Death trap.

I took the photos above (click on either to see a larger version) on Monday afternoon; the great weather at the time made the view over Erith Riverside Gardens and the River Thames look particularly attractive. The small number of people using the gardens were socially distancing themselves in a responsible manner. 

The Co-Operative Society has strong roots in the Erith area. A co-operative shop was opened in Erith in 1868 by Sir William Anderson of Easton and Anderson engineering. The shop unfortunately soon failed, as it refused to give credit, and was patronised mainly by the emerging middle classes, for whom it was not intended.  1868 also saw a much more successful launch of the Royal Arsenal Co-Operative Society at Woolwich. By 1881 they had extended the delivery of bread and groceries into Erith. On the 30th March 1882, a co-op branch store, costing £1,225 was opened on the corner of Manor Road and what is now James Watt Way. A reading room was provided on the first floor by the society's education committee, and supplied newspapers and periodicals for public use. In 1887 this was extended to form a purpose built district library, with a budget of a whole £30 to purchase books. Over the years the trade increased with the surge in growth of the local population, to the point came where the building was not large enough, and new premises were constructed in 1893. It was not very long until this co-operative library fell into disuse, when the Andrew Carnegie sponsored public library in Walnut Tree Road opened in 1906. Records show that the co-operative library had some strange rules in respect of their employees. The first manager of the Manor Road based library was a Mr. James Hall, who had left school at the age of eleven. He was soon promoted to General Manager on the condition that he got married within three months of the appointment! He eventually got spliced four months after his appointment, but this was deemed to be near enough for his employers. Hall eventually rose to become General Manager of the RACS from 1902 until his retirement in 1918.

I came across the advert above in an old map of Erith that I have had for absolutely ages. It was old when I was given it. Hedley Mitchell was the largest and by far the most important shop in the old Victorian Erith town centre. It was the towns' department store, and as large and grand as Hides in Bexleyheath. Many older local residents recall Hedley Mitchell with great affection. The store had a very high reputation for formal service. It was the first building to be demolished when work began to create the new (and subsequently much hated) brutalist concrete shopping centre in 1966. In fact the first act of demolition was carried out by the then Deputy Mayor, Councillor Mrs M Barron, ceremoniously smashed the window of Hedley Mitchell's store to mark the commencement of the demolition of Erith Town Centre to make way for redevelopment. As a consequence, all the existing Victorian buildings were lost. With hindsight, this was a terrible mistake - the existing town centre should have been sympathetically restored. I gather that this was considered, but would have cost too much money; instead they built a relatively cheap but undeniably ugly replacement out of bare concrete. I don't know anyone who had a good word to say about it. Consequently a lot of businesses upped sticks and moved to Bexleyheath or Northumberland Heath, and it is only now, over fifty years later that much of the social and economic damage is being put right. The current Erith Riverside Shopping Centre is actually a very clever redesign of the much hated sixties structure, rather than a ground up new build, but it has been done with taste and sensitivity - something entirely missing in the original, which was a smelly and soulless concrete monstrosity, detested by all.

Following my article last week about the number of traffic accidents happening in and around the junction of Danson Road and Park View Road, directly outside of the main entrance to Danson Park, I have been contacted by the same local resident, with a photo of a further accident. The correspondent, who wishes to remain anonymous, writes:- "Well, I couldn't believe when on the 24th at about 10.30pm, I heard an almighty, 'boom!' - looking outside was the smoking wreckage of a car that appeared to have been unaware of the interchange and smashed into the central reservation, then into the pavement.  This, only 2 days since the last accident.  Both incidents seemed to involve youngsters.  I wonder if alcohol was involved as there appeared to be friends of the involved coming out of the park? I think you will agree that this accident looks worse than the last one. I hope that no one was waiting to cross the road at the central reservation at the time". Have you had any experiences regarding this very dangerous road junction that some local residents are now referring to as a death trap? Email me with your details to hugh.neal@gmail.com in confidence. 

Pac-Man, the biggest arcade game of all time, turned 40 years old last week. Released by the Japanese company Namco on May the 22nd, 1980, Pac-Man was like nothing else at the time. At a time when Space Invaders and Asteroids and other games with abstracted, monochrome graphics ruled the arcade, Pac-Man offered a striking, cartoonish design with an appealing central character. It revolved around eating, not shooting; and it was designed to appeal to young women and couples, not spotty nerks in anoraks (although they all played it too). The colourful design and unique collect-the-dots maze gameplay—plus the wonderful tension of running away from those ghosts, then scrambling to eat them once you got a power pellet—made Pac-Man almost instantly addictive, eating ten pence pieces as rapaciously as its protagonist swallowed pixels. By one count, Namco sold 400,000 Pac-Man machines, head and shoulders above anything that had come before, or since. And it is still highly playable and popular in a way its contemporaries are not—few people are paying for Asteroids or Space Invaders updates today, but Namco Bandai still makes and sells variations on Pac-Man on every platform imaginable. Pac-Man’s ubiquity was our first indication that games were about to become the dominant entertainment medium of the information age. (It also arguably marked the beginning of Japan’s impending pop-cultural invasion of the rest of the world, even if players at the time didn't know where it came from.)

Here is an account, which was written back in 1983, of how local man Bob Shrimpton spent much of World War II:- "During the war, being employed in what was known as a ‘reserved occupation’, I enlisted (a euphemism – I had no choice) in the 56th Battalion Home Guard disrespectfully known as Dads’ Army. I became a private first class in No. 1 Platoon A Company. Platoon HQ was in a tin hut at the rear of the Belvedere Social Club in Nuxley Road and Company H.Q. was in a villa, long since demolished, which stood on the corner of Woolwich Road and Essenden Road. At the time I joined full kit and weapons were available. Most of the platoon rode bicycles to parades with full kit including army boots, a greatcoat in winter and a .303 rifle slung across the shoulders. It took a lot of practise to mount and dismount. If one ran with the bike and cocked ones leg over the saddle too hurriedly, the weight of all this equipment could hurl one flat on the ground. As in Dads’ Army we had our characters who could obtain anything for you - at a price. There was a slit trench in the front garden at Essenden Road and a sentry was supposed to jump into this when an air-raid was in progress. One night it poured with rain nearly all night. A raid was on and the duty sentry was trying to keep dry in the trench whilst some of us were in the house porch watching the raid. Suddenly there was a great agonising howl of rage. The rainwater had burst through the sand bags around the top of the trench and poured straight down the back of the sentry’s trousers! Once a month we did sentry duty at Battalion H.Q. in the mansion that once stood at the corner of Bexley Road and Park Crescent. ( The original Battalion Commanding Officer was Lt. Col. Briggs and later LT. Col. Tobin. Military exercises were held from time to time with other platoons. Our platoon Commander was Lt. Butler and his second in command was Lt. Shirras, who was the manager of Reeson’s Chemist in the Erith High Street. I remember one summer’s evening Lt. Shirras leading his section stealthily down Clive Road towards the enemy, with his revolver at the ready, when a hoard of youngsters burst upon us whooping and urging us on with shouts of ‘Go it Mr. Get ‘em’. etc. The Lieutenant’s blackened face turned a shade blacker as he shouted ‘-----off you b------ kids.’ He really was an officer and a gentleman though. We held manoeuvres on Belvedere Marshes taking us right through the gypsy encampment. I remember lying in delicious terror by the side of the line near Belvedere railway station with my bayonet a few inches from the live rail whilst trains sped by. One weekend was spent on night manoeuvres at Mount Mascal in North Cray, under the care of the Scots Guards. The night was so dark that it seemed superfluous to blacken one’s face. In fact, because of lack of visibility, our officer lost his platoon! I had been appointed runner, which meant I had to stick to the officer in case he wanted me to take a message – where to, goodness only knows! The officer walked along North Cray Road looking for his platoon when he sensed, rather than saw, a blackened face peering from a hedge, whereupon the following short conversation took place. Officer: ‘Is that No. 1 platoon?’ Blackened Face: ‘Sorry Sir. No, we are the enemy.’ We fired .303 rifles and Lewis guns on a range in the sand-pits right next to Birch Walk. The recruits were always the best shots. One of our platoon worked in the Woolwich Arsenal. He wangled a Sunday morning visit to the small arms proof ranges. There we were, large as life, marching in full kit inside the grounds. It was a different world inside – haystacks, cows grazing etc. We shot at 500 yard range (not at the cows) and we took it in turns to don little waist-coats and mark the shots at the targets. One was supposed to check on the field telephone that the men firing had ceased firing. Something went amiss and as we walked to the targets a bullet sped over our heads fortunately not hitting anyone". Comments to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

It never ceases to amaze me how concepts and technology originally created as plot devices in science fiction soon become reality. In my opinion, the biggest contributor to this phenomenon has got to be the original 1960's series of Star Trek. Mobile phones, tablet computers, and the 3.5” floppy disk are all devices inspired directly from the original classic TV show. Scientists are now saying that warp drive is theoretically possible, even if we are a huge way off being able to build a starship using warp technology. In essence, a warp drive will exploit a loophole in the law of the speed of light (nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum). Instead of trying to move the ship ever faster, requiring greater and greater input of energy, the warp drive turn the problem on its’ head. Instead of trying to go faster, the warp drive distorts space/time around the starship; in effect the ship remains stationary whilst the  space in front of the ship is contracted, and the space behind the ship is expanded – basically the universe moves around the ship. The concept for a real life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by a Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, however subsequent calculations revealed that his design would consume prohibitive amounts of energy. Recently physicists have re – examined the calculations, and have discovered a method of redesigning the warp generator to run on significantly less energy, and bringing it back from science fiction and into the realm of (theoretical) science. An Alcubierre warp drive would involve an American football shaped spacecraft attached to a large ring encircling it. This ring, potentially made of exotic matter, would cause space-time to warp around the starship, creating a region of contracted space in front of it and expanded space behind. Meanwhile, the starship itself would stay inside a bubble of flat space-time that wasn't being warped at all. Everything within space is restricted by the speed of light.  The really amazing  thing is space-time, the actual fabric of space, is not limited by the speed of light, and can be warped. With this concept, the spacecraft would be able to achieve an effective speed of about 10 times the speed of light, all without breaking the cosmic speed limit. This is all very well in theory, but some absolutely staggering advances in engineering and materials technology will need to be made before this ever approaches practicality. Having said that, it is very cool indeed.

Now for the weekly local safety and security updates from Bexley Borough Neighbourhood Watch Association. Firstly the report from Barnehurst ward:- "Barnehurst Ward has suffered on non-residential burglary at Parkside Parade, Northend Road. The Incident occurred on Thursday 21/05/2020 and was targeted twice in one day. The first time was at approximately 1700 hours and the second time was sometime after midnight. A dark blue Ford transit Connect is believed to be involved on both occasions. Entry was gained via the rear of the property. Goods from the shop were taken on both occasions. CCTV footage has been obtained therefore investigations are ongoing. The team have been responding to calls in relation to residents not adhering to Government's guidelines. Please do not have family and friends round and stick to the guidelines". Belvedere ward:- "During these days of continued testing times the Belvedere Safer Neighbourhood Team continue to patrol the ward both in plain clothes and High visibility form in order to keep residents of the ward safe and any potential criminals away. On Sunday 24th May and in conjunction with other teams on the borough we were able to apprehend and arrest an offender who had been wanted by Police for over 3 years. After complex intel and research this male was traced to an address on the Belvedere ward and was finally apprehended after a dawn raid. He has now been safely returned to her Majesty's pleasure where he will complete his original prison sentence for the next 4 months. With the hot weather now approaching and almost at touching distance a gentle reminder please to continue observing the social distance guidelines. It can become very easy to get carried away with the moment but please do remember about gathering in large groups in parks and open spaces. The guidance states that you can sit in a park but it must only be with persons in your household or at most one person from a different household". Bexleyheath ward:-"Between Thursday 21/05/20 and Friday 22/05/20 – Lidl Bexleyheath – vehicle broken into, work tools stolen. Saturday 23/05/20 - WJ King Bexleyheath – Theft of petrol. Monday 25/05/20 – Lidl Bexleyheath – Public Order offence. We have a very low crime rate again this week which is great news". Crayford ward:- "We have good news to report that there has been no reported burglaries or attempted burglaries, which I believe was the same from last week. Lets hope this continues to stay this way. A theft from motor vehicle was reported on the Wednesday 20/05/2020 along Perry Street at about 13:30 hrs, tools were taken from the back of a van. On the Wednesday 20/05/20 a trailer was stolen from the rear driveway of a shop along Crayford Way. Tools were used to cut the trailer free, incident had occurred at about 19:40hrs. There was report of a criminal damage at Hall Place Bourne Road. Gates had been damaged and there was signs of nitrous oxide canisters also used at the location. This incident had taken place over night from the Tuesday 19/05/20 from about 9 pm until 7:30 am the following day. Just wanted to say Thank You to everyone who continually follow the government guidelines and also for people to continue to help and support one other". Erith ward:-"This week the team has been out on the bikes covering some patrols around Thamesmead, Northumberland Heath as well as Erith. All open spaces patrolled as well as shops in Erith. You can check out our daily bike mapping patrols on out twitter. Crimes of note from the last week. Theft from Motor Vehicle – Erith Park. Theft from Motor Vehicle – Compton Place. No other crimes of note, no burglaries and while there was still 2 Theft from MVs this is down from the 5+ last week. A number of weapon sweeps across Erith have taken place, nothing found. Due to staff numbers this week we have been doing some extra patrols around Northumberland and Northend. Plain clothing patrols across Erith have also been carried out".

Northumberland Heath ward:- "Two drug warrants were executed simultaneously on Wednesday 20/05/20 within Northumberland Heath and Slade Green. A small quantity of cannabis was found which resulted in a community resolution. Weapons were also found in the inside the second property. The team have been working hard with Bexley ASB Team and have been able to install a CCTV camera on Streamway, Erith. Residents have also provided police pictures of local youths causing anti-social behaviour and drug dealing. The team have identified these suspects and have been completing home visits on the individuals. Work is also being completed on serving CPNWs. Six positive stop and searches completed on Steamway, Erith this week with help from neighbouring wards. Officers completed a foot chase in the Northumberland Heath Recreation Ground park on Thursday 21/05/20 which resulted in a male being transported to Bexleyheath Police Station for a strip search and was found to be in possession of cannabis. Also last week there was a fight in the park involving a large group of youths. Response Officers attended the incident and the suspect was identified by the victim and was arrested. There has been reports of youths congregating in the Alleyways of Belmont Road and youths causing ASB and vandalising parked vehicles on Brook Street. These reports are not being reported correctly and victims of crimes need to be contacting 101 to make the local policing team aware . Officers will complete patrols around these hotspot areas. Also great news the team will be getting a new DWO Constable on the 1st June". Slade Green and Northend ward:- "A vehicle was stolen by means of burglary overnight on Tuesday 26 and Wednesday 27 May in Cedar Road. The victim had not locked their UPVC Door by lifting the handle and turning the key, they just shit the door and put the chain on showing how easy it is for someone to gain entry. Also, a passport, mobile phone and cash were all left in the car when it was stolen. Please always ensure your doors are locked correctly and no valuables are left in your vehicle at any time. Please continue to follow government guidelines in regards where we are with lockdown restrictions etc. The team are patrolling as and where we can, when we can so thanks to everyone who is following the guidelines". Thamesmead East ward:- "No Burglaries this week. Vehicle Crime. Maran Way Sunday 17/5/20 between 4pm – 2:20 pm Thurs 21/5/20 Suspect/s have removed both front and rear number plates and replaced with plates from another vehicle. Leatherbottle Green Wednesday 20/5/20 9:50 am Victim stated while at their home address a loud grinding noise was emanating from the front of the property. Looking out from the first floor window victim could see a suspect standing by the front nearside of their vehicle and another suspect underneath. Victim called out from the window and both suspects made off with catalytic converter.. Kale Road. Thursday 21/5/20 between 3pm – 12 noon Fri 22/5/20 Victim states rear number plate stolen by suspect/s unknown". West Heath ward:- "Two motor vehicle crimes of note this week: Theft of a purse containing credit cards and cash in Berkeley Avenue between Sunday 17/05/20 16.00 – Thursday 21/05/2020. Theft of a grey transit van in Glenview on Tuesday 26/05/20 at approximately 14.40pm. One arrest for theft of goods".

The end video this week features some excellent drone footage shot over the River Thames, showing Erith Pier and the surrounding areas. I must apologise on behalf of the content creator; despite some excellent visuals, the videographer has chosen to add some extremely irritating and completely unnecessary music to the piece. I would suggest that you watch the video with the sound muted.

Proper Top Gear.

The photos above (thanks Ian) were taken last night at The Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford. They show Genesis tribute band Los Endos performing the whole of the Genesis "A Trick of the Tail" concert set from the 1976 world tour, to commemorate its 40th anniversary this year. The gig was a sell - out, and The Mick Jagger Centre was packed. The venue has had a refurbishment since my last visit, and it is much improved - the toilets especially have been greatly enlarged - so no queues when going for a leak in the interval. If you have not visited the local performing arts centre, I can highly recommend it. There are events to satisfy all musical and theatrical tastes, and it is also conveniently nearby.

I rarely comment on items in the national press; the main reason for this is that they will have already been covered in detail by "proper" journalists, leaving very little for me to bring to the table. I am making a notable exception this week. As regular readers may recall, I refused to watch the Chris Evans and Matt Le Blanc relaunched version of Top Gear earlier this year. I am of the opinion that almost any television programme is far greater than the sum of its parts, and that presenters can come and go - if the show is sufficiently strong, it can survive all sorts of changes in cast, crew, director and producer - a couple of prime examples of this are Coronation Street and Doctor Who. There is one exception to this rule, which the BBC have now found out to their great cost. Top Gear was Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. The BBC somehow got the erroneous impression that Top Gear was a car show with presenters who could be replaced at will. In fact it was a show about the three presenters acting like eight year old boys, larking about, bickering and falling over. The car element was entirely incidental. Now the trinity of presenters have moved to Amazon Prime and an (ostensibly) new show called The Grand Tour - which is basically Top Gear touring the world on an astronomical budget. The Producer is still Andy Wilman, and the technical crew are largely defectors from the BBC who worked on the original show. The Chris Evans / Matt LeBlanc BBC version has already catastrophically crashed and burned, with microscopic viewing figures - to the point where Chris Evans left the show after one series. After the launch this week of the rival The Grand Tour, I would imagine that BBC executives are wondering whether to throw good money after bad - The Grand Tour (already termed "Proper Top Gear") is so much better that is is in an entirely different league. Critical reception of The Grand Tour has been almost universally positive, only the BBC review being somewhat cool - but sour grapes are to be expected, I suppose. The BBC Top Gear reboot has been likened to the Director's cut of "Star Wars - The Phantom Menace" with extra scenes of Jar Jar Binks - whereas The Grand Tour has been likened to "Star Wars - The Force Awakens". Make of that what you will. I took out an Amazon Prime membership purely to watch The Grand Tour - all of the other benefits are welcome, but entirely incidental. Off the soap box now, and normal service is resumed. 

Last week I opened the debate about the right of the public to buy and use for private use. Since 2003, under 18’s have been prohibited from buying or using fireworks. The measures come under the Fireworks Act 2003, which also bars any member of the public from possessing high-powered "category four" fireworks of the kind used in professional displays. Now many activists, animal lovers and others have been campaigning for a further strengthening of the law, and as a result Police have been getting tougher with people using fireworks illegally. The clampdown is intended to tackle the problem of anti-social behaviour involving fireworks, Further hard line enforcement is due to come into force next year, including curfews on the setting off of fireworks, recognised training for display operators and the introduction of a tougher licensing system for suppliers. Since the article I wrote last week about the problem use of fireworks, which runs from mid-October until mid-January nowadays, I have had a considerable amount of feedback, almost all of it supporting the concept of a complete ban on members of the public buying or using fireworks at all. I have since discovered that Canada, South Africa and Australia have limitations or bans on private firework displays and the UK needs to seriously consider if it needs to follow suit. I was also made aware by a reader that an organised campaign to get heavy restrictions on the sale and use of fireworks is already under way.  A UK Government petition has been started, which describes itself thus:- “Ban the sale of fireworks to the public and only approve organised displays. Every year 1000's of people are hurt, burnt, maimed and even lose their lives through accidents involving fireworks.  Every year people are terrorised by the misuse of fireworks. Every year animals are hurt and traumatised by fireworks.  Ban them please”. You can see the petition by clicking here. 

It would seem that the waste incinerator in Lower Belvedere (see the photo above - click for a larger view) is going have its input ramped up by a very significant degree in the near future. Reports in the local press – both the Bexley Times and the News Shopper are featuring the story – say that the number of lorries carrying waste from other London boroughs to be incinerated at the Cory plant in Lower Belvedere. The owners of the Norman Road plant are already bringing in 660,000 tonnes of waste per year by river but want to boost its share by road up to 195,000 tonnes - a 129 percent increase. It was discussed recently at a council meeting that the energy waste company, Cory, which oversees the operators Riverside Resource Recovery Limited (RRRL), wants an additional 56 trucks - or an average of 4 vehicle trips an hour - brought to North Bexley’s roads. The motion was put forward chiefly to mitigate the possible loss of its contract at Northumberland Wharf in Tower Hamlets. Cory currently processes 100,000 tonnes of waste per annum onto the river via Northumberland Wharf. It is worried that it may lose access to its Northumberland site if its owners, the council of Tower Hamlets, decides to operate its own waste contract.  The News Shopper reported that Bexley Councillor David Leaf said "I have some quite grave reservations about this application. The contingency was for emergency only in terms of being able to use the road network. What concerns me is in relation to issue about the Northumberland Wharf being out, now clearly if you are a big business making a huge investment, we’re talking hundreds of millions of pounds, you would do your risk analysis and you would calculate what would happen if one of our main wharfs go out? Clearly there hasn’t been any contingency planning and Bexley residents are going to end up feeling the brunt of that. I’m very concerned and apprehensive about that.” What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Another new block of flats is planned close to the site of Abbey Wood Station – and the news has not pleased many local people. The new block (if the planning application is approved – and I suspect that it will be) will be 29 storeys high, and will contain 208 apartments and a 90 bed hotel. The scheme has been drawn up by developers HUB in partnership with Bridges Ventures. Pending planning approval the developers aim to start work on the site in the summer of 2017. I already have the feeling that these apartments will be mainly bought up by absentee owners, many from abroad who will look to "land bank" them as investments. They are certainly not the kind of properties that many local residents will be able to afford, more is the shame. 

I am somewhat surprised at Bexley Council’s recent announcement of a pre – Christmas pop – up cinema to be held on the Erith Riverside Gardens on Saturday the 26th November from 4.30pm. The announcement on the Bexley Council website says:- “Riverside Gardens is hosting a fantastic, free pop-up cinema screening for the community. The fun starts with Home Alone (PG) at 4.30pm followed by Gremlins (12A) at 6:30pm, with a short break in between. Bring along chairs and blankets to keep warm and comfortable. Hot food and drink will be available to buy from local chefs and businesses.” Admission to the event is free. As I mentioned last week, I had hoped that the event would be held in a large marquee or other temporary structure on the site; the wording of the council piece does not fill me with confidence in this respect. The venue is ideal in many ways, but it is very exposed, and is one of, if not the coldest place in the whole of the town, with the wind coming straight off the River Thames. I am also concerned that it is now only a week before the event, and very little if any publicity has been noticeable – I would have expected far more advertising and promotion of what could be an excellent community event. I do have some suspicions that once again Erith is being “set up to fail” – as happened with the recent unsuccessful relaunch of Erith Market. On that occasion, the relaunch of the market was done with a little bit of publicity (some of which came from me) but the market was only held on Wednesdays, not on Saturdays, something that a regular reader pointed out:- “I hear are giving Erith Market a trial go. When they know it will fail before they start. They only seem to be catering for the unemployed and the elderly. Because they are the only one that can go to the market. The market should have been bigger and on Wednesdays and Saturdays like it used to be. Saturdays for the people that go to work all week”. My anonymous reader’s comments turned out to be prophetic; the first week there were eight stall holders on the piece of land adjacent to Morrison’s car park; the next week six, and it petered out until no stalls appeared by the end of the first month. As I have previously written, plans are afoot to relaunch the market on a far more ambitious scale, although it will be some time in the new year before this comes to pass. I get the feeling that the pop – up cinema is similarly being set up to fail – with only a week to go, very few local residents – especially those with children – appear to be aware of the existence of the event. I can only hope that the council pull out the stops at the last minute – otherwise the pop – up cinema could show to a handful of hardy people only. It would certainly enable to council to not carry out any further community events in Erith, citing a lack of interest from local people. I really want the event to be a great success, but the track record of Bexley Council in regard of public events in and around Erith does not inspire me with confidence. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email hugh.neal@gmail.com.

The recent road resurfacing works in and around Erith Town Centre caused considerable confusion and disruption to motorists; in an email to members of Erith Town Forum. Local councillors Joe Ferreira, Abena Oppong – Asare and Edward Boateng wrote “There was much disruption last week with road works taking place at Queens Road Roundabout. These works had started at 7pm and ended each night at 2am. Disruption included long tail backs, drivers driving the wrong way up and down the one-way Erith High Street and drivers cutting through Erith Town Centre car park as a shortcut only to then go against the flow of the diversion route. Each night we raised these matters with the relevant officers overseeing the work, and although the disruption continued, some of the issues improved with additional signage put out including No Through Road signs to the car parks and the congestion clearing quicker. Thankfully the works have since completed”. I must admit that I did not realise just how much disruption that the roadworks caused. I don’t live in the town centre, but on the outskirts – it does sound like the resurfacing could have been planned with more care and less disruption.

I came across the advert above in an old map of Erith that I have had for absolutely ages. It was old when I was given it. Hedley Mitchell was the largest and by far the most important shop in the old Victorian Erith town centre. It was the towns' department store, and as large and grand as Hides in Bexleyheath. Many older local residents recall Hedley Mitchell with great affection. The store had a very high reputation for formal service. It was the first building to be demolished when work began to create the new (and subsequently much hated) brutalist concrete shopping centre in 1966. In fact the first act of demolition was carried out by the then Deputy Mayor, Councillor Mrs M Barron, ceremoniously smashed the window of Hedley Mitchell's store to mark the commencement of the demolition of Erith Town Centre to make way for redevelopment. As a consequence, all the existing Victorian buildings were lost. With hindsight, this was a terrible mistake - the existing town centre should have been sympathetically restored. I gather that this was considered, but would have cost too much money; instead they built a relatively cheap but undeniably ugly replacement out of bare concrete. I don't know anyone who had a good word to say about it. Consequently a lot of businesses upped sticks and moved to Bexleyheath or Northumberland Heath, and it is only now, nearly fifty years later that much of the social and economic damage is being put right. The current Erith Riverside Shopping Centre is actually a very clever redesign of the much hated sixties structure, rather than a ground up new build, but it has been done with taste and sensitivity - something entirely missing in the original, which was a smelly and soulless concrete monstrosity, detested by all.

Interestingly, in the same message to members of the Erith Town Forum, the councillors state that the old Carnegie Library building in Walnut Tree Road is under consideration for a change of use:-  “The Council are looking to find a suitable operator for the Carnegie Building to bring it back into use as a high quality skills and training centre, and are actively pursuing potential operators. More will obviously follow on this as we get it. In addition, some works to maintain the building’s fabric and general upkeep will be carried out between November 2016 and January 2017”. It is not clear at present what Wetherspoon’s are planning – when I spoke to them a couple of months ago, they were very cagey – which is understandable, as they are a commercial operation where advance information of their intentions could be potentially damaging to their business. I made a few educated guesses as to potential locations for a Wetherspoon’s outlet in Erith – after all, the one thing that they did confess to me was that they were indeed looking at the town as a potential site for a new pub. My guesses settled on the Carnegie Library and The Running Horses in Erith High Street, overlooking the Riverside Gardens. As far as I am aware, no decision has been made at this point, though I will be asking more questions of them in the future. 

One of the once common features of Erith has largely disappeared - mostly for the better. Up until June of 2014 mobile scrap collecting vans were one of the commonest sights on the roads of the town. I mentioned this to a friend, and he commented on how the once very familiar scrap collecting vans had all but disappeared, almost overnight. He was entirely correct; before the start of June 2014, the roads of Erith were flooded with “Scrappies” – small vans, usually based on a Ford Transit chassis that were crewed by a wide variety of people – but always men. I have never seen a female scrap van driver. If you walked down Manor Road at around 7am on a weekday morning, you would see whole convoys of these vehicles as they left their depot on the Wallhouse Industrial Estate on the Slade Green Marshes. The biggest local scrap company by far was City Scrap; I would have said that prior to June 2014, around eighty five percent of scrap vehicles in the area were theirs. As you may recall I wrote at the time, Police and Revenue and Customs officials raided the offices and yard of City Scrap after finding strong evidence of a series of frauds and tax evasion, including an insurance fraud worth around £30,000. On top of the list of forty five offences the owners were charged with were making a false statement to obtain insurance, perverting the course of justice, and making a false statement to obtain  a scrap metal licence. I also understand that many of the scrap lorry driver / operators were claiming benefits whilst working, as well as other offences. All in all the closure of City Scrap was a necessity; they were operating well outside of the law. What surprises me in the two and a half years since City Scrap were officially wound up as a company, no other scrap dealer has emerged to occupy the void left by the once dominant, if corrupt firm. OK, scrap recycling giant Scrapco have moved into a depot in Landau Way, in the Darent Business Park, but they seem to mainly be involved in commercial and industrial scrap from large organisations - they don't get involved with domestic scrap collection, s they are not a direct replacement for the defunct City Scrap. Metal recycling is a vital part both of the local economy, and it also has great environmental benefits, so a new company taking over the business makes sense in a number of ways. Before June 2014, if you left a scrap of metal anywhere in Erith it would disappear in moments. I recall that back in 2009 I had a new central heating boiler installed. Part of the process involved flushing the existing radiators of accumulated sludge and treating them with a rust inhibitor; a special pump had to be fitted to the lowest point in the heating circuit – in my case, one of the radiators in the living room. This was carefully removed and taken outside by the heating engineers. Despite the radiator being laid on a tarpaulin and two heating company vans being parked outside, in the space of the two hour flushing period I had a total of seven scrappies trying to take the radiator, even though it was obvious it had only been temporarily removed whilst work was carried out. One even accused me of taking food from his children’s mouths when I caught him trying to steal the radiator. He soon shut up and ran off when I told him that he was being recorded on CCTV! Nowadays it has all changed – a friend had a dead fridge freezer and left it in their front garden for four days before a scrap dealer removed it. The local scrap market seems to have dried up - which is not good news for those wishing to recycle old appliances and the like, and is not good for the environment.

The end video this week features the 2016 Erith Model Railway Society exhibition. Another event that you might possible like to add to your calendar is the forthcoming Bexley Model Railway Show, which will be held at Bexleyheath Academy, Graham Road Entrance, Bexleyheath, Kent, DA6 7EG on Sunday the 11th December between 10am and 4pm. There will be a number of layouts and traders at the exhibition. Refreshments, free parking and disabled access are available. Admission: £6 (£4.95 pre booked) £5 (£3.95 pre booked) and Family £15 (£12 pre booked). Contact telephone number is:- 020 8694 1888. 

Epilogue for Potion.

One of my confidential informants has come across some interesting background into the forced closure of the late, and very much unlamented Potion Bar. As I have previously written, the erstwhile owners of Potion were in deep trouble with both Bexley Council even before the place opened to the paying public. The building had previously been a pub called the White Hart, and not only was it fitted with a green, salt glazed tile exterior (the green tiles were made locally – the green colouring was a characteristic of Erith tiles) and ornate, acid etched windows, both dating from Victorian times, but it also had a pretty pub sign hanging from a bracket. When Potion took over, these features were all ripped out and destroyed, even though the Council specifically prohibited them from doing so. Not only was the White Hart a grade II listed building, but it is located in a designated conservation area. The new owners then installed a hideously inappropriate plate glass frontage which nowadays looks completely out of place. My informant has provided evidence that Bexley Council did go to great lengths to prosecute the owners of Potion. Initially they issued an enforcement order, which instructed Potion to install a replica of the original Victorian pub frontage - above you can see a photo taken last week of the glass frontage of Potion as it is today; beneath it is an architect's drawing of the proposed restored Victorian style frontage. Potion appealed against this, but the appeal was dismissed by Magistrates. Potion was then given a period of six months to comply with the order, which ended on the 8^th April 2010. They did not undertake any work to restore the appearance of the building, and in the first hearing at Bexley Magistrates Court on the 16^th July 2012, neither defendant appeared. Arrest warrants were then issued by the court for the owners. A new trial was set on the 18^th December 2012 at Bromley Magistrates Court. The owners of Potion pleaded guilty to all charges, to which they were fined a paltry £350, plus £500 in court costs, along with a £15 victim surcharge. Bexley Council Legal Services were then authorised to commence injunction proceedings against Potion, and the ownership of Potion was subsequently taken over by the freeholders of the building. It was then closed down some months later, which it remains to date. I suspect that the freeholders of the building will have a challenge in finding a new occupant; any business wanting to use the former pub will face a huge bill to both replace the hideous plate glass fascia with a replica of the original frontage, and to refurbish the interior, which was run pretty much into the ground - currently the interior resembles a building site. If hot food was to be served, a ventilation and fume extraction system would also need to be installed. I reckon that even if someone was to take this on, they would need to spend a minimum of £100,000 to get the building into an acceptable state to be able to open for the paying public. In the current economic climate, I think this is highly unlikely, although I would love to be proved wrong. Long time readers may recall that I predicted that Potion would be a disaster for Erith even before it originally opened. I was right on multiple levels, though I am certainly not gloating about it. The place was a haven for drug dealers and crooks of every persuasion; it flouted health and safety law, employed unqualified and unregistered staff in positions of responsibility, and wilfully disobeyed planning regulations. At least the criminals that both ran Potion and drank in the repulsive dive are no longer able to do so. On a brighter note, I hope to be able to feature a story I have been following closely for over a year which concerns relative newcomers to the town who are the polar opposites of the people behind Potion, and who are undertaking the largest sympathetic architectural renovation / conservation project that Erith has seen in the last couple of decades. More positive news on this subject soon, I hope.

A story has got a lot of local people annoyed this week. Fourteen traveller caravans recently moved onto a piece of land adjacent to the Tesco delivery warehouse in Church Manor Way, Erith. They left after a week or thereabouts; this sounds fair enough. The problem is that they left behind over half a tonne of rubbish, which they dumped on the site prior to departure. I think a certain demographic resent the traveller community because they see a group of people who seemingly live outside of the law, and the strictures that apply the majority, such as paying income and council tax. The fact remains many travellers do comply, but they all get tarred as scumbags that exploit the system, and scream “discrimination” as soon as something happens that they disagree with. In this case, the behaviour of the traveller families involved has not done their cause any favours. The irresponsible dumping of rubbish will have to be cleaned up at the expense of the land owner. I feel that if travellers want to be treated as equal members of society, (as indeed they should be), they need to address the resentment felt by many – and this occurs on their own caravan step. I have recently witnessed what could be classed as unconscious bias on the part of staff in Erith Morrison’s, when a mother, adult daughter and several children entered the store. They were ignored for a minute or so, but as soon as the adult daughter called out to her small children in the very distinctive traveller accent, the security guard started to follow them around the store. From my observations, the family only came in to buy some milk and nappies, but there seemed to be a presupposition of criminality which had no basis in reality. The actions of fellow travellers in illegally dumping large quantities of rubbish can only reinforce prejudice and give fuel to that minority who would discriminate against any group that they feel is different. Your thoughts and comments are welcome below, or Email me directly at hugh.neal@gmail.com. The Bexley Times are reporting that Bexley Council have formally dropped plans to move the Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre to Bromley, after a high level of protest from local residents. Councillor Don Massey, the cabinet member for community safety and leisure made the statement last Wednesday. Councillor Massey said “He said: “It is clear that many residents want to keep the Local Studies and Archives Service where it is. We have listened to them. Various options have been worked through and we can achieve this and make savings through staff changes.” Hmm; from investigations undertaken by Malcolm Knight of “Bexley is Bonkers” and others, it would appear that Bexley Council did not even approach Bromley Council about the possibility of relocating the service. As Malcolm surmised, it looks likely that the whole thing was engineered as an “Aunt Sally” – a scheme that actually was never going to happen, but which would make those council members involved look good to the electorate when they “dropped “ the project, that in reality had never actually existed. Either way, it would seem that the Archive and Study Centre is safe – at least for this financial year. A lot of local people put effort into making their feelings known in respect of the centre; there is clearly strong support for local studies and history. I suspect that any further attempts to relocate the unit will meet with a similar fate.

After local resident Pam recounted her memories of the Hedley Mitchell department store in Erith last week, historian Ken Chamberlain has once more been in contact with some additional information about what used to be Erith’s most upmarket shop. Ken writes:- As a matter of interest Hedley Mitchell (Senior) died in South Africa in 1942 as he married late in life, you may not be surprised to know that his son Hedley is still alive and well as are his two daughters. I have a catalogue of the store which contains a photos of the various departments. A Mrs. Hancock  was in charge of the travel and theatre ticket department. She is the mother of Sheila Hancock the actress. Some time ago I sent the photo to Sheila  reminding her of her mother. I received a very nice reply thanking me for the thought. I didn't ask her but "young " Hedley had told me  Sheila  was a for a while a "Saturday girl" in the store. Another gentleman I knew started work at Mitchell's  in the 1920's. He served his apprenticeship there.(If you served your apprenticeship at Mitchell you could get a job in any of the London Stores) He was told " The next person that walks through that door is the most important person in your life". In those days For 5 shillings a week  he worked until 10 pm for five days. He was supposed to have a half day Thursday, but he was always asked to" just sweep up before you go".  Closing time meant the sales manager going out into the street just to ensure there wasn't another customer that might come in. There are still several members of the Mitchell family around including in Erith”. Excellent stuff, Ken. It would seem that Hedley Mitchell’s had quite a strong history of fostering the arts, as I recall you telling me previously that another one time member of staff is highly respected poet Wendy Cope OBE, who was considered for the role of poet laureate on two occasions in the late nineties; it is thought she was not actually asked as she disagrees with the whole poet laureate role, which sounds pretty reasonable.

The News Shopper are currently reporting a story regarding waste disposal company Serco, and the alleged abuse some of their operatives (what used to be called bin men in less politically correct times) are receiving at the hands of certain members of the general public. The problems seem to stem from Bexley Council’s policy of only allowing collection of waste from one main bin per household per week. Local residents who have more waste than this are up in arms that Serco will not take the excess, even though Serco have been given explicit instructions by the Council not to take any additional waste. The issue has led to threats of violence against Serco operatives on a number of recent occasions, most notably in The Nursery, Erith. I think the policy is probably led by Bexley Council’s aims to further increase their level of waste that is recycled. Currently the volume of waste that the Council are able to recycle is quoted as 54%, which in my opinion is not too bad, though it could always be better. I think the strictures on only one bin of unrecyclable waste per household is somewhat inflexible. A large family with seven members is going to generate a lot more waste than a single person living alone. It seems to me that if the council, via their contractor refuse to take additional waste, it will end up getting fly tipped elsewhere – a problem that is very serious in and around the local area, as I have reported before.

Yet another technology 30^th anniversary is upon us.  This time it falls to the notoriously convoluted, not to say fiendishly clever Infocom text adventure game version of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, the game was probably the most difficult text only adventure ever produced. The words were produced by HHGTTG author Douglas Adams, and the programming code by legendary adventure game company Infocom. It was produced for a wide variety of eight bit home computers of the period – the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit series, the Apple II and DOS PC’s. It only came on floppy disk, which limited it to wealthier computer owners of the time. I played it extensively, but to be honest, never got very far with it, much to my frustration. The BBC are releasing a new, web based version of the game for online play. The updated version, will, unlike the original have graphics and illustrations. The BBC have stated in a recent announcement "Players can take the game on the move as it will be compatible with tablets and other internet enabled devices." The game is part of the global multi-media success story that is The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Created by Douglas Adams, the sci-fi comedy started life as a BBC Radio 4 series in March 1978. The show told the story of average every-man Arthur Dent, who ends up travelling around space after Earth is demolished to make way for an intergalactic hyperspace bypass. The format went on to spawn a series of novels, a TV series, a (not very good) Hollywood feature film, multiple stage shows, a collection of comic books, and merchandise including towels. The new game will be published on the BBC website on Saturday 8th March 2014, 36 years to the day since The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy was first broadcast on the radio. BBC Radio 4 Extra will also repeat the first two series of the radio show (The Primary Phase and The Secondary Phase) from this date. The BBC says: "It has been over 10 years since these programmes were last heard on BBC Radio and they perfectly accompany the game. Actions within the game follow the plot of the radio series and some puzzles are only solvable by players with knowledge of the programmes and story." Radio 4 Extra's Caroline Raphael was quoted "Douglas was a true visionary and in his own glorious way foresaw all the technology we now take for granted. Radio 4 Extra is delighted to host this game alongside the first two series. Hitchhiker's fans will be rewarded for their loyalty over the years and newer fans have a real, but fiendish, treat in store. March 8 is a special day for the galaxy, so help us celebrate it in the unique way that only BBC Radio 4 Extra can." This all sounds very promising; all I can wonder about is obtaining the Babel Fish at the start of the game as mind numbingly convoluted as it used to be? Answers on a postcard please.

I have come across a new word – triboluminescence. It describes the tiny flashes of blue / white light that are given off when certain substances are snapped or crushed. I first came across this strange phenomenon many years ago whilst at school on a sixth form Geography field trip. A small group of my fellow pupils had heard of triboluminescence and we determined to put it to the test one evening. We switched off all the lights in the dormitory of the study centre where we were staying (think along the lines of the huts in “The Great Escape” and you won’t be too far wide of the mark). After a few minutes of allowing our eyes to adjust to the pitch black, a packet of Polo mints was handed round, and we each took one. If you held the mint in front of your eyes and snapped it into pieces, it did indeed give out little flashes of blue white light! What we discovered in our experiments was that the effect only worked on standard Polo mints – sugar free ones did not show the flash of light. It turns out that it is a little observed physical phenomenon that occurs when certain crystal structures such as sugar are put under stress, quite similar to the piezo electric effect. I must admit that I was a little disappointed by this news, as I was certain that I had just split the Polo atom...

A new scam has been detected by the Metropolitan Police; Bexley Neighbourhood Watch Association have made the following public announcement:- Without your knowledge, an account is opened in your name at the Jacamo website and an order placed for goods. The next day, a parcel is delivered to your home.  Your reaction is to call the company, deny all knowledge of the order and arrange for it to be returned. There are various ways of doing this but, later the same day, someone arrives at your home to collect the parcel but the caller is an imposter and will suggest he or she takes the erroneous delivery from you. This is the last you see of the package but you will still be billed for the purchase. All it takes to open an account at Jacamo is a date of birth, name and address. Goods are invoiced after dispatch. Please ensure that, if a courier calls to collect an unwanted parcel, he or she is a legitimate representative of the company. Sounds to me like Jacamo have a very lax credit control system that has been exploited by the crooks. Hopefully awareness of the scam, allied to tighter ID controls at Jacamo should see an end to this scam.

Here is a video that I stumbled across whilst searching through YouTube. You may recall that I wrote in some depth about the construction of the Erith wind turbine, back in September 2012. My views on the structure have not changed; I think it is entirely appropriate - it is located in Anchor Bay Wharf, at the Eastern End of Manor Road, well away from most residential property, and in the middle of an industrial estate. It captures free energy in the form of the relatively steady wind that blows along the Thames corridor, and basically makes use of a resource - wind - that Erith has a steady surfeit of. I also think it looks a hell of a lot better than the hideous fish sculpture on the roundabout by the town centre, and at least it performs a useful purpose. The video below shows a time lapse film of construction of the wind turbine. Even though the structure is 288 feet tall, the erection of the whole wind turbine only took two days, though it was a couple of weeks before all of the electrical connections were completed, and the structure was signed off, enabling it to go into use. See what you think, and please leave a comment below.

Poppies in the Riverside Gardens.

The photo above shows Erith Riverside Gardens at about quarter to five last Friday afternoon. The gardens are looking a little bleak and unloved at the moment, due to the wintery weather and huge amounts of rain that has fallen in the last couple of months. Garry "Tadge" Taylor, the chap behind the annual Erith Riverside Festival has come up with an original and very creative idea to commemorate the forthcoming centenary of the start of World War One. Tadge is recruiting a small band of volunteers (myself included) to help plant poppy seeds in the Riverside Gardens flower beds, so that later in the year the whole garden will be a sea of red poppies. Bexley Council had not planned to carry out anything to commemorate the centenary; it takes local residents to come up with ideas for such undertakings. The council once again show a shocking lack of both imagination and innovation.

James Watt Way, the road that runs around the outside of Morrison’s car park is never quiet for long. Recently a group of scrotes has taken to riding illegal, unlicenced and uninsured quad bikes in the road, pulling wheelies, setting up jumps made from old pallets in the middle of the road, and generally being antisocial. The Police are aware of the matter, but actually catching the criminals in the act will prove challenging. It will not take long for one of the bikers to collide with one of the scrap vans that patrol the road like vultures, waiting for people to illegally fly tip old fridges and the like round at the recycling centre at the end of the road, round by the back of Morrison’s.  On top of this, adjacent to the recycling facility, the patch of waste land that used to house a couple of traveller ponies, but has been empty for the last few months is now back in use. I am quite surprised that a new pony is now in residence on the little patch of land; I thought that once the last couple went, that would be the end of the matter. Ponies are now commercially worthless – an adult will now only fetch around £5 in a sale, as they are now regarded as nothing other than walking pet food. This is one of the reasons why so many ponies are being found abandoned on common land and in parks, not to mention the appalling way some have been dumped locally, where they were found dying or dead, as was recently reported by the News Shopper.

You may recall that last week I asked if any Maggot Sandwich readers had memories of Hedley Mitchells. I go the following very evocative reply from a lady called Pam:- “I lived in Avenue Road Erith from the age of 1 until 22 when I got married and now live on Bexleyheath / Crayford border. I am now 66.  I loved the town with all the little shops and as a school girl worked in a hairdressers up by the Post Office called Veronique as a Saturday girl for 3 years. I used to go into Mitchells with my mum, and yes, it was on a par with John Lewis. Must say the Ladies Toilets were very posh, had liquid soap which I had never seen before.  I also went to the Dancing School over Burtons and learnt Ballroom and the Jive .  Bill Hayley's Rock around the Clock was the record for that Jive.  I think I was about 8/9.  I think the lady teacher was called Lesley but I could be wrong, she was tall, slim and her hair was in a French Pleat, very elegant. My silver dancing shoes were bought in Mitchells and a while later as I was going to a Dance I was bought a rather pretty but expensive dress to wear from Mitchells. As everyone says, Erith was ruined when they built the concrete jungle, it was a lovely place to shop, catered for everyone and everything.  Erith was such a big part of my life when I was growing up. Pre school years I went every day except Sunday because our mum shopped on a daily basis for fresh meat and veg for our dinners. There was a lovely large man called George who had a fish stall on a Friday at the side of Burtons and the large blocks of ice fascinated me on his display, so he used to cut me off a chunk, wrap it in newspaper for me to take home. So many lovely memories from my childhood. School friends and I often go down memory lane about the Erith we loved”. Thanks very much Pam – a fascinating recollection of a much missed time.

The protests against the KFC Erith drive through application to effectively open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week continue. It would appear that the complaint web page that I directed people to in good faith is incorrect; the messages that were left on the Bexley Council Licensing Complaints Website have not been recorded.  Councillor Chris Ball has kindly been investigating. Instead complaints about the fast food drive through extending the hours it opens can be addressed to licensing.office@bexley.gov.uk Best to act quickly if you wish your views to be known. Objections to KFC’s request for vastly longer opening hours must be made before the end of the month. I logged an Email of protest, and got a very full and detailed response from the Council. Part of their Email reads as follows:- “You should be aware that the licensing process requires the Council to provide the applicant with the details of any representations received. This means that a copy of your correspondence will be sent to the applicant.  Furthermore, a copy of your correspondence will be included in the report prepared for the licensing hearing.  This report is a public document. You will be invited to attend the licensing hearing to support your representations, at which time a copy of the Council’s procedure and hearing regulations will be sent to you. If, however, you require these documents sooner please contact me and I will be happy to provide you with copies straight away. You may represent yourself at the licensing hearing alternatively, you may wish to be represented by a Solicitor or Barrister or any other person. Your local Ward Councillor may be prepared to represent you, but you will have to contact them direct to enquire. If you do not know who your Ward Councillors are, you can contact this office and we will supply you with the names and contact details. Alternatively, you can find out who your local Ward Councillors are by visiting www.bexley.gov.uk If you are making representations on behalf of a "body". i.e. representing persons who live or are involved in businesses within the vicinity of the premises, you may be asked by the applicant or Sub-Committee for the following information: The area covered by the body and the detail of the members who live or have a business in the vicinity of the applicant premises; and Evidence that the representations reflect the view of the members of the body. This may be achieved by having available a copy of the minutes of the meeting of the body where it's members decided to make representations to the application. However, it is a matter for the body to decide how it would best respond to any request for this information. Please be aware that should your representations be challenged, and you do not have the information available, there is a risk that your representations will not carry the maximum weight, or in certain circumstances not taken into account. In preparing for the licensing hearing you should bear in mind that all decisions made by the Sub Committee have, as a matter of law, to be based upon one or more of the licensing objectives, which are the prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, the prevention of public nuisance and the protection of children from harm. Therefore for the evidence you give at the meeting to have an influence upon the Sub -Committee it must relate to one of these objectives, and can only relate to matters you have raised in your letter making representations.  In other words if your letter is about noise from the premises you cannot at the hearing give evidence about the danger to which children may be exposed to at the premises”. This is all very informative stuff, but even reading it back now, it is worded in a way that could be construed as somewhat hostile to the complainant. I fully appreciate that the council need to operate in a way that is seen as being fair and even handed to all parties involved in the dispute, but for a private individual making a one – off objection, it does seem quite an intimidating and onerous process. Time will tell how this will all pan out, but I suspect that KFC will have an uphill battle to obtain round the clock opening rights, located as it is, opposite Sherwood House, a residential care home and sheltered housing scheme for elderly and disabled people, and surrounded on three sides by residential property, plus the vociferous protests of long time Erith residents.

Last Tuesday Mayor Boris announced that a project to link the CCTV cameras that form part of the London congestion charge and low emission zone monitoring system to the Police Automatic Number Plate Recognition system (ANPR). The ANPR system does what it says on the tin – car number plates are automatically identified, recorded and checked against a database of known criminals and stolen cars. The system is going under a period of public consultation as to how appropriate a “joined up” system of ANPR enabled cameras over the whole of Greater London would be. The Police already have access to a number of ANPR cameras, principally those which form a cordon around central London, and those on the M25 and A2 which already monitor all vehicles travelling on those roads. Adding the transport for London Cameras to the ANPR system will bring the total number of “intelligent” cameras to 1,300 – effectively tripling the number in service. Boris and the Police both give a great amount of exposure to a number of crimes that were solved by the use of ANPR evidence. Some examples they quoted were:- “The rape of a 14 year old girl, in June 2013. She alleged that she was raped by two males in their twenties. The vehicle registration number was placed on the ANPR system and four hours later, the vehicle was stopped by uniform officers and both suspects arrested. In June 2013, the ANPR system was instrumental in locating a vehicle belonging to a suspect who had allegedly assaulted his partner. After making enquiries to locate the suspect, his vehicle details were placed onto the Police National Computer in order that he could be arrested. Within 5 hours, the suspect was stopped in another police area and arrested for the offence. A male was slashed across the chest with a Stanley knife in Ilford during an argument about money. The suspect was believed to live in Manchester but his address was not known. His vehicle registration number was placed onto the Police National Computer system and just over a day later, the suspect was stopped and arrested for the offence by officers from Greater Manchester Police after his vehicle triggered an ANPR camera. At court he was convicted and received a 40 month sentence. A known burglar whose vehicle details were put into the ANPR system was stopped with two other males in Romford. One of three occupants was found to be wanted for a drugs offence, he was arrested remanded in custody and subsequently found guilty at court.” This is excellent stuff, but unfortunately it does not address the flipside of the issue. ANPR cameras don’t like rain, road spray, fog or dirt, as this impedes their ability to recognise number plates. There are already a slow but steady stream of “false positives” where innocent drivers are targeted by traffic police for offences they did not commit – and the default presumption is guilt; you have to prove yourself innocent, rather than the Police or courts prove you guilty. There was a case featured in the Telegraph last Saturday where a man was accused of some traffic offences after being caught by an ANPR camera on the M25 in Kent. The chap had proof that he was actually visiting his wife in hospital in Surrey at the time. It transpired that his car number plate had been cloned by crooks – something that is increasingly common nowadays. The more ANPR cameras are deployed, the more the real crooks are going to find ways to circumvent them, and in the meantime innocent members of the public may be presumed guilty of crimes they did not commit. It is a difficult balance – keeping the public safe versus accusations of bringing about a Police state. ANPR cameras are also – with suitable software, capable of facial recognition, though again, it is relatively easy to fool the system – some facial recognition applications can be fooled by the simple expedient of tilting the head at an angle of fifteen degrees or greater from the vertical. Both ANPR and facial recognition technologies are not as mature and error resistant as the Mayor and the Met would have the public believe. I am not going to bang on about the implications to civil liberties that such technologies may bring; time and again it has been shown that if a new technology enables something to happen, it will, whatever the philosophical or moral reservations the public may have. The whole NSA / GCHQ monitoring saga is a good recent example – if something can technically be done, it will be done, irrespective of legality / morality.

The photo above shows the old Cannon and Gaze flour mill on Erith High Street; it was taken in (I think) around 1934, as the mill was demolished shortly thereafter in 1936, and in time the Erith Riverside Gardens were constructed on the site. The mill ground flour mainly from imported American wheat, which arrived by freighter - having a river side mill made a lot of sense at the time. I don't think any part of Erith has changed more over the years. Whilst the general feeling is that the 1960's concrete town centre redevelopment was a step backwards from the Victorian old town, I think that nobody would argue that the modern Erith Riverside Gardens is a vast improvement to the heavy industrial scene in the photo above. In fact, if you scroll back up to the contemporary photo of the Riverside Gardens which I took on Friday afternoon, you will see that it was taken from as close as I could get to the same position as the 1934 black and white photo above. The old flour mill was located where the open grass area in the Gardens is now. The road layout has changed slightly, and of course the row of shops to the right of the photo are no longer there, but nevertheless it gives you a pretty good impression of the changes that have taken place over the years. Who says I don't plan the Maggot Sandwich?

Back in October 2012 I originally wrote 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. This 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. Since the announcement of the theme park project, much has happened, though until this week it has all been kept very quiet by those involved. Independent economic think tank The Centre for London has published a paper which proposes the construction of a new town near Ebbsfleet which would be of a similar size to Milton Keynes, and as such, the first new town in Britain since the late 1960’s. The proposed new town would have around 35,000 houses and flats, and would be linked to the high speed rail link to enable commuting into central London in around twenty minutes or so. The whole new town would be close to the Paramount theme park, and I would surmise that a fair percentage of the staff would live locally. The proposal document also strongly recommends the formation of a development corporation that would resolve any conflicting planning issues, fund the required upgrades to local infrastructure, and possibly most importantly having the power to build new bridges or tunnels across the lower stretches of the River Thames; at present many economists say that the whole North Kent area is being held back financially by the fact that there is only the Dartford River Crossing East of Tower Bridge, and nothing whatsoever further down river. A new town to accompany the giant theme park would have other benefits; the hard pressed housing market in South East London and North Kent would get a boost, and finally the Thames Estuary would get the development that has been promised for at least the last twenty years. The area also has the benefit that it is mostly brown field, rather than green belt land, and the report also identifies that a new town in North Kent would be far more attractive to prospective new residents than a garden city or development on green belt land in another part of the country. For better or worse, London and the South East of England are the most attractive parts of the United Kingdom, and it is where people want to live.

Enough already; some time ago I wrote a piece about LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reaction) and how it possibly might be a revolution in the way were generate power. LENR used to be called “Cold Fusion” in the late 1980’s / early 1990’s, and the public perception is now that it was a discredited field, and basically all of the claims made by researchers about LENR and the ability to generate boundless amounts of clean, cheap energy were little more than outright fraud. The court of public opinion – fuelled mainly by the tabloid press – was keen to expose the researchers as confidence tricksters. More sober minds have revisited the experiments carried out all of those years ago, and the results astonished them. Over the last five or so years, LENR technology has gone from being regarded as at best a fringe area of esoteric science to now developing slowly in the mainstream. An Italian inventor called Andrea Rossi has developed a generator which he calls the E-Cat (short for Energy Catalyser) which it has been claimed generates hundreds of kilowatts of power from a generator roughly the size of a shipping container. Rossi has gone into partnership with an undisclosed U.S industrial partner, who has insisted on a comprehensive confidentiality agreement, effectively muzzling Rossi from talking to the press. Others have been less secretive about their research – an American company called Brillouin Energy Corporation have signed a multimillion dollar licensing deal with a South Korean manufacturing company; they intend to manufacture LENR reactors to replace existing gas or coal powered boilers in conventional power stations. Bob George, the CEO of Brillouin, says that the new LENR reactors will produce electricity at a cost of two U.S cents per kilowatt hour – about a third of the cost of generating power using advanced, high efficiency gas boilers, and more importantly with no greenhouse gas emissions. The big breakthrough that Brillouin claim is that they have found a way to control the reaction process - effectively giving them the ability to "throttle up and down" the reaction on command - something that at present no other experimenter has been able to do - you can see a video of a lab experiment that shows this here. On top of this, the U.S Government is now funding LENR research in a big way.  The U.S Department of Energy is now accepting funding requests from organisations undertaking LENR research, in the hope that they can then commercialise the results. I still have some doubts; anything that sounds too good to be true generally is. If LENR technology is as good as the proponents say, it will still take a lot of testing and engineering development to make it commercially viable, and more importantly safe. The public detest any mention of “radiation” and would be understandably suspicious of a technology that was dismissed as fraudulent within many lifetimes. Having said that, the early aeronautic research work carried out by Hiram Maxim, and later the Wright brothers was poo – pooed by many at the time as being as an impossible dream, yet today our skies are filled by aeroplanes. We may be on the verge of a clean, cheap and safe energy revolution – I sincerely hope so.

I have not featured a music video for many weeks; I thought I would remedy that now. Below is the video for the latest track from a group called “Sound of Contact”. If the singer in the video looks vaguely familiar, and his voice sounds very familiar, that is with good reason. His name is Simon Collins, and he’s the son of Phil Collins. I bought Sound of Contact’s debut album “Dimensionaut” last year, and I am very fond of it. The band sound like Genesis circa 1976, if they had been produced by Steve Hillage or Dave Brock using today's state of the art recording techniques. Not everybody’s cup of tea, I guess, but if you like melodic, slightly spacey prog rock, you are in for a bit of a treat. The track below is called “Pale Blue Dot”. Give it a watch; you might even like it. Feel free to leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.