Erith Christmas Tree Festival 2017.

The photos above were taken by me yesterday at the Christ Church Erith Christmas Tree Festival (click on any one to see a larger version), which also included a Christmas Fair in the church hall, and a pop - up food truck festival in the church gardens. A very large number of local and not so local people visited the events; visitor numbers were definitely up by a significant percentage when compared to previous years, and donations made were also up, though the final figures are not yet available. The event raises money for both the church, and Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice. As you can see, the famous Erith Lighthouse made an appearance outside of the church, and Peter and Sarah of The Exchange were on hand; Sarah led an art group showing children how to make classic tree decorations like paper doves and clove stuffed oranges. The feedback from the visitors was exceedingly good, with many people travelling significant distances to attend the annual event. 

The Maggot Sandwich is published a little earlier than normal this Sunday; this is for a very good reason. As has now become the pre Christmas tradition whenever a new film in the Star Wars canon is released, I am attending a private screening of Star Wars - The Last Jedi at the CineWorld cinema in Bexleyheath on Sunday afternoon. This is an annual, invitation only event that has now become part of the local social calendar. Photographs of the event will be published on the blog next weekend.

Fly tipping is a real problem around a majority of the UK; for some reason - possibly due to population density, it seems to be particularly prevalent in the South East. Bexley has a very bad problem with illegal waste disposal. The issue is something that seems to be one that people have very strong feelings about, but they also feel powerless to affect. As many people will know, I have been involved with combatting fly tipping in and around Erith for many years as part of my role as a Neighbourhood Watch coordinator. Only last Sunday I found a load of builder’s waste in rubble bags, dumped in Appold Street, just past the old railway bridge. I reported the illegal dumping to Bexley Council, and to their credit, they engaged a contractor to clear the mess very quickly. You can see the rubble in the photo above - click on it for a larger image. I have suggested to several local councillors a suggestion that has been widely accepted as a good idea, but for some reason nobody in the council seems to want to grasp the nettle and actually enact the proposed experiment. As long term readers may well be aware, I had the idea of making commercial deposits at council recycling sites such as the Thames Road waste depot free, instead of charging something in the region of £120 a load for construction waste. It is well known that commercial contractors such as builders use private vehicles to take waste to tips, to try and avoid paying the tipping costs which are normally charged to businesses. Else they fly tip, causing all sorts of environmental damage, and the associated costs to either the council, or to the private individuals, if the waste is tipped on private land. I have been reliably informed that Bexley Council pay a private waste disposal contractor something in the region of £300 per lorry load of fly tipped waste that they collect. It seems to me only logical that if, say for a trial period of six months, the council made tipping by commercial enterprises free - all of the other paperwork would still be completed in the normal way, so the level of accountability would not change in any way. If this was to reduce the level of criminal fly tipping by a significant amount, it might well end up paying for itself, or even saving money. I feel that if the link between cash and tipping can be broken, it might well encourage those engaged in fly tipping to do the right thing - there can only be so much stick, when you also need some carrot. The fines issued by the council to those caught fly tipping could also be used to subsidise the increased running costs of the recycling centres. It would be interesting to see the usage statistics after a six month trial period of a system of this nature - I think it would be cost neutral, or possibly make a small profit. What do you think? Would a trial period making commercial use of recycling centres within the London Borough of Bexley be a worthwhile experiment? I know that a number of Bexley councillors read the Maggot Sandwich; Will one of them take up this issue and get it raised? Let me know your opinion on the subject by either leaving a comment below, or Emailing me at hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

Radio Caroline have been carrying out some test transmissions on their newly allocated 648 KHz medium wave frequency. Reception outside of their licenced coverage area of Suffolk and Norfolk has been exceptional - reception reports have come in from as far away as Finland, Estonia and Turkey - not bad at all for what is intended as a purely local AM service. I think that OFCOM have finally bowed to popular pressure - 648 is a pretty much clear channel for Northern Europe, and the allowance of a one kilowatt ERP for what is intended as a local service says a lot - they implicitly comply in the fiction that Radio Caroline will be restricted to a small geographic area with their AM broadcasts, when it has now become clear that the signal can be heard over a very wide area indeed. I don’t know when the tests will end, and proper broadcasting on 648 will begin, but I get the feeling that it will be sooner, rather than later. Their web and DAB based broadcasts continue as normal. I have had a number of readers ask me some quite specific questions about the station, thinking that I am still closely involved with Caroline. This is not actually the case; I am a regular listener, and do occasionally contact the station management, but other than that I have little involvement nowadays. Caroline in the present is a far different organisation to the one I worked for back in the late 80’s and very early 90’s. To be honest it is a lot stronger and better organised nowadays; back in the day when I was involved, it was a very amateur affair for the most part, something that is far from the situation nowadays, I am very glad to report. I wish them all of the best, and look forward to when the station becomes a major force in UK mainstream radio once again.

Here is part two of transport professional John Burch's account of his involvement with the former Dartford Tunnel Cycle Buses. Part one, published last week, was exceptionally well received by readers. John takes up his account, as he and his colleagues finally encounter one of the supposedly scrapped buses in a former quarry. John writes:- "One of Leon’s colleagues had come across this place several years previously while looking for old Land Rover parts. It was when he had entered the quarry that he found something quite astonishing. Knowing Leon’s interest in buses he passed on the location and Leon later went there and found the vehicle that he had taken me to see. We headed into the old quarry passing derelict old vehicles until we found the vehicle which was parked up against a cliff face. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was a TT class vehicle! The top deck had been used as a mess room / office by the workers in the quarry. It was parked up against a hollowed out side of the quarry and a telegraph pole had been erected alongside the bus to take an extension wire for a telephone. This effectively prevented the vehicle from being removed from the location. It was completely hidden from the nearby road, which ran along the edge of the quarry above the bus, because of the way the vehicle was position with an overhanging cliff concealing it. The vehicle was missing a front axle and mechanical components and identification was not easy. However it bore the faded crest of Shrewsbury Corporation. This gave away the vehicle’s identity as TT4 (529FJJ). So presumably it had been sold for scrap by Shrewsbury Corporation either because it proved to be a poor purchase, or perhaps it did find use with the Corporation for a while, though I have never seen any evidence of it actually being used by the council. Leon had attempted several times to negotiate with the man who owned the quarry and the vehicle, and I remember on the occasion of our visit he tried again. The man wanted a ridiculous amount for the bus as he had obviously gained the impression it was a valuable artefact and worth a lot of money. Leon, quite rightly, declined. However he left his business card and asked the man to promise that if ever he came to dispose of the bus he would give Leon first refusal. He did at least agree to do that, but there did not look like much hope it would be going anywhere soon as the telegraph pole effectively pinned it to the cliff face of the quarry! I was fascinated by this find and believed it would make an incredibly worthy restoration project. In the meantime I undertook some research because the vehicle would need replacement parts if it was ever going to run again. Luckily one of my friends, who was also a Radio Caroline supporter, also worked for Ford’s research division at Warley. He arranged for me to have the original workshop manuals for the Thames Trader chassis. This demonstrated to us that the vehicle could be reasonably easily mechanically restored as many of the parts were common to other Ford Thames Trader commercial vehicles and were still reasonably easy to find then. The body was the difficult bit, although panel work was reasonably easy to complete and all the upper deck windows were still in place. The difficult bit would be securing the cycle racks as these had been removed. I compiled quite a file on the TT class vehicles and did a reasonable amount of research ahead of the vehicle being acquired. I left Ensign employment in June 1992 and forgot about the TT for a while. I returned to work for Leon in September 1996, after the old Ensign tendered bus operations had become Capital Citybus. I discovered that 6 or 7 years after our original visit to Shropshire, Leon had managed to persuade the quarry owner that the vehicle was worthy of disposal and so, a deal being done, Leon now had to find a way of getting it out of the quarry. This is a story in itself, but with a missing axle the vehicle was going to be a bit difficult to move. Eventually a team were assembled. Well known preservationist Peter Stanier loaned a tank transporter to haul the vehicle back from Shropshire and it eventually made it home to the South East. Leon arranged for it to be stored at the Capital Citybus Dagenham Dock depot, but when space got tight there it was moved first to Northumberland Park. The vehicle was given some bodywork attention, but time just wasn’t on Leon’s side and TT4 was eventually moved to the company’s Hackney depot were it lay for a while. Eventually space at the Hackney depot was also at a premium and so the vehicle had to be moved again. I helped to prepare the vehicle for its move to its current resting place. It has lain here ever since. I don’t want to give away the location as the vehicle is reasonably safe in storage here. With the sale of Capital Citybus to First in July 1998, Leon Daniels progressed through the group and eventually ended up as MD of First UK Bus. From here he moved to TfL as MD Surface Transport in April 2011. He has just retired from this post and has said that the restoration of the TT is a project which he will now, at last, have the time to progress. It is his intention that our old friends at Ensign Bus will undertake the work. This seems highly appropriate as they operate the only current regular bus service across the River Thames using the Dartford crossing! I moved away from London with First Group in 1999 to become General Manager of First Red Bus in North Devon. Amongst my responsibilities I found myself operating a cycle bus service with my new employer. I operated two especially converted Leyland National vehicles on a bike bus service between Ilfracombe and Okehampton. More recently I was also involved in planning a 2 year Surf and Cycle bus project in North Devon. The Dartford Tunnel buses inspired a project awarded to Stagecoach operating two specially converted double deck buses for the purpose. So the TTs are not the only double deck buses to be converted for carriage of cycles!" Thanks John for a truly fascinating insight into the world of the specialist bus, and some very unusual social and industrial history. 

Now that the Carnegie Library building in Walnut Tree Road is about to be refurbished - as you may well have seen, I photographed the scaffolding being erected around the building last week; I am hopeful that the restoration and refurbishment work gets under way in good time. When the library had an open day recently, I got a chance for a good look around. The place is absolutely huge - when it was opened as a library, only roughly one third of it was open to the public. I had no idea that the ground floor was as large in floor area as it is, and the former Erith Museum on the upper floor also houses the former Head Librarian’s apartment - something I was not aware of until my recent visit. I can see that the historic building has a huge amount of potential - in fact I have suggested to The Exchange that they contact the producers of Channel 4’s “Grand Designs” - as I feel the huge scope of the project would be of great interest to viewers of that programme. It would also help to further put Erith on the map as far as ambitious public building renovation projects are concerned.

There was some intense Police activity in Erith High Street and Wharfside Close on Thursday afternoon; a regular reader who chooses to remain anonymous took the photo above of officers on patrol - click on the photo for a larger view. After making some enquiries with the Police, it turns out that they were searching for a known felon who had been spotted running along Erith High Street, wearing only a pair of socks and boxer shorts! Apparently, even though there had been several sightings of the wanted villain by members of the public, and the man was nearly naked in freezing temperatures, he was not located. 

Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. Firstly from Barnehurst ward:- "Good news for Barnehurst residents, there has been no residential burglaries in the past week. Barnehurst Local Policing Team will continue to patrol burglary hotspots and are making every effort to encourage residents to be part of Neighbourhood Watch for their road. If you are interested in becoming a Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator please let us know and we will be happy to discuss with you what is involved. With Christmas approaching do not advertise Christmas presents under the tree and remain vigilant to deter unwanted visitors. Coffee with cops will be held at 1.00pm at Barnehurst Golf Club on Thursday 21st December 2017, please feel free to join us. Follow us on Twitter @MPSBarnehurst". Belvedere ward:- "The team dealt with a stolen vehicle last weekend that had been bought to our attention by a nearby resident. The vehicle was recovered by us and was taken away for forensic testing. CCTV enquiries were conducted and CCTV has been located relating to the incident. We also completed a street briefing in Ruskin Road where residents were able to discuss various issues with us. Councillor Daniel Francis was in attendance at this meeting and was also able to offer possible solutions to some of the issues raised. We also dealt with youths riding off road motorbikes in two separate locations on the ward. One of the reports was of a nuisance off road motorbike driving up and down the pathway from Upper Abbey Road and Clive Road. Apparently there are between two and four male youths using this bike to cause a nuisance in the area. If anyone has any information as to who the youths are then please contact the team. The team have been patrolling Nuxley Road and Upper Belvedere areas following 5 robberies over the past 3 months. We have been providing crime prevention advice on Twitter - @MPSBelvedere". Brampton ward:- "Brampton have only had 3 relevant crimes to report. There was criminal damage to a motor vehicle in Wenvoe Road and to a vehicle in Normanhurst Avenue where both vehicles had their tyres slashed. There was also a particularly nasty aggravated burglary in Church Road where 4 white men forced their way in and threatened the young victim with a sharp implement before taking an amount of cash. On a brighter note the council have agreed to install CCTV in Birchington Close in an attempt to stop the criminal damage to motor vehicles occurring". Christchurch ward:- "Unfortunately we have had two residential burglaries that have been reported. Both of them happened on Rowan Road on the 7th December. Entry was gained through the back of the properties through the doors and items taken. A suspicious vehicle was stopped and searched along Townley Road shortly after the burglaries reported. We have also had two attempted burglaries on the 7th and 8th Dec. Townley Grammar School and Lloyds Bank were targeted but nothing taken. Also we have had two Theft from motor vehicles. Below is a brief summary of them: 8th Dec – Front window smashed on a vehicle and items taken from inside along Albion Road 8th Dec - Items taken from a van along the Broadway Bexleyheath. Please be mindful of pick pockets that are targeting the Broadway which we are getting reports of this happening. If any NHW members do see anything that requires Police attendance. Please make sure you use the appropriate method in contacting us. In an emergency please dial 999 and 101 for non-urgent reporting". Crayford ward:- "Here’s our news for this week and the week before. We are really pleased to say that in the last two weeks there have been no burglaries in Crayford, fingers crossed that we haven’t just jinxed this positive outcome by writing about it! There have been a number of public order offences, domestic incidents, assaults, in most cases the suspects are either known to the victims or are being investigated, these matters are taken very seriously. In the lead up to Christmas there has been an increase in shoplifting offences and we will endeavour to patrol the relevant areas to deter and apprehend offenders. A white Piaggio Vespa was stolen from outside a property in Beech Walk on 27/11/2017 at approx. 00.40. The owner still has the keys. Between 22-29 November an X registered Silver Ford Focus was stolen from outside an address in Iron Mill Lane. Someone forgot about goodwill to all men/women and festive cheer when they stole two reindeers from the front garden of a property in Thames Road on 5th December between 14.00-14.10 by cutting through the power cables". Erith ward:- "2 x Stop and Search conducted at Bosworth House last Thursday. Result - 2 snap bags of cannabis. Investigation is ongoing. No burglaries to report. In the week the team assisted in assisted in putting up the Met Police Remembrance Christmas tree as part of the annual Christmas Tree Fesitval at Christ Church, Victoria Road, Erith". North End ward:- "We have had an overnight burglary in Leycroft Gardens on Sat/Sun. A new car was stolen after the keys were taken from inside the house, entry via the UPVC front door not being locked with the key. Please lift the handle AND turn the key if you have a similar door. A theft from Motor vehicle happened in Reddy Road overnight Friday, toys stolen from the backseat. Plus a number plate was stolen from the front of a car parked in Slade Green BR station last Saturday. Two of our current ward promises are Drugs in the ward and ASB in Daleview. Last Sunday evening PC Telfer and PC Brookes-Smith stopped a group of 5 males and females in the stairwells at Daleview. 4 of them had cannabis seized from them and drug warnings were given making this a positive patrol for both promises. Last Saturday our PCSO along with the Erith PCSO attended an Orbit Sheltered Housing Scheme Christmas party where they engaged with residents including having a bit of a Christmas dance. Pictures are on our Twitter page. Pulse patrols are ongoing across the borough with police officers targeting known offenders and ASB hotspot areas in all wards". Northumberland Heath ward:- "It has been a quiet week on the ward with just one attempted burglary reported to us, and no vehicle crime. The attempted burglary took place in York terrace overnight on Saturday December 9th. The victim was away when she received a call from the alarm company stating her house alarm had been activated. A family member attended the property and found that entry had been attempted to the rear patio doors and the lock to the door was damaged. Thankfully entry was not gained and it is believed that the alarm being activated disturbed the intruder. The team have conducted home visits this week to parents of youths who have been causing anti-social behaviour in Bexley Road and Dickens Close. The youths were identified by CCTV". Thamesmead East ward:- "Good News - no Burglaries this week. x2 Theft from Motor Vehicle - Seacourt Road, Sunday 10/12/17 1030pm-745am Sunglasses and loose change. Seacourt Road Monday 11/12/17 0945am smashed driver’s window purse taken. A female has been arrested for theft by PC Pruden - investigations ongoing. Crime prevention advice – Remove any personal belongings from your motor vehicle. If you lock your car using a remote key fob please try at least one of the door handles to confirm it's locked before you walk away. Always lock your car when unattended, even for a few moments. Never leave items in view in your car or home. Keep your purse or wallet secure. Remember when leaving your property check windows and doors are locked. Tell your neighbours if you are going away and ask them to keep an eye on your house. Protect your important property, register at: https://www.immobilise.com. Always report anything suspicious". 

The ending video this week shows some more of the problems the rebuilding of Bexleyheath Broadway have caused to pedestrians and motorists alike, by making the delineation between the road and the pavement so indistinct. Do give it a watch, and feel free to leave a comment below, or alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.