Erith Pier for sale?

The popular press have been banging on for weeks regarding the heatwave we have either been enjoying, or suffering with, depending on your point of view. Personally I am glad we now have cooler conditions, as I am sure do many others. One local area that has benefitted from the warm weather and clear skies has been Erith Pier, which has seen a marked increase in visitors. This is great, as the pier has historically been somewhat under used, and really only known to Erith residents and others living nearby; it now seems to be getting some wider recognition, which can only be welcomed. I have heard rumours from a couple of sources that there may soon be some changes taking place on and around the pier. Firstly, I have heard that Morrison's supermarket (which owns Erith Pier) are looking to sell it off - and that a meeting has recently taken place between representatives of Bexley Council and Morrison's senior management at Morrison's headquarters in Bradford regarding the potential sale of the pier to a currently unknown third party. I am also led to understand that the Port of London Authority will have a say in any change of ownership, as the pier is regarded as a key asset to the River Thames, and in addition to its leisure uses, it is still employed to moor commercial river traffic on occasion. On top of this, discussions regarding the potential extension of the Thames Clipper river bus service are still ongoing after successful test voyages last Autumn. Bexley Council announced last September that:- "We would welcome a clipper type service if it offers another option for people travelling to and from the City and central London. We don’t own the pier and, while we understand it does not currently have the facilities to allow vessels to dock, we would hope they can be provided if the service is extended along the Thames. We support greater use of the river, particularly for leisure and tourism.” Sean Collins, CEO and co-founder, MBNA Thames Clippers said in a News Shopper interview that:- “Our Gravesend trial service was a complete success. Bookings completely sold out, and we have had incredibly positive feedback from passengers, many asking us when it will become a permanent extension to our current network. The purpose of the trial sailings was to provide us with the required information to enable us to evaluate the potential of such services for the future. The infrastructure and vessels required to operate such service would need to be built, as well as evaluating other potential stops for the route to support the routes viability". There are considerable barriers to setting up a MBNA ferry terminal on Erith Pier; the problems can be divided into two specific types. Firstly there are the engineering and physical challenges to enabling a ferry to dock at the pier. A free floating pontoon extension to the existing pier structure would be needed; this would project out into the deep water channel closer to the middle of the river. This would, however create problems of its own. Whilst the floating pontoon would enable ferries to dock at the the pier whatever the state of the tide was, it would also create a hazard to other shipping that uses the river. Commercial vessels, including cargo ships and bulk freighters use the deep water channel, and if a jetty was protruding into the channel, this might create a hazard to navigation, especially at night and at times of reduced visibility. There are several ways to manage this, the most obvious one being to make the floating jetty movable - to swing it out into the deep water channel only when a ferry was approaching the pier. Unfortunately this would add complexity, and therefore cost to the design, and for safety reasons would almost certainly require a supervising operator to be located on site. The jetty, whether movable or fixed, would require hazard warning lights, a fog horn, and a radar reflector. The pier itself would also require some shelters for waiting commuters to occupy in inclement weather - the wind coming off the Thames at Erith in winter can be absolutely bitter, not to mention the freezing rain. Who would foot the bill for all of the alterations and upgrades is uncertain - at this point the results of the discussions between Bexley Council and Morrison's supermarket have not been released, so at present it is only open to conjecture. This discussion really represents the second challenge to the expansion of the functionality of Erith Pier - what will there is at both council and supermarket level to make substantial changes to how the pier is operated. In the past there has been incredible resistance to change. I know from personal experience that dealing with these organisations, when any mention of Erith Pier is made, it tends to provoke the response of "The answer is no, now what is the question?" Long term readers may recall that I had a small involvement some years ago with an abortive project to bring the Ross Revenge - the Radio Caroline ship to Erith Pier to open it as a public attraction for the Summer season. The objections and bureaucratic barriers that were put up to block the temporary project were simply staggering, and even the involvement of Teresa Pearce, MP for Erith and Thamesmead was not enough to get the project the green light, and it ended up being abandoned. On a more positive note, I am also aware that a number of cultural and social events are being planned around Erith Pier for the Autumn, following on from the hugely successful Erith Lighthouse pop - up restaurant project from last year. More on these undertakings in the weeks to come.

One somewhat surprising issue which has been brought to my attention this week by an eagle eyed reader is that Bexley Council are advertising that they have trees for sponsorship. Really. Their announcement reads:- "The London Borough of Bexley now provides the opportunity for individuals, families, community groups and businesses to sponsor the planting of new tree parks and some highway locations within the borough. Planting a tree can leave a long-term legacy, and trees not only look beautiful and support wildlife but help clean the air, reduce extreme temperatures and reduce stormwater runoff. If you have either a location in mind or a particular tree species you would like planted we can work with you to see how we can best meet your aspirations". The levels of sponsorship range from £250 per tree to £400 per tree - and no name plates, dedication notes or burial of cremation ashes beneath the sponsored tree are permitted. You can see the full terms and conditions by clicking here. Personally I find this somewhat ironic - after all, Bexley Council has been spending money paying contractors to cut down trees all around the borough for the last few months - and now it is expecting local residents to pick up the bill to replace them? Bearing in mind the council have already got our council tax money - which amongst many other things is supposed to cover tree planting and maintaining the natural environment - in essence they are asking the public to pay twice for something. Bare faced cheek in my opinion. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

Erith is somewhat unusual in that it is a town that still has an old – style “cottage hospital”. Nowadays the hospital is mainly used for blood tests and X-rays, and an excellent urgent care centre which has a very good reputation. Back in the 1980’s there was a small surgical unit in the hospital where routine type procedures were carried out. There were two wards accommodating a maximum of thirty one in – patients in 1986. Nowadays the most common reason to visit the hospital is to have an X-ray, blood test, or receive treatment for a minor injury. The X-ray department is located in a rather unusual out building. You can see a photo of the building above – click for a larger view. The bunker was built in 1938 by the then Erith Borough Council as part of the Emergency Medical Service introduced by the Ministry of Health to deal with the anticipated large-scale casualties from enemy bombing during the Second World War. The provision was mainly hut based accommodation, and although another five of these concrete structures were planned on the site, no others are known to survive. The only other underground hospitals known are the one at Dover Castle built by the military as a Field Dressing Station as part of a combined HQ accommodation and the underground hospital at Jersey built by the Germans with forced labour for their defence from the allies. Neither of these examples are comparable with this structure at Erith. The bunker was converted from an emergency field hospital into an X-ray department in 1950. The bunker structure was granted Grade II listed status in 2003, due to its history and uniqueness. It certainly still has a war – time atmosphere; on the one occasion I had to visit the bunker, I half expected a brace of Hawker Hurricanes to fly overhead! Recently, reports have emerged that Erith Hospital is in serious need of a review, following the ambitious growth plans published by Bexley Council. Last week, Director of adult social care Stuart Rowbotham gave Bexley councillors an update on local health services, highlighting the importance of Erith Hospital. He said in an interview published in the News Shopper that:- “The services currently provided there are both very valued by residents, but badly in need of review. We have radiology from a WW2 bunker – the hardware is in bad need of replacing. It’s hard to recruit and retain radiologists, and if that goes you can’t run an urgent care centre there. There’s a domino effect there – the urgent care service there is hugely popular but used for the wrong things. It can’t continue from what is an inappropriate clinical site. That hospital, at some point in the future, will need to be reconfigured. We will need to work with the CCG as it distributes primary care and general practice We, like many others, operate in a highly challenged hospital system. A particular concern is Greenwich and Lewisham trust, and of course Kings which has an infamous overspend situation. This winter just gone was one of the most difficult on record, we had significant breaches of A and E waiting times of almost all hospitals. It was a harsh winter in terms of the weather. Planning starts now for Winter 2018/19. These pressures flow through into social care and that brings a cost pressure – but we need these hospitals to work best because they serve our residents.” What do you think? Leave a comment below, or alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

Have you ever put some key search words into a search engine such as Google or Bing, and got back some really unexpected results? For example, searching for “bicycle safety” and getting results from payday loan websites. If you have, this is down to a criminal activity called search engine poisoning. Search engine poisoning attacks are designed to skew results so that dodgy sites - anything from malware infected websites to payday loan sites - appear prominently in the index of sites related to popular search terms. In many cases the tactic is so successful that malware sites appear in the first page of results for popular search terms, in sometimes much higher than legitimate websites. More recently, miscreants have begun trying to manipulate image search results. The murky world of high interest payday loan sharks is to blame in many cases. The lenders always require details of potential new customers – what they refer to as “leads” and they are prepared to pay substantial amounts of money to grab as many leads as they can. One way that they do this is by hiring “lead generators” – dodgy, semi legal outfits that have been involved in hacking innocent, completely unconnected websites to redirect to payday loan websites and similar. The other side of this, is if you were actually searching for, as previously mentioned, a bicycle safety site, your search would result in your enquiry being redirected to a dodgy loan website – and your details potentially being siphoned off your web browser for the lead generating company to sell on to the highest bidder. All search engines suffer poisoning to some degree or other; web analytics from security company Sophos indicate that currently Microsoft’s Bing is the worst affected – which is surprising as it is relatively small in comparison to the elephant in the corner – Google. It would appear that whilst Google does suffer from search poisoning, their security is tighter, and less gets through. You have been warned. 

With the current spate of hot weather, thankfully which appears to have abated for the time being, the authorities have been very keen to ensure the everyone carries a bottle of water when out and about; I understand the thoughts behind this - dehydration can become a serious matter when temperatures exceed thirty degrees Celsius. One aspect that seems to have been overlooked, however is that of what I term as "wee mileage". Wee mileage is a concept I developed back in November 2009; I expounded it at the time, but perhaps it deserves a revisit. It encompasses irregular and unreliable public transport, the woeful lack of public toilets in this country nowadays, and the propensity which many have for going out for a quiet pint on the odd occasion. The aforementioned factors create an artificial boundary as to how far one can travel from home, if intending to indulge in a tipple whilst out and about. Once you have left the hostelry or beer festival at the end of the evening, there is a finite amount of time available for travelling before one will be compelled to pump ones' bilges. Obviously this will vary between individuals and their personal bladder capacity / ability to hold on, the amount of liquid they have imbibed, and the ambient air temperature.  I am presupposing that one does not cheat and avail oneself of a convenient bush or dark alley. Wee mileages seem to be higher when employing a cab, mainly due to the fact one can take a last minute leak before starting the journey, and the cab will take you door to door with no waiting around at a chilly bus stop or draughty railway platform with the bladder clock ticking. This is the principal reason that I have never attended the CAMRA Great British Beer Festival at Olympia (this year the event takes place between the 7th and the 11th of August). The exhibition hall is admirably equipped with public conveniences, but once you leave the venue and head back to civilisation from West London the trouble starts. One would have to navigate the tube back to Charing Cross Station (it is possible to make a loo visit there - they used to have the temerity to charge a fee, but now I understand that they are now free to use). After this it is fifty minutes overland by train to Erith Station, in a train that has a loo - but that is almost always locked and out of use to stop vandalism. Just too much to endure - and thus far too high a wee mileage for me to even consider. A similar restriction occurs when taking bottles of water whilst out and about in hot weather - people guzzle water, then find that there are few if any loos around. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. Firstly from Barnehurst ward:- "Yet again another good week for Barnehurst Ward with no burglaries to report. There has also been no reports of vehicle crime on the ward. We have however had an incident reported for Criminal damage to a property in Eversley Avenue at 01.00am on 25/07/2018 whereby a window was smashed by persons unknown. Proactive patrols have been carried out to areas of concern, Hampton House, Merewood Road and alleyways on the ward have been covered throughout the shift when the team are on duty. The team popped into all shops in Barnehurst Road and Erith Road to speak with shop managers and staff and on Saturday held a community event at the local Sainsbury whereby customers were given crime prevention advice. Purse bells and personal attack alarms were given to vulnerable residents. Crime prevention leaflets covering all aspects from scams to home security were also made available for residents to take home and read. This was our first community event at Sainsbury and it proved very successful so we plan to hold more events here in the near future. These events give residents the opportunity to raise any concerns and to get to know their local policing team. With regards Bogus traders, there are so called traders going round targeting vulnerable and elderly residents. Do not be forced to make quick decisions on the doorstep. Get a few quotes from reputable companies. Be aware of companies that only use mobile numbers. Anyone who signs a contract on the doorstep following a visit that was not arranged does have 7 days in which to cancel it by law. Cancellation rights must be provided in writing to the customer at the time the contract is agreed (usually on the doorstep). If you don't want to speak to traders, don't answer the door and if you feel intimidated by anyone, close the door and call Police. Please look out for Vulnerable neighbours who may one day end up being a target. If you wish to meet the team to discuss any issues you may have, please join us at Barnehurst Golf Club on Thursday 2nd August 2018 at 1pm". Belvedere ward:- "There was an attempt break in at 4 Beckett Close on 21/07/2018 at around 13:45. Two men knocked on the front door of a house then went round the back and tried to break in. The occupant was home and this potentially scared them off. No entry gained. If anyone saw anything suspicious in the area around this time please contact us. We have been receiving complaints about the HMO at 83 Barnefield Road. This has ranged from noise, drunken behaviour and potential drug use. Again if anyone has any information about these issues please contact us. Further to the above we have had reports of drug dealing from a HMO at 41 Coleman Road. If anyone has any information please get in touch with the team. In other news PC Mike Cuell has joined the team for the next couple of months". Bexleyheath ward:- "We want to start off by saying that we have had no reports of any residential burglaries on the ward which is always nice to hear. Below is or brief summary of what has been going on our ward: 20/07/2018 - Theft from motor vehicle. Property taken from vehicle overnight along Freta Road; 21/07/2018 – Theft of pedal cycle along the Broadway – Bike owner allowed another person to ride their bike and had stolen bike; 21/07/2018 – Unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle by Bexleyheath Methodist Church; 21/07/2018 – Criminal damage to motor vehicle along Long Lane. Vehicle badge taken and vehicle scratched; 23/07/2018 – Criminal damage to property along the Broadway, shop sign damaged. We are holding our next contact session on the 3rd August between 2pm and 3pm at Café Nero along the Broadway. Please feel free to make others aware if they wish to pop in and have a chat. Please be aware of bogus callers and people dropping cards/leaflets through the door, if you need gardening/building work doing please do seek references from neighbours or friends. The team had been conducting targeted patrols in relation to the schools braking up for the holidays to help reduce any sort of anti-social behaviour issues. If you do want to pass on information to Police then please feel free to contact Crime stoppers on 0800 555111". Erith ward:- "Still motor vehicle crime is high on the ward: 19th July – Theft of motor vehicle – Ashburnham Road – Motorbike stolen from outside home address; 19th July – Theft of Motor Vehicle – West street – Car stolen from behind Café; 19th July – Criminal damage to motor vehicle – Diana Court – Front windscreen screen found by police; 20th July – Robbery – Pier Road – Money and phone stolen; 20th July – Attempted burglary – Alford Road – tried to force entry; 20th July – Attempted burglary – Morrison's – Timber and tiles removed from roof to try and gain entry; 21st July – Theft of Motor vehicle – Bexley Road – Left car due to broken down – gone the next day; 21st July – Criminal damage of Motor vehicle – Salford Close – Windscreen smashed; 22nd July – Burglary – Compton place – Phone stolen; 23rd July – Theft of Motor vehicle – Christchurch Avenue – Stolen overnight; 23rd July – Theft of motor vehicle – Battle Road – Unknown method; 23rd July - Theft from motor vehicle – Parkside Lodge – Erith Road – Broken into items taken; 25th July – Theft from motor vehicle – Christchurch Road – items taken; 25th July – Theft from motor vehicle - Park Crescent – Items taken; 25th July – Theft from motor vehicle – Chandlers drive – item taken; 25th July – Attempted burglary – Salford Road – Garage broken into – tools taken. This seems a lot of crime this week – but the SNT are working hard to combat issue within the ward. Pro-active patrols by whole team being done down at West Street due to residents' concerns. Our next coffee with cops will be on 3rd August at Erith library any concerns about the ward come and have a chat with local officers". Northumberland Heath ward:- "Great news again this week, no burglaries have been reported on the ward. Three theft from motor vehicles over the last week. On Monday July 16th at 1600 an orange topper light was stolen from a parked company vehicle in Walsingham Walk. A company minibus had number plates stolen in Brook Street on Friday July 2oth. Wing mirrors were stolen from a parked vehicle in Avenue Road overnight on Saturday July 21st. The team held our Ward Panel last Wednesday evening and it was decided that we would focus on anti-social behaviour in the Recreation Ground Sussex Road following a number of reports of motorbikes being ridden erratically. Our other promise is engagement and trying to recruit further Neighbourhood Watches on the ward. PS Dan young dealt with a male in Erith this week who was in possession of cannabis by completing a Community Resolution form. The next drop in Police Surgery will be held on Thursday August 2nd between 12pm – 1pm at the Library in Mill Road Erith". Slade Green and North End ward:- "Unfortunately we have 2 burglaries to report this week. On Thursday 19thy July at lunchtime a distraction burglary occurred at Cloudesley Road. A male pretending to be from the waterboard gained access to an 87 year old victim's property by deception and took jewellery and a wallet. He was caught in the act by the victim and ran out of the house. On Saturday 21st July between 11pm and 6am, an empty property was broken into in Manor Road. Fortunately, there was nothing there to steal but there is damage to the kitchen window where entry was gained. Crime prevention leaflets were delivered to neighbours at both locations. PC Telfer stopped a male on Forest Road Monday afternoon who was found in possession of cannabis. The drugs were seized and the relevant warnings were issued. We have a Community Contact Session at 12 midday in Forest Road Café this Tuesday 31st July. Please come and say hi if you are nearby. Please take care during this spell of very hot weather ensuring all downstairs windows are shut at night and if you are in the back garden, as well as having plenty of suncream on, please make sure any windows at the front of the home are closed as this can be the perfect opportunity for burglars to creep into your home unnoticed while the music is playing in the garden. It sounds maybe a bit far-fetched but it does genuinely happen. If you would like any further Crime Prevention advice, please let us know". Thamesmead East ward:- "Good news - Whilst on routine patrol PC's Pruden and Quarshie - Awuah dealt with a domestic which ended amicably and a neighbour dispute resolved. Burglaries - During the early hours of Sunday 22/07/18 an attempt to break into a garage had occurred in Mangold Way. Damage only to the garage door ,which has since been made secure. .Sheds and garages - Firstly, check that your insurance covers the contents of your shed/garage from theft. If you're off on holiday and wish to post anything on social media, make sure your posts aren't public and that they're only seen by your friends. Motor Vehicle Crimes - A motor cycle was stolen from outside of Trefoil House, Kale Road on Wednesday 18/07/18. Another motor cycle which only had the steering lock on was stolen from an address in Drake Crescent between the hours of 6:00pm on Sunday 22/07/18 and 6:30am Monday 23/07/18.A motor vehicle parked in Woburn Close was stolen between Sunday 15/07/18 and Monday 20/07/18.A motor vehicle was reported stolen from outside Clydesdale House, Kale Road, on Sunday 22/07/18 had not been used for some time, was last seen on 05/07/18. The number plates were stolen from a vehicle parked near Hinksey Path between the hours of 9:00pm and 11:59pm on Friday 20/07/18". West Heath ward:- "There was 1 reported burglary on West Heath Ward between 18/07/18 and 24/07/18. The victim in Hartley Road Welling found her window opened and her belongings moved but not sure whether anything was stolen. There were also three reported thefts of motor vehicles and theft from motor vehicle during the same period. A black Honda motor bike index LS15THK was stolen from Langley Road Welling on 24/07/18. A white FORD transit van index NV58FMF was stolen from Cumberland Drive Bexleyheath on 19/07/18 A white Vauxhall index BD09WXC was reported stolen on 21/07/18 by the victim Lodge Hill Welling when his friend failed to returned the vehicle on an agreed date. A number plate was stolen from a vehicle in New Road. West Heath Ward officers engaged with parents, teachers and pupils at Hillsgrove primary on the last day of term and the team is looking forward to more engagements with the schools after the holidays. Our next Community Contact Session (CCS) will be on 30/07/18 at Burchabro Road from 6pm -7pm".

The end video this week is of particular relevance to readers with an interest in local history. It features historical weapons expert Ian McCullam, and a presentation on the Maxim 37mm Automatic Cannon, a large calibre machine gun which was manufactured prior to World War One in the Maxim weapons factory in Fraser Road, Erith. Ian goes into some detail describing the development of the gun, and what customers purchased the fearsome weapon. Leave your comments below, or alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

Where there's muck, there's brass.

Erith is somewhat unusual in that it is a town that still has an old – style “cottage hospital”. I don’t know how many local residents are even aware of this, as unless you live in close proximity to the site in Hind Crescent, you might well have not heard of it. Nowadays the hospital is mainly used for blood tests and X-rays, rather than in patient care. Back in the 1980’s there was a small surgical unit in the hospital where routine type procedures were carried out. There were two wards accommodating a maximum of thirty one in – patients in 1986. Nowadays the most common reason to visit the hospital is to have an X-ray. The X-ray department is located in a rather unusual out building, which resembles a “Happy Shopper Bond villain lair” in the words of my best friend Ian. You can see a photo of the building above – click for a larger view. The bunker was built in 1938 by the then Erith Borough Council as part of the Emergency Medical Service introduced by the Ministry of Health to deal with the anticipated large-scale casualties from enemy bombing during the Second World War. The provision was mainly hutted accommodation and although another five of these concrete structures were planned on the site, no others are known to survive. The only other underground hospitals known are the one at Dover Castle built by the military as a Field Dressing Station as part of a combined HQ accommodation and the underground hospital at Jersey built by the Germans with forced labour for their defence from the allies. Neither of these examples are comparable with this structure at Erith. The bunker was converted from an emergency field hospital into an X-ray department in 1950. The bunker structure was granted Grade II listed status in 2003, due to its history and uniqueness. It certainly still has a war – time atmosphere; on the one occasion I had to visit the bunker, I half expected a brace of Hurricanes to fly overhead! The photo below shows some of the war time staff that ran the place, along with some description of their working conditions. Fascinating local history. Thanks to Ian for taking the photos and passing them to me to use on the Maggot Sandwich.

I have been a Sky customer for more years than I care to remember; I was one of the early adopters of the original Sky Digital, after having the original analogue system for a couple of years. Now I am on Sky HD+ and I have noticed over the last year or so that Sky seem to be changing their approach to content. It used to be heavily biased towards sports and popular entertainment, and whilst this is still very much the case, there is now a much stronger emphasis on high quality programming, with new channels like Sky Atlantic (The Borgias, Boardwalk Empire) and Sky Arts One and Two. Sky Arts in particular is a departure from the normal populist entertainment Sky is well known for. I have watched a 1969 black and white recording of a very young Led Zeppelin playing to a live audience in Paris, seen a documentary about Peter Gabriel’s “Real World” studio in Bath, and watched footage from the 2012 Beatles week festival – all things you would be hard pressed to find on BBC2 nowadays. Sky Arts seems to be filling the hole left by the Old Grey Whistle Test, and out “BBCing” the BBC. It is clear that Sky is spending money on what might be considered as minority interests, which is interesting considering the commercial nature of their operation. I would be interested in what others think of the direction Sky seem to be heading in.

The mystery surrounding the intermittent foul and sickly smells that have been plaguing Erith for the last few weeks has been solved. Following my recent Emails to the Council on the subject, I had a phone call from James Meconi of Bexley Environmental Health Service first thing on Friday morning, and he explained what was going on. It turns out the smells are coming from ADM Oils, the vegetable oil processing plant In Church Manor Way, Erith (see the photo above - click for a larger view). The processing of various seeds and organic matter into cooking oil produces some pretty horrible smells; it turns out that you need a special licence from the Department of the Environment to carry out the processing at all. For the last ten years, ADM have had a special smell filtering and odour mitigation system in operation, which until recently has done a good job of keeping nasty smells to a minimum. Recently the system began to wear out, and at present ADM are in the middle of replacing it with a brand new odour control system. At present there is no odour filtering due to the engineering work. They expect the new system to be up and running by the end of October. I have been asked by the Council to monitor the situation, and if we are still getting nasty smells by the beginning of November, to let them know and they will take appropriate action.

The news that London Resort Company Holdings (LRCH) propose to build the World’s fourth largest theme park for Paramount Entertainment on the site of the derelict quarry site at Swanscombe has got to be excellent news for the entire region, if not the country as a whole. The proposed site features Europe’s largest indoor water park, theatres, hotels, restaurants and all manner of themed rides, all in a site spread over approximately 872 acres. The bill (at least now, but it is bound to escalate) is estimated to be in the region of £2 billion, and the park will employ 27,000 people, many of them from the local area. If this plan gets the green light (and I seriously doubt it won’t) it will be a massive boost for the economy for the whole of North Kent and South East London. Much of this story is detailed on the News Shopper website here. What amazes me (quite apart from my usual misgivings about the quality of talkbacks and lack of moderation on their website) is the naysayers who are already moaning about the increase in traffic and likely disruption that the construction work will undoubtedly cause. These small minded people seem to completely miss the fact that the park will be a complete economic game changer for an area that will stretch from around Woolwich to down well past Gillingham. Once the park is built and running there will be all sorts of permanent jobs needed to keep the place ticking over – electricians, security, engineers, cleaners, administrators – the list is as long as your imagination. Ironically the brown field site in Swanscombe was the location of the destruction of Top Gear’s old “reasonably priced car” when local company Erith Construction blew up the old LaFarge factory chimney onto the hapless vehicle, as part of a stunt for the show.

I was discussing the issues with 3D television a couple of weeks ago; since then I have learned some interesting facts about OLED (organic light emitting diode) screens which were meant to be “the next big thing”. They are thinner that conventional LED or LED screens, as they don’t need a backlight. Currently they are in development hell, with Samsung promising dates that now seem to be eternally slipping. The main problem is that OLED screens are difficult to make in large numbers, as they have a niggling problem with dead pixels – something that used to be relatively common in all types of flat screen TV technologies, but nowadays is deemed unacceptable by consumers. When you are shelling out around £5,500 for a 50 inch TV, the last thing you would expect to see is a tiny dark spot on the screen. By the time the likes of Samsung and LG have ironed out the wrinkles in their production technology, and can actually supply OLED sets for consumer use, another technology will be on the horizon. 4K television is the next generation of high definition, having a resolution of 3840 x 2160, four times higher than the current 1920 x 1080 offered by existing technology. This higher resolution can be offered using existing LED technology – no new processes are required. Whilst the 4K sets will cost approximately twice as much to build as a standard HD set, this is still far cheaper than making an OLED set – and I understand that the huge cost of making OLED screens is unlikely to come down a significant amount until around 2017. The problem with 4K and its ’”retina” level resolution is that there is very little in the way of native 4K content available now, or in the immediate future. Certainly 1080 content can be upscaled to 4K, but it will not really sparkle until the likes of Sky and Virgin can offer original, native 4K programming. Nevertheless it seems likely that the real future of high definition television is with the cheaper to make, higher resolution 4K format, rather than the technologically more impressive, thinner OLED that we have all expected to win the television format war. Only time will tell if we end up with another Betamax versus VHS war.

Pound Town has proved to be surprisingly popular with local residents. The shop, currently located in the old Wise Furnishings premises on the corner of the Erith Riverside Shopping Centre that faces towards the Bexley Council offices, is looking to relocate to a larger unit. This will be interesting, as I am not aware of any units bigger than the one Pound Town already inhabit being available. One hope I have for the move (wherever they move to locally) is that their new home is air conditioned; their current shop is stiflingly hot and stuffy even on relatively cool days. It is bad enough for the customers – it must be terrible for the employees. Still, whatever the details, it is good to see a local business succeeding. The previous occupant of their current shop building – Wise Furnishings, did not last very long at all; they ended up cutting and running after the level of business that the shop did was unable to support itself. I always thought a “big ticket” shop would not be successful in Erith, as it is not a destination which non locals visit. You go to Bluewater or Lakeside to buy such items. Something like a pound store was always going to be a better business fit with the area; and it would appear to have been borne out by the facts. The owners of the Riverside Shopping Centre have still not managed to let all of the retail units, although the level of utilisation is a lot better than in the first couple of years of it opening, where a majority of shop front space was covered by decorated chipboard panelling, trying in vain to disguise the empty and unloved retail units. 

Have you ever put some key search words into a search engine such as Google or Bing, and got back some really unexpected results? For example, searching for “bicycle safety” and getting results from payday loan websites. If you have, this is down to a criminal activity called search engine poisoning. Search engine poisoning attacks are designed to skew results so that dodgy sites - anything from malware infected websites to payday loan sites - appear prominently in the index of sites related to popular search terms. In many cases the tactic is so successful that malware sites appear in the first page of results for popular search terms, in sometimes much higher than legitimate websites. More recently, miscreants have begun trying to manipulate image search results. The murky world of high interest payday loan sharks is to blame in many cases. The lenders always require details of potential new customers – what they refer to as “leads” and they are prepared to pay substantial amounts of money to grab as many leads as they can. One way that they do this is by hiring “lead generators” – dodgy, semi legal outfits that have been involved in hacking innocent, completely unconnected websites to redirect to payday loan websites and similar. The other side of this, is if you were actually searching for, as previously mentioned, a bicycle safety site, your search would result in your enquiry being redirected to a dodgy loan website – and your details potentially being siphoned off your web browser for the lead generating company to sell on to the highest bidder. All search engines suffer poisoning to some degree or other; web analytics from security company Sophos indicate that currently Microsoft’s Bing is the worst affected – which is surprising as it is relatively small in comparison to the elephant in the corner – Google. It would appear that whilst Google does suffer from search poisoning, their security is tighter, and less gets through.

The photo above was taken by local resident Norbert from a viewpoint on Erith Pier; it shows the moment when the cranes were used to install the turbine blades on the body of the new Erith wind turbine a couple of weeks ago. Since the News Shopper led mini furore last week, the complaints of a handful of residents seem to have died down. Personally, I think it is a better piece of industrial sculpture than any of the so called street "art" around here, and has the added bonus of generating 500 kilowatts of electricity much of the time. From observing it from my home office window, I have noticed that the rotor will spin under the very lightest of breezes - it would appear to be particularly efficient, which is an added bonus. if you click on the photo to enlarge it, you should immediately notice that the turbine is  located on an industrial estate on Slade Green Marshes, with a couple of breakers yards for company - it is not exactly in anyone's back garden, though as I mentioned, I can clearly see it from mine. Behind the turbine you can clearly see the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge - more popularly known as the Dartford River Crossing.

Just as Microsoft are about to launch their next version of their desktop operating system, Windows 8 to a largely indifferent world, I recall the hype and drama behind the launch of Windows XP back in 2001. I was invited to the UK launch at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank. I had managed to wangle a free ticket through work (being employed by a multi - national blue chip company does occasionally have its’ perks). The event started with a film presentation with professional idiot and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on screen “WWE” style, bigging up the new OS and then saying how he regretted not being able to attend in person. Just as he finished this, when, also in a style reminiscent of WWE he ran down the aisle from the back of the stalls hollering and whooping like someone demented. I was sat at the end of a row, and he passed me within inches. If I had slightly better presence of mind, I could have stuck my foot out and sent him flying. 

An Erith based environmental enterprise made the national business press last week. Manor Road based paper recycling company Pulp Friction (no, I am not making it up) got sold last Tuesday for £9 million to Pennon Group PLC, the UK’s third largest publicly traded water company. They announced that the purchase of Pulp Friction was part of their strategy to further expand their waste management and recycling business. It just goes to confirm the cliché – “where there’s muck there’s brass”. Hopefully Pennon Group will invest in the local business. Having seen Pulp Friction lorries on the roads around the area, I had incorrectly assumed that they had a number of depots in the region; after doing a little research, it turns out that they just have the one facility on the banks of the River Thames, almost underneath the new Erith Wind Turbine. Now that they are owned by a much larger company with correspondingly deeper pockets that might well change in time. It is nice to see a small business succeed, especially in the increasingly important area of recycling. You can see a short video about the local company below. Please feel free to leave a comment, as always.