. However, he didn’t know how to control the digger correctly as “there were lots of levers”, so when police signalled for him to stop, he could only let the vehicle slowly roll to a stop. This meant police were only able to stop Lamb along Thames Road outside Dartford. When the police approached Lamb in the JCB, he told them that “I have just nicked this and I’m wanted on recall to prison.” When interviewed by the police further, he told them he was going to be paid money for the JCB and he needed the money because he owed two men for heroin and crack cocaine. He was also wanted for the theft of £350 worth of coats from Peacocks in Orpington on December 17. Lamb pleaded guilty to stealing the JCB and for the theft of the coats and was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison. What amazes me is that however astonishingly thick and drug addled Alan Lamb may be, he did not realise the utter futility of stealing construction plant or equipment. It is well known that nearly all such valuable kit is fitted with electronic tracking devices, which enable security companies to relatively easily trace stolen hardware, notify the Police and get the kit returned to its rightful owner. You can see a series of videos on exactly how stolen plant equipment is tracked down by clicking here.

As predicted some time ago, the spit of land which separates Fraser Road and Alford Road in the area of Erith historically known as the Pom Pom, due to the historic noise of 20mm and 30mm cannons being tested on the nearby range that was located behind the Maxim (and later Vickers Maxim) arms factory in Fraser Road. The land is now being stripped and will shortly be used to widen the road adjacent to the entrance of what will be the new Erith Quarry housing estate, which is currently under construction. One piece of good news is that a new volunteer group has recently been established, which will be collecting rubbish from in and around the Pom Pom area; they are called the Pom Pom Womblers. They are keeping the Pom Pom clear of rubbish, and acting to assist the council in generally keeping the area looking clean and tidy. Organiser, Brian Weekes, who was already a regular volunteer litter picker with his wife Brenda in the Alford Road area said: "At a recent meeting of the community group we requested help for a clean-up on Saturday 19 November and we received offers of help from 12 people. We also posted information through letterboxes in Pembroke Road, Battle Road, Riverdale Road and St John's Road. We had a good turn out on the day, collecting 46 bags of rubbish. We are hoping that many of those who turned up will continue with litter picking within the area." Volunteers for the Pom Pom Womblers, or anyone wishing to set up their own local rubbish collecting volunteer group should please email Jennie.Beckett@bexley.gov.uk or telephone the Council on 020 8303 7777 and ask for Jennie Beckett.

A new and very worrying form of Ransomware has been discovered, which targets computers running Windows. Ransomware is a form of malware that infects target computers and stealthily encrypts the users files, making them unreadable. The ransomware then offers to provide the decryption key to restore the encrypted files - in exchange for a large amount of money, and of course there is no guarantee you will get anything at all after handing over your hard earned money. The new ransomware infestation has a Star Trek theme, and is known as "Kirk". Kirk is reckoned to be the first ransomware to utilise virtual cash transfer system Monero rather than BitCoin as the ransom payment of choice. The malware decryptor "Spock" will be supplied to the victim once the payment is made, but at this time the ransomware does not look like it can be decrypted, anti-malware firm Webroot reports. At present, there are no known victims of the ransomware and there’s no sample of the decryptor, so information regarding it is limited. The decryptor is said to be promised once the ransom is paid, but obviously there are no guarantees and it cannot be decrypted at present without it. For the first two days, crooks are demanding 50 Monero or roughly $1,072 (£867). The fee doubles every few days if victims fail to cave in. If no payment is made by the 31st day, the decryption key gets permanently deleted, according to the ransom note. Security researchers are currently investigating the malware in the hope that they will be able to find a backdoor or other vulnerability in the malicious code that will enable them to neutralise the threat, but thus far one has yet to be found.

The "then and now" photos above come from local history expert Martin Barnes. They show the ridiculously narrow opening under the railway bridge at Maiden Lane in Crayford, both in 1938 and more recently in 2014. I have never understood why the bridge was designed in the way that it was - it seems to make no logical sense to make something so small. If you have any insight into why such an impractical bridge was designed and built, please let me know.

The Shortlist rankings website recently ranked the ten worst ways to commute into and out of London. Not surprisingly Southeastern Trains came out as the number one worst way to commute. Their opinion of Southeastern was expressed thus:- "Run by the same French public body as Southern, the undisputed champion of bad commutes has to be Southeastern. The evil geniuses at the top have managed to double profits in the past 12 months, despite astonishingly low levels of customer satisfaction and punctuality. Even City Hall says the service is so bad it should be run by TfL. If you’ve ever had the misfortune of being on one of its ancient carriages you’ll know the pain of being on a train so slow it is overtaken by elderly foxes strolling along next to the tracks, before the train terminates early leaving you stuck at a bus stop in the middle of Lewisham. There’s a poor guy working at Cannon Street station who has said “Southeastern apologises…” so many times it’s given him Tourette’s.  The company once took umbrage when we said Isis could run a better train service but now we think about it, although they both love a scapegoat (either the US or Network Rail) and are run remotely, the terrorists do seem better organised and more social media savvy." Quite. I feel that things are very much unlikely to improve until Transport for London are allowed to take over the running of the service. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling announced in December that he would not devolve responsibility for the Southeastern franchise to London's Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan. He claimed Transport for London's business plan did not offer extra capacity and was simply based on "a belief" that the organisation could run the system more effectively. But Mr Grayling was accused of putting politics ahead of passengers over the issue after a leaked letter showed he opposed the policy in 2013 as he wanted to keep the network "out of the clutches" of any future Labour mayor. In a recent interview, Chris Grayling said: "Services on the Southeastern rail network have been unacceptably poor for far too long. Passengers have endured disruption, overcrowding and delays, particularly during redevelopment work at London Bridge station, and they deserve better. That is why this consultation is so important. Appointing a new franchise operator from 2018 provides us with a great opportunity to sort out the problems which have plagued the Southeastern network, and deliver the high quality of service that customers expect. We are going to do things differently. I want passengers to enjoy more space and comfort, more and better communication with the operator, and a consistently reliable performance." The problems with Southeastern were thrown into sharp relief last Monday when a train was put into service on the 8.09am from Dartford to Charing Cross when it had not been cleaned from the night before, and passengers found vomit on a couple of seats. A chap called Adam Pearson Tweeted Southeastern asking why staff had not noticed the smelly and offensive mess, and why hadn't the guard done anything about it? Southeastern in a fairly typical piece of inserting their foot in their mouths responded with:- "Staff would not have noticed the mess as there are no conductors on services between Dartford to London". That just about summarises Southeastern at present; in their defence, they are proposing a number of measures to improve their future service, which I understand will include creating more space for passengers by running longer trains and upgrading or replacing older trains, increasing reliability and reducing delays by the train operator working closely with Network Rail, improving compensation arrangements with a simple automated system, introduction of a smarter payment system, including mobile phones, improving customer service with staff able to respond quickly and effectively to passenger’s needs. Extending the number of carriages on stopping services from eight or 10 to 12 carriages and providing more seats on high-speed services is also being considered. Southeastern are obviously trying to fend off competitors for when the franchise comes up for renegotiation during 2018. Thanks to regular reader and occasional contributor Brian, I had discovered that Transport for London are asking a hell of a lot (as indeed they should) of their next franchise holder, whoever it turns out to be. Brian has found a whole repository of information on the Gov.UK website. On there the following announcement has been published:- "Passengers in south east London, Kent, the Medway towns and East Sussex are on track to get improved journeys, as the Department for Transport (DfT) seeks views on a new franchise in the south-east. South Eastern handles 640,000 passenger journeys on 1,900 train services every weekday. The government is keen that passengers, local councils and anyone with an interest in improved service on the Southeastern franchise take the opportunity to shape what the next operator will deliver. The Secretary of State for Transport, Chris Grayling said: Passengers on a new South Eastern franchise from 2018 will enjoy modern trains with more space and a more punctual and reliable service. This consultation sets out what we expect the next operator to deliver for passengers, including working more closely with Network Rail to ensure a focus on performance, and innovative use of technology to improve both ticket buying and compensation if things do go wrong. DfT’s ambitions for this franchise include: creating more space for passengers by running longer trains and upgrading or replacing older trains; increasing reliability and reducing delays by the train operator working closely with Network Rail; improving compensations arrangements with a simple automated system; introduction of a smarter payment system, including mobile phones; improving customer service with staff able to respond quickly and effectively to passenger’s needs; These ambitions need an innovative new approach from the rail industry. As the Secretary of State set out in his speech on 6 December 2016, this will be the first franchise to have an integrated operating team between train services and infrastructure. This means that the new operator must form an alliance with Network Rail, working as one team to deliver a better railway for passengers". I note how the upgrades proposed by Southeastern dovetail extremely closely with those on the requirements from the government - strange that! I don't know if I am being cynical, or merely realistic, but I have my doubts as to if Southeastern will even be shortlisted as a contender for the new franchise, as their reputation and performance has been so utterly woeful. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

A rather more pleasant local transport story follows. It has come to my notice that there is a possibility that steam trains may run from Abbey Wood Station once Crossrail / Elizabeth Line development is completed. The Ian Visits website is reporting the following story:- "A new heritage railway has been granted planning permission, and could make visits to the Crossness steam pumping museum a lot more convenient. The possibility of a light railway being built near Abbey Wood has been lurking around since 2011, when the Royal Gunpowder Mills loaned a locomotive to the Crossness team under an agreement to restore it. That locomotive is a local one though, being the oil fired steam engine, Avonside 0-4-0T Woolwich, which once worked the light railway built inside the Woolwich Arsenal. It’s the Crossness pumping station – a marvel of Victorian engineering – which is leading the plans for the railway, as the pumping station is deep inside a huge Thames Water estate, and it’s a decent walk from the entrance and car park to to the pumping station itself. Hence, the plans for an 18-inch light railway to relieve visitors of that half-mile walk. The intention is that people would arrive at the edge of the estate, then head to the Victorian pumping station on a steam train. At the moment, it’s either a bus ride, or long walk from Abbey Wood station to get to the site, so most visitors tend to arrive by car. The planning application was submitted last October, and yesterday, Bexley Council approved the plans, subject to a survey on managing road traffic from visitors to the site. In the long term, there may even be an option to extend the railway from the Crossness car park along the ridgeway towards Plumstead, and then provide a very convenient link to the mainline station. Give it a couple of years, and a trip on the new Elizabeth Line to Abbey Wood could conclude with a trip on a steam train. If you want to learn more about the plans, and to see the restored locomotive, Crossness pumping station is holding one of its open days on 30th April 10:30am-4pm". It will be interesting to see what comes of this venture. More on this subject to come in the future. If you have any additional information or insight, please get in contact with me. 

The end video this week shows further work on Abbey Wood Station to ready it to receive trains running on the Elizabeth Line, as well as the existing North Kent Line. See what you think. 

£1.90 for a wee.

The photo above shows the Wind, Wave and Sail sculpture which is located on the small triangle of land that separates Erith Riverside Shopping Centre from Morrison's car park. It was erected in 1998 and funded by Morrison's. It is meant to represent the connection between Erith and the River Thames - to be honest it is not bad, but pretty unimaginative - too literal in my opinion, but nevertheless the town is better for it. 

You may recall that two weeks ago I covered a story involving a break in and burglary at The Cross Keys Centre in Erith High Street. I published a series of still images taken from the high definition CCTV cameras that surround the building. Well, due to some excellent work carried out by Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association, and the Erith and North End Safer Neighbourhood Police teams, I am extremely happy to say that three youths have now been arrested for the offences. Thanks to everyone who helped identify the youths; it is somewhat ironic - the youths were caught partly through the actions of the local community, and when the renovation and conversion work to The Cross Keys Centre is completed, it will become a great asset and resource to the local community. I think we can chalk this one up as a victory for the good guys. 

You may recall that I gave extensive coverage to the 2016 Erith Fun Day last week, with its first appearance on the large field behind Erith Sports Centre. It has been relocated from its previous location in Erith Riverside Gardens, as the Fun Day had outgrown the original venue. The new Sports Centre site is much larger than the old venue, and this reflected both in the increased number of stalls and stallholders at the event this year, and the number of visitors compared to the past. I only became aware of one shocking fact this week, well after the Fun Day had concluded. One of my regular local sources of information dropped me a bombshell. It turns out that the new venue for the Fun Day is not quite as welcoming as had been thought. My source writes “I was shocked to hear that the nearby Leisure Centre run by Parkwood Leisure was charging £1.90 for use of their toilets, at Saturday's Erith Fun Day, when our members said they were volunteers and ask if they could use them for free they were told NO as were the Police;  I think this is a disgusting rip off. Are they not able to enter into the spirit of the local community fun day and even if they charged a nominal fee say 20p it would not have been so bad, I have emailed them directly and will write to their head office if I don't get a reasonable reply”. This is utterly disgraceful – there were only three portaloos on the Fun Day field, and these were heavily used by the visitors to the event, leaving it very difficult for the organisers and volunteers when they needed the lavatory. Bearing in mind that Erith Sports Centre plan in being the venue of choice for future Fun Days, one would have thought that they would have been more welcoming and encouraging of a long – term relationship, but it would appear not. How the sports centre can even contemplate exploiting local volunteers by charging them £1.90 each and every time they needed to use the loo is both exploitative and utterly outrageous. My contact subsequently wrote to the leisure centre, and got the following reply:- Thank you for taking the time to put in writing your comments about the toilet facilities here at Erith Leisure Centre. Unfortunately everyone who is not a member of the site needs to pay an admission charge to use the facilities, which would include the use of the toilet facilities. The Erith Fun Day was nothing to do with the centre, but the management here had a meet with the organisers beforehand who assured us there was toilet facilities available for people to use on the field, as we would be charging anyone who wanted to use our facilities on the day. I can only apologise that this wasn't communicated to you by the Fun Day organisers. Going forwards we will not be changing our admission policy for non members using the site. I hope this clarifies the situation. Regards, Lara Butler Senior Duty Manager Erith Leisure Centre". I cannot say that I am surprised by the response - and it shows just how little the management of the sports centre care about being part of the local community. My source responded with:- "Thank you for your reply, I realise that access to some leisure centres toilets are not always easy but I thought that charging £1.90 to volunteers and members of Bexley Police is harsh and not community minded. It would have been easier to have said something like "due to our facilities being available for members only we are unable to offer use to these facilities to volunteers and police officers". The other option had you wanted to enter into the spirit of the occasion would have been to have had a stand at the event and offer tours of your leisure facilities and handed our membership forms therefore possibly benefitting from increased membership and you could have perhaps also offered a 20p surcharge to volunteers and police officers for the use of your toilets. It's sad this was an opportunity lost in building better community relations and in fact in some areas you have managed to do the opposite, your PR obviously needs a rethink!" If anyone can think of a suitable (and legal) method of practical protest at this policy, please do let me know. And before you suggest it, we are not going to do a mass wee - in - the - swimming pool protest!

Housing seems to be the number one issue in and around London and the South East at present, and looks like this will continue for the foreseeable future. The inescapable fact is that there are too many people chasing too few properties. Erith and Slade Green have had a reputation as being the most affordable places to live that are located with an acceptable commute of central London. With the advent of Crossrail, and the strong likelihood of a new river crossing at Lower Belvedere, the profile of the local area with potential new residents has never been higher. House prices are now rocketing. My own house, Pewty Acres has increased in value by nearly six and a half times the original purchase price in the last twenty years – most of it in the last five. I have said it before – even though I earn substantially more money than I did twenty years ago, I could not afford to buy my own house nowadays. I am sure that this is true for a great many people, and it does not bode well for those looking to purchase their first home. The London Chamber of Commerce have recognised this, and have released a report that states key workers such as those in the health service may be priced out of working within commuting distance of their work. Currently more than fifty percent of London’s emergency service workers live outside of the capital. Just over half of police, fire and paramedic staff now commute to London, adding to the stress of shift work, The London Chamber of Commerce (LCC) said. Travel and housing costs in London have soared by around a third in recent years.  Meanwhile, pay in the NHS has increased by up to 4 percent in recent years, the report stated, sparking concerns have been raised that workers are being priced out of London. Erith is seeing the largest amount of residential accommodation construction since the 1950’s, with Erith Park, Erith Quarry, Tower Hill, and the forthcoming Riverside Baths site development all either under way, or about to begin. All of these sites are primarily aimed at commercial tenants or owner occupiers, with the exception of Erith Park, which is a mixture of new social housing and for – profit sales. The proposed redevelopment of the Arthur Street Estate is as I understand it solely for the exising social residents, rather than to accomodate many new residents. The only existing “key worker” accommodation is Tramway House, which is located on the corner of West Street and Walnut Tree Road. On top of this lack of affordable accommodation comes the increasing problem of Homes of Multiple Occupancy (HMO) – a term which fifteen or so years ago used to nearly always mean student accommodation. Nowadays that has very much changed; the market has expanded for a number of reason – including that HMOs are popular with buy-to-let investors because, it is believed, they have higher income-generating potential than ordinary or ‘vanilla’ buy-to-let properties (though, according to industry statistics, the earning potential of HMOs has recently become outclassed by that of multi-unit freehold blocks (MUFBs)). By splitting single properties into multiple bedsits that are each let out on separate tenancy agreements, landlords can also reduce their exposure to loss of earnings through rental arrears or voids.  Due to the additional legal requirements placed upon HMO landlords, not every buy-to-let mortgage lender will agree to finance HMO properties. This has led to the emergence of a specialised HMO mortgage market, catered for by a smaller subset of lenders. Because the choice of products is narrower, HMO mortgage borrowers are often subject to stricter criteria. Often they need larger cash deposits, as the average loan-to-value ratio is slightly lower than for an ordinary buy-to-let mortgage, while the minimum property value tends to be higher. Borrowers who are financing unlicensed HMOs may also be required to prove that their local authority has no intention to license the property in the future. It is also common for HMO mortgage lenders to stipulate the number of rooms permitted, the type of tenancy agreement and tenant demographic permitted and even the type of lock installed on internal and external doors. All this being considered, Bexley as a borough has pretty much turned a blind eye to HMO landlords until relatively recently. In October 2010 the Coalition Government amended the legislation. They included a ‘Change in Use’ from C3 to C4 within the General Permitted Development Order (GPDO). This allowed landlords to change their properties from a C3 Dwelling House to a C4 HMO without the need for planning permission. They also gave local authorities the power to remove permission for the C3 – C4 ‘Change in Use’ by means of an ‘Article 4 Direction’. Councils have used this to designate whole areas and limit the number of HMOs in a geographical area. Bexley Council somewhat unwisely opted out of the article 4 direction, thus leaving local residents at risk of an HMO springing up next door at very short notice indeed. The reason that Bexley Council did not sign up to the article 4 direction has been debated by Malcolm Knight of Bexley is Bonkers. His analysis of the situation (with which I concur) is that if they did sign up to article 4, they would have a statutory obligation to inspect HMO properties to ensure that they complied with the law; as they would not be able to charge a fee for this, they opted out of the arrangement – something which looks like it has already bitten them on the bum. A FaceBook page “Say No to HMO” has been set up to protest against the spread of HMO’s in Bexley. Sky News held an investigation into illegal houses of multiple occupancy earlier this week; they featured a single house in Kingsbury, in the London Borough of Brent, which had a total of seventeen men living in it in utterly squalid conditions, and paying a total of £3,400 a month in rent to an absentee landlord. This kind of thing is happening all over the place with many “beds in sheds” being discovered by local authorities. The situation is only going to get worse locally, as Bexley council don’t want to take any of the proactive steps that other councils like Brent have already taken. Nothing new there then!

Currently there is a lot of debate as to where in Erith, and how the £3.9 million development grant should be spent. Suggestions have been made by a couple of readers, one of whom’ s thoughts I published last week. Several people have commented that the retail block facing the infamous fish roundabout could be a prime candidate for redevelopment. The large and nowadays rather run down and scruffy brick building is called Electricity House – though many locals are unaware of this. It was the location of a very early speech by then parliamentary candidate Margaret Roberts (later Thatcher) back on the 17th February 1950. You can read a transcript of her rather boring presentation here. It was built back in 1938 and opened in November 1939 as a showroom and offices for the local electricity company, which at the time was run by the council. Pre – war services such as gas, water and electricity supply were quite commonly managed and supplied by local councils; the idea of private companies being involved was something that did not happen until after the war had ended. Electricity House was also a place where new electrical customers could view domestic appliances which they could buy via hire purchase (it sounds like an early version of BrightHouse, but without the crippling interest rates). As well as the showroom, Electricity House was home to what contemporary accounts say was a very upmarket dance hall with a fully sprung Canadian Maple floor; there was also a small Pathe cinema. The local electricity business was astonishingly successful – probably much helped by the fact that it offered the cheapest metered electricity in the entire UK at the time – one penny per unit. Ten thousand local people signed up for electrification in the first month alone, attracted by the offer of free connection to the local power grid – unusual at the time – many suppliers would even charge for the copper cable to connect new customers. In 1939 the Erith electricity board made a (for then) massive profit of £13,000. The idea was that the money would be used to improve local services and amenities for all, but the advent of war meant that early in 1940 Electricity House was handed over for war work, and once peace was restored, the money intended to benefit local people was absorbed by the LEB during nationalisation, and nothing was ever seen of it. Much of Erith was still lit by gas until relatively recently. I believe that some houses in West Street did not get electricity until 1947 when the London Electricity Board was formed, and the local council control of power was nationalised. Almost two years ago I heard a rumour that Electricity House was to be coming up for sale. The story went that the current owners of Electricity House realised that the building is end of life, and no longer fit for purpose. The current commercial tenants don’t pay very much rent for the place, and as the building is old and very scruffy, it is unlikely to attract new tenants prepared to pay higher rents. The only real money earning part of the building is actually the roof, which hosts a number of cellular telephone repeaters and their associated antenna masts. The most profitable course of action would be for the owners of the site to sell the building to a property developer, and for the current building to be demolished to make way for a modern alternative which would attract new and more prosperous tenants prepared to pay higher rents. Personally I would rather see the existing building extensively refurbished, but I somehow doubt that would be commercially viable. The longest term tenant in the building is Erith Snooker Centre, which occupies a large portion of the upper floor, and has been there since at least 1946. Others like the various African stores, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, and The Celestial Church of Christ (which seem to both share the former tyre warehouse; part of the building that faces Erith Council Offices) would all have to find alternative accommodation if this redevelopment went ahead; two years later and nothing has happened – the site seems to be still limping along, with a reduction in rental income now that the largest tenant – AGlory African health and beauty has relocated into the former Owens ironmongers shop in Cross Street. Earlier this week I did some detective work into the whole Electricity House situation, and I found that I was not the only person interested in the building. It turns out that there may actually be some substance in the rumours of a redevelopment of the site – or at the very least someone is speculating that some development may be in the planning stage. Erith Snooker Centre has been put up for sale, and has been successfully sold to a new owner. The club is the single biggest occupant of Electricity House, and pays £28,000 a year in rent for the premises. A new owner has purchased the club for £305,000, with the existing lease with the snooker club lasting until 2047. The return on investment would be something like eleven years. I immediately smelled a rat. There is no way that the snooker club / Electricity House would last eleven years in the same building, let alone until 2047 – when the building would be 109 years old. My impression is that a canny investor has bought the biggest chunk possible of Electricity House in the full knowledge that they won’t make a profit from the rent from Erith Snooker Centre. In my opinion, they, like me, can see the development potential of the entire building, and they are “land banking” their part of it in the hope of being bought out by another developer with deeper pockets – and thus making a large profit for what is a relatively small investment. It will be instructive to see what happens. If anyone knows anything further, please drop me a line with the details. Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com - thanks!

The photo above was taken on the 17th July 1966; it shows Erith High Street. In the far left distance you can see the Prince of Wales pub, which was on the site of what is now the McDonald's drive through. The block of shops in the middle of the photograph is now the Sherwood House residential home, and the Tip Top Bakery was on the site of what nowadays is Erith Health Centre. 

And here is (as close as possible) the same location exactly fifty years later - and it could not really look any more different; nothing at all survives from 1966. If you have any photos of old Erith, please send them to me - I would like to re - photograph the same site so that "then and now" comparisons can be made. 

One of my regular readers dropped me a line earlier this week, with an observation that has been made by numerous local people. He writes:- "I wondered if you might be interested in the undernoted exchange between myself and Bexley Council’s WM and Recycling Dept following my complaint that our separated waste (plastic tins and glass bottles) were being collected in one single bin. ME –“On several occasions I have observed plastic, cans and glass bottles, etc being collected up in a single skip so what is the point in households slavishly separating such items”? COUNCIL SPOKESPERSON – “We don’t have sufficient refuse lorries with dual collection chambers so we just put it one lorry and when we eventually have additional vehicles with two compartments in the fleet this will no longer be a problem, so please continue to separate your rubbish in the requested manner for recycling”. ME – “Surely if Serco, who are your appointed refuse collectors, were instructed to have the correct vehicles when they tendered for the contract this should not be an issue”. COUNCIL S/P – “We have to subscribe to the cost of these vehicle purchases so it can take some time for the fleet to be updated with the right equipment”. Also I assure you that when the vehicles return to the depot such amalgamated items are then separated”. ME – “I find it hard to believe that broken glass, bottles, tops, plastic, tin cans, fruit juice cartons, yogurt pots and other items from this same bin are sifted and separated as you have suggested”. COUNCIL S/P – “I can honestly say, hand on heart, that this is the case”. Frankly Hugh I believe this must be a load of codswallop with householders just being bullied into separating things which collectively end up in landfill and is probably just one big con to keep feather bedded councillors and staff in none jobs. Sadly I failed to ask him where this separation took place so that I may go along and witness it".  What do you think? Have you seen the same kind of behaviour from the waste disposal contractors? Leave a comment below, or email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. Following the observations, with the owner's permission, I forwarded them to Malcolm Knight, of "Bexley is Bonkers" for his feedback - Malcolm knows far more about Council recycling policy than I, and it seemed sensible to refer the matter to someone with more knowledge on the subject than myself. Malcolm responded thus:- "I suspect that in this case the story from Bexley Council is closer than usual to being the truth. I have studied Newham Council fairly closely and over there residents only have two bins. Plastic, tins and paper in one and everything else apart from glass in the other. Glass can only be recycled via the large communal bins found in the street. I suspect that may be significant to the separation process. My guess is that paper, tins and plastic are fairly easy to separate but glass isn’t. There is no food or garden waste service in Newham. Bexley should be asked how they separate glass from the other things when Newham apparently cannot. The subject of vehicle renewal is on the public record but you say your deadline is only minutes away leaving insufficient time to search through BiB’s 3,200 blogs or Council papers. My recollection is that Bexley’s vehicle renewal is due every ten years and the Serco contract provided for replacements in 2015. Certainly there are a  lot of 15 reg vehicles on the streets. Those vehicles were specified to have two entry points and separate compartments. It would be disappointing if some of the old style vehicles are still in use and that should perhaps be questioned. The budget allowed for replacement, in fact the financial studies showed that it would be cheaper to bring refuse collection back in house. It’s on the public record but presumably quietly dropped. It may be that if a modern ‘two entry’ vehicle becomes unserviceable a less ideal one might be hired causing a short term separation problem which your correspondent has noticed. What I don’t know, (in all my 29 years in Bexley I have never visited a recycling centre) is what sort of separation machines are in use – if any. I suspect, from the Newham experience and common sense, that it is not good practice to mixed glass with other commodities. I understand that the proportion of refuse going to landfill has increased in Bexley over the past year but this is a mathematical consequence of the reduced amount of garden waste collected following the introduction of the charge. It should not be indicative of a long term deterioration in recycling or of additional landfill. On this occasion I think the Bexley spokesperson is probably right or at least very nearly so".

Don't forget that next week marks the tenth anniversary of the launch of the Maggot Sandwich. If you would like to submit a guest article for inclusion in the blog update, please ensure that you send it to me by Thursday evening at the very latest. It takes me a couple of days to check and edit submissions prior to publication early on Sunday afternoon - each blog update takes a minimum of ten hours work. Send your submissions to hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The end video this week is another bit of crime busting. Can you identify the individual in the light coloured people carrier on the left side of Riverdale Road? He illegally fly - tips rubbish onto the pavement before driving away in the direction of Northumberland Heath. The offence took place at 3.48pm on Wednesday the 1st of June this year. If he's done it once, he will no doubt have done it again. If you know who this criminal is, please let me know and I will pass the information on to the Police.