The end of Brighthouse.

I am a regular user of local buses. Overall the service, especially on the 99 route is pretty good, with a double decker bus arriving every ten minutes or so. The current Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 buses that run on the route are more modern, spacious and comfortable that their predecessors. One thing that has definitely changed for the worse has nothing to do with the bus technology; it has for more to do with the behaviour of the passengers. In years gone by, waiting people would form an orderly queue, with the person who had been waiting the longest at the front. Nowadays this seems to largely have been forgotten. People cluster around the bus stop in no particular order and then there is usually a bustle when people try to get on. It all seems very uncivilised. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Following on from my recent article on the project to help and support Bexley's homeless people, I have been supplied with an update. Both the News Shopper and the Bexley Times have covered the story to some extent or another, and the Bexley Times is leading with an article that say the number of rough sleepers in the borough has doubled in the last year, albeit from a very low number. I have been sent the following announcement from Transform Bexley Borough, the ecumenical networking organisation for churches in the Borough:- "We are thrilled that the Bexley WINTER NIGHT SHELTER has now been up and running for its first two weeks. Attendance began at zero, then increased to 4, 5 and by the end of the first week 9 men had accessed the shelter with up to 7 men on any one night. 14 had been assessed and 1 housed. Approximately 35 churches have been involved and 130+ volunteers. We are amazed and thrilled at how this project has been taken up by churches right across the Borough, and very thankful to our Great God. Any further donations of clothing etc. must be advised beforehand as the shelter has run out of storage space (please don't leave any donations at a venue). Essentially the project has been blessed with all the materials required – thank you so much. All enquiries should be directed to Melvyn French, the Winter Night Shelter co-ordinator, at m.french7@btinternet.com / 020 8304 9669." On top of this information, another social welfare project known as XL Mentoring has been announced:- "XL-Mentoring Bexley Project is targeted specifically at young people living in difficult circumstances between the ages of 11 and 18, and may be on the verge of exclusion or excluded, and/or at risk of involvement or already involved in crime or anti-social behaviour. It is important to note that this is not a generic mentoring project and may only offered to those young people who fulfil certain criteria. The overall aim of this project is to see disadvantaged young people making wise life-style choices and positively contributing to their families, communities and society. XLM-Bexley will identify and evaluate candidate young people to take part in the project in consultation with other agencies. Home visits with each of the candidate's families will then be undertaken to further explain the project, and look for approval for the candidate to participate. It will identify and evaluate mentors drawn from the local community, who will receive training and be matched with a young person. These mentors will commit for a minimum of 12 months to build and sustain a relationship with a young person and their family and provide a consistent and inspirational role model. Mentors will meet their young person for 2 hours per week for a minimum of thirty 1-2-1 sessions over a 12-month period and have further limited contact, often via text, in between. In addition, they will also attend outdoor activity and day excursions with their young person arranged by XLM on an ongoing basis. There are now many XLM projects around the country, in many South London Boroughs and in towns and cities elsewhere. Training and support is provided by XLM-National, and each project is autonomous with a co-ordinator. XLM-Bexley is now up and running with a coordinator (Billy-Jo O’Leary) and is at the stage of recruiting the first mentors to train for a pilot year. The pilot project is coming under TBB (Transform Bexley Borough) and is being incubated at BCLC (Bexley Christian Life Centre) in Bexleyheath, which is providing the oversight, insurance and safeguarding policies and procedures."

Another "Before and after" photo supplied courtesy of local historian Martin Barnes, who is currently working on developing a new and exciting web project, which I will be covering in detail in the future. It is quite interesting that I have almost given no coverage to the McDonald's drive through fast food outlet as seen in the "now" photo above, when the restaurant is incredibly popular and gets visited by hundreds of hungry diners every day. In truth, I am not a fan of American style fast food, and I have only visited the burger outlet three times in all of the time I have been living in Erith - which is now just over twenty years. I find their sugary, fatty food tends to give me rampant indigestion. Having said that, whilst researching McDonald's for this weeks blog, I did discover that two new burgers are being launched for a limited time, and the Erith restaurant will be one of the locations chosen to promote the customised sandwiches.  McDonald's has begun rolling out mini and mega versions of the Big Mac. The classic Big Mac is constructed with two 1/10lb all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun. By contrast, the Mac Jr is made with a single 1/6lb patty and the Grand Mac is made with two 1/6lb patties. The two new sizes of the Big Mac will be available for a few weeks in early 2017. Whether they stay on the menu permanently will depend on sales. The Mac Jr has 460 calories and the Grand Mac has 860. You can see details of the original Big Mac, and both the Junior and the Grand Mac below. Click on the image for a larger version.

You can see a short video review of the three versions of the Big Mac below. Personally they look pretty unappetising to me, but I know that a lot of people really enjoy them on occasion.  The only McDonald's sandwich that I really like is the Filet O' Fish, but even that has changed over the years; I now find that the bread they use in the buns is far too sweet, and the size of the fish filet has gradually been reduced to the point where it is no more than three or four mouthfuls. A pity as it used to be a relatively healthy and tasty choice. I think I would be better off making one of my favourite light lunches at home - the classic fish finger sandwich, but I digress. What do you think about McDonald's in general, and the Erith store in particular? Leave a comment below, or alternatively Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

Last week the Metropolitan Police instigated a firearms amnesty in an attempt to get more illegal weapons off the streets of Greater London. As well as this, more than 800 illegal firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition have been seized by counter-terrorism police and the National Crime Agency in just four weeks in a major crackdown to prevent extremists obtaining guns.  The weapons seized include a fully-loaded AK47 assault rifle, a Skorpion sub-machine gun and 200 handguns. Other assault rifles and machineguns were also recovered. A total of 282 people, included registered arms dealers suspected of selling illegal weapons, have been arrested. The large number of firearms seized was hailed by law enforcers as a “significant” success in the battle to prevent terrorists — as well as other criminals — from obtaining weapons and carrying out a marauding Paris-style attack in London or another British city. The total number of guns seized was 833 with the weapons including 11 assault rifles, two machine guns, a sub-machine gun, 99 rifles, 153 shotguns and 200 handguns. The types included Tanfoglio GT32 and Makarov pistols. The operation also led to the seizure of 4,385 rounds of ammunition, as well as 100 other potential weapons, including knives, plus 80kgs of illegal drugs and more than £500,000 in cash. Announcing the huge haul of weapons, Detective Superintendent Nick Wilcox of National Counter Terrorism Policing said in an interview with the London Evening Standard earlier this week that:- “Counter terrorism officers continue to plan and prepare in light of world events such as the attacks in Paris - but we want to remain on the front-foot and stop terrorists obtaining guns in the first place. The discovery of so many illegal weapons will also raise fears about the volume of guns entering the country and the checks applied to those licensed to sell or possess weapons".The UK has some of the strictest gun laws in the world – rifles and shotguns only permitted where the owner has a clear and demonstrable need for them (farmers and gamekeepers are the main demographic) and the weapons have to be stored in a steel cabinet, with separate locked storage for ammunition. This is subject to regular checks by the local Police firearms officer, and a licence can be rescinded at any point. All handguns, with the exception of muzzle loading black powder weapons were banned in 1997, when all legitimate owners had their weapons confiscated, albeit with pretty generous financial compensation. Time for disclosure - I held a Class 1 Firearms certificate and was a licenced pistol shooter until the handgun ban. Even before the handgun ban, the legal and social position of UK shooters was very different from not just the USA, but much of Europe too. Guns and gun ownership was never part of mainstream British culture – unlike France and Germany, for example, where owning a gun for hunting was, and is still pretty common. The USA is a poor comparison as it really stands on its own in the world in being a unique environment where firearm ownership has very light regulation, depending on state. In the past I have had a number of in depth conversations with police firearms officers about the 1997 handgun ban, and its real – life impact on criminal ownership of guns. The consensus was that banning handguns for law abiding hobby shooters did almost nothing to stop criminal use of firearms – in fact, if one uses the Home Office's own figures, the use of handguns in crime has markedly increased since 1997. Illegal weapons are smuggled in from abroad, often from former Soviet Bloc countries, and old, deactivated weapons are re – activated, which quite often means that the gun is as dangerous to the user as the victim – they can, and do explode. Anyway, having established that the situation in the UK regarding legal gun ownership has little parallel with anywhere else. The largest hand gun range in the UK used to be at Stone Lodge in Dartford, very close to Junction One of the M25. Local residents were largely unaware of the place, as it was set in a large dip in the land, and was not visible from the road. It was open seven days a week and had around four thousand active members, myself included. The Police and Royal Protection Squad used to train there as well. After the handgun ban, Dartford Council pulled the lease on the place from the operator, and it was closed down.

Work has now begun on the former White Hart pub / Potion Bar site in Erith High Street, directly opposite the Post Office. The much hated and illegal plate glass frontage has now been removed and work has been started on constructing a very accurate replica of the original Victorian acid etched glass, marble and green glazed tile frontage which has been part of the building until the owners of Potion Bar criminally ripped it out in an act of architectural vandalism during the Summer of 2009. The new owners of the building are doing the responsible thing and restoring the historic building to how it looked in the early 20th Century. The terrible weather in the past week has not really helped the construction workers, and progress on the replica frontage has been understandably slow. I hope to have further coverage regarding this in the weeks to come. The image above shows the new floor layout of the inside of The White Hart, thanks to Martin Barnes for supplying it - much appreciated. It would seem that in addition to a couple of flats on the upper levels of the building, the ground floor will be a bar, contrary to s number of local rumours. Hopefully more details in the near future.

On Friday afternoon I was strolling along Bexleyheath Broadway on my way to Welling to visit the excellent specialist shoe shop - The Wide Shoe Shop. In future I will be featuring an article on this outstanding family run business which has been based in Welling for decades, but I digress. As I walked down the Broadway, a sign in the window of the Brighthouse store grabbed my attention. It said that the Bexleyheath Brighthouse store will be permanently closing on the 25th of March, and that customers will have to take their business to other Brighthouse stores in future. I was elated to discover that this pariah of the low waged has been forced out of Bexleyheath. After carrying out some research, it would appear that the whole Brighthouse company is in danger of going bust. The struggling rent-to-own electricals chain has made a bid for survival by offering permanent reform of its controversial practices in talks with lending watchdogs. The company, owned by private equity firm Vision Capital, has submitted a detailed business plan to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in an attempt to ward off circling bondholders who are preparing for the worst. The FCA is due to scrutinise the plan and assess whether Brighthouse should be allowed to continue to lend on the basis of it. The situation is increasingly urgent for the chain, with quarterly rent payments on its 311 stores looming at the end of March, and its heavy debts due to be called in. Brighthouse’s finances are under strain from temporary lending rules agreed with the FCA that force it to carry out more stringent checks on customers’ credit history before lending to them. The guidelines also bar it from issuing punitive late payment charges. As I have previously written,  the definitive indicator that a town has gone to the dogs is when Brighthouse move in.  I was reading an article recently, in which Karl Dayson, an academic who specialises in the study of affordable finance said that “I can think of no better marker of social deprivation than having a Brighthouse store open in your area”.  If you have not heard of the Brighthouse stores before, let me explain. Brighthouse are a chain of retailers specialising in household goods such as furniture, washing machines, televisions and cookers. Their unique selling point is that you can purchase goods on credit with no deposit, and with very low weekly repayments. The store is designed to appeal to young families – the aisles between goods on display are wide enough for a child’s buggy to be wheeled easily along them. Brighthouse offer credit to those who would otherwise be unable to qualify for it – mainly people on benefits. This all sounds great – helping those otherwise unable to afford the basics of a home to get what they need. The downside of it is the eye wateringly high interest rates that Brighthouse charges. Several debt charities have expressed dismay at the high charges. A basic washing machine that costs £399 in Curry's will cost £1,560 from Brighthouse, albeit broken down into “affordable” £10 weekly payments at an interest rate of 69.9 per cent APR. Just like the notorious payday lenders, the poorer you are, the more you pay for goods and services. Debt advisor Anne Young, who has advised many former Brighthouse customers said “These companies are preying on people who cannot afford to go anywhere else. I do think that they are robbing the poor, when you look at their prices. They are charging a ridiculous amount for goods you can buy on the high street for a third of the price”.  To give an example, a small television which costs £99.99 in Argos would cost a total of £606.84 paid over a total of 156 weeks. Brighthouse argue that their TV is covered against malfunction and accidental damage over the course of the repayment period, but this needs to be set against the fact that you could buy six similar televisions for that amount of money elsewhere.  Brighthouse claim that if you can find an identical product anywhere on the high street, that they will match the price. This is actually quite difficult, as Brighthouse have a lot of “own name” brands, such as Baird; these are simply not available anywhere else; they also include a number of options that other retailers on the high street don’t, and the pricing structure is so bewilderingly complex that direct comparison is rather difficult. Brighthouse were looking to aggressively expand their stores – although they have definitely taken a battering in Bexleyheath, and with the current news of their dire finances, I feel it will be unlikely they will survive in their current form. The demographic for Brighthouse customers is fairly straightforward; a majority are women between 26 and 45 years of age; they earn less than £13,000 a year, and around fifty percent are receiving at least part of their income in the form of benefits. You can really view Brighthouse as a cross between somewhere like Argos and loan company – and its’ customers are overwhelmingly people who do not qualify for a credit card or score too lowly for a conventional, lower interest loan. The kind of goods that the company sells (furniture / consumer electronics) do tend to depreciate over the course of the loan period, to the point that by the time the loan is fully paid off, the goods are essentially worthless. On top of this, Brighthouse have a policy of repossessing goods if payments are not met, even if the customer is only one or two payments away from completing the purchase. Normally a court order is required to repossess goods when more than a third of the credit payments have already been met. Brighthouse have a nasty habit of sending round bailiffs without such legal niceties – exploiting the fact that many of their customers are ignorant of the law. All in all, Brighthouse succeed because they can – their target customer does not qualify for a loan from a conventional source, and is not aware of low cost resources such as credit unions. They rely on the customer being sucked into the colourful, brightly lit and shiny shop with the promise of low repayments, even if they do end up paying for what seems like half a lifetime. The appeal of the “here and now” rather than waiting and saving to buy from a store that offers no credit, but a consequently far lower purchase price is something that Brighthouse encourage – many of their customers have little academic education, and don’t necessarily realise that they may only be paying back a tenner or so a week for their 3D television, but doing so for several years means it is costing them a pile more money than it should. In my opinion, Brighthouse operate a legal business; whether they operate a moral one is open to debate. At least the residents of Bexleyheath will no longer have to suffer potentially being ripped off by making a purchase from the hated Brighthouse. Roll on the 25th of March and the final closure of the store. I feel sorry for the store workers who will lose their jobs, but I think that any redundant workers would be able to sleep better at night when working for a more ethical employer in the future. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph at the end of last week, a spokesperson for Brighthouse said that it would shut 28 stores before the next rent demands are due, saying “part of our plan requires us to be leaner and more cost effective”. I predict that Brighthouse will cease to exist in its' current form within the next quarter, and I for one will not be sorry to see it go.

Regular readers may recall that i wrote some time ago that your TV or other smart devices that you may have in your home can spy on you; voice recognition systems used to control smart TV's have to "listen out" for potential voice commands, and thus have to monitor all sounds in their vicinity - which can be a potential security risk.  Until recently this has all been rather theoretical, until news broke earlier this week that Chinese owned and American operated discount TV manufacturer Vizio had been prosecuted for spying on its customers. America's trade watchdog, the FTC, said today the payment will settle a complaint filed by the state of New Jersey accusing Vizio of violating privacy regulations: the business had collected the viewing habits of 11 million television sets throughout the country without warning or permission. According to the state attorney general's federal complaint, from February 2014 to March 2016, Vizio noted down exactly what its customers were watching and then resold all those records as summaries to third parties – which were mostly advertising companies. The usage data was not only collected while customers were watching over-the-air or cable TV broadcasts, but also when they were watching DVDs or streaming video from websites and web video services like Netflix. Vizio harvested surveillance on people and their families so precise, it knew exactly what viewers were watching, second by second, and even took copies of the watched video, according to prosecutors. Additionally, Vizio resold summaries of personal information about its customers it had gathered, including age, marital status, and household income, to advertisers without consent. Vizio were fined $2.2 million and ordered to delete any customer information it collected before March 1, when it began to notify people of the data theft. The settlement deal also allows the FTC to extract heavier penalties from Vizio in the future if it is found to be collecting and reselling personal data without first getting clear permission from customers. It is my opinion that this kind of behaviour is going to become increasingly common worldwide.

A number of stories have come to light relating to the possible future of Erith landmark building, and nowadays a bit of an eyesore, Electricity House; I had hoped to feature a guest written piece on the building, and what has been going on behind the scenes, but for a number of reasons it will have to wait until another edition. A previously unpublicised factor that may influence the potential sale and redevelopment of Electricity House is the news that the company that has a virtual monopoly of mobile phone transceiver mast sites in the UK (including the extensive antenna farm located on the roof of Electricity House) is itself up for sale. UK cellular tower and TV mast radio specialist Arqiva has been put up for sale with an optimistic price of between £5bn and £6bn, but its two core areas of business both have question marks hovering over them. Any mobile tower company taking a long hard look at 5G has to decide if it can get heavily into a new class of platform for small cells – notably cutting deals with smaller street furniture such as street lighting, rather than building brand new towers, or upgrading existing ones often sitting on top of buildings such as electricity House. It’s not so much that the existing macro cell towers are going away, just that the will not grow as before. Arqiva, so much a dominant force in the UK, that it might be considered a monopoly, has the additional problem of owning all the digital terrestrial TV masts in the UK, just as long term doubts have emerged over linear TV. Arqiva are currently up for sale for a reported £5 - £6 billion, with undisclosed, but large capital debts on top. Arqiva's current owners are two conservative investors, who opt for businesses with guaranteed high returns at low risks - the Australian investment bank Macquarie and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board – and they have decided to throw in the towel now, and have put the business on the market. The truth is that the weakened British Pound gives those who show their investments in Australian or Canadian dollars an asset on their books which appears to be declining rapidly now rather than over the coming years, due to currency fluctuation – so there is a feeling that they wish to get out with the value intact before the British Pound goes down even further. I would estimate that the Electricity House mast site generates roughly £100,000 a year for the building freeholder, undoubtedly the largest source of rental income from the building - which in any case is now worth far less than the land that it stand on. The building is definitely on borrowed time, and it will be instructive to see what happens over the next couple of years.

The end video this week features local, Kent based sea shanty group "Swinging the Lead" who perform all around Europe at folk and cultural festivals. In the video below you can see them performing at the Rotterdam Shanty Festival, singing a shanty about the Woolwich Ferry! Great stuff and very funny. I have to declare an interest here. band member Colin G3VTT (the chap wearing the cap with the impressive moustache) and I have known each other for very many years - I first met him when he was a transmitter engineer on Radio Caroline. We lost touch thereafter, only to bump into each other back in 1996, when I started evening classes to work towards passing the Radio Amateurs Examination (RAE) and Colin was the tutor! A small world. I never realised what a fine singing voice he has. Listen for yourself, and leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

A bed for the night.

The photo above shows Leader of Bexley Council, Teresa O'Neill (I will leave comments regarding her to my fellow local Blogger Malcolm Knight of Bexley is Bonkers), Mayor of Bexley, Eileen Pallen and a number of representatives from London and Quadrant Housing Association, the property developers of Erith Quarry, along with quite a few local school children.  You can read all about what they were doing on the building site in the press release here:-  "The first new trees have been planted at The Quarry, Erith by pupils from the Woodland Academy Trust and local dignitaries including Leader of Bexley Council Councillor Teresa O’Neill. 28 pupils from Northumberland Heath Primary School braved the January cold to help plant a variety of trees and shrubs at The Quarry, breaking ground on the space which will become the development’s ecology area. The planting followed an assembly presentation by Sharon Hosegood, the arboriculturalist working with developers L and Q and Andersons, which taught the pupils the importance of looking after the natural world. The pupils were also joined by the Leader of Bexley Council Councillor Teresa O’Neill, Mayor of Bexley Councillor Eileen Pallen and local ward councillor Councillor Edward Boateng.  They were given a tour of The Quarry and its ecology areas, which will measure 3.25 hectares – the equivalent size of three football pitches. In addition to the ecology area, The Quarry will be home to a new state-of-the-art primary school, Lime Wood Free School. The School will be run by Woodland Academy Trust, who also run Northumberland Heath Primary School. Councillor Teresa O’Neill OBE, Leader of the London Borough of Bexley, said: “The Quarry is an exciting development for the future of Erith and our wider borough so it’s right that the next generation have been involved in planting the first trees of The Quarry’s ecology area. Bexley is a borough that has many spots of natural beauty and open spaces for families to enjoy and I’m confident the 3.25 hectare ecology area at The Quarry will be an excellent addition to that.” Claire Ingrams, Principal Designate, Lime Wood Free School (Woodland Academy Trust), said: “It was fantastic to have our children involved in the planting of these trees at The Quarry. Both the talk from Sharon and the tree planting really helped develop the children’s understanding of local nature – you could see on their faces how fascinated and excited they were to be planting the first trees at The Quarry.” Christine Shea, Regional Sales Director at L&Q, added: “We’re thrilled to have planted these trees at The Quarry with the Woodland Academy Trust. The Quarry has played an important role in the lives of local people for centuries so we’re delighted to breathe life back into this site. That includes the creation of both the ecology area and a new primary school, which will ensure the next generation have just as fond memories of The Quarry as the past and present generations.” Sean Emmett, Operations Director at The Anderson Group added: “We believe in leaving anything we touch in a slightly better place than we found it.  This applies to tangibles such as places, buildings, people, but also to relationships, cultural characteristics and placemaking. Giving the site more healthy trees will in turn encourage wildlife and improve the whole feel of the site, taking it into the next stage of its place in history” Set to launch in spring 2017, The Quarry will comprise of an exceptional collection of around 470 family houses for sale, 130 unique apartments for private rent and a state-of-the-art three form-entry primary school. Prospective homebuyers interested in finding out more about The Quarry can register their interest at thequarryerith.co.uk and follow developments on Facebook and Twitter". You can see an exclusive video on the children's visit to the Erith Quarry development site at the end of this update. Thanks to Millie and Becky of Grayling for their help in putting the piece together.

The two "then and now" photos above - click for a larger view, were sent to me earlier this week by local history expert Martin Barnes, who runs the very popular Facebook site "Bexley Borough - The Bygone Years".  He has prepared many similar "then and now" comparison images for all around the borough, and he has kindly allowed me to use them - you may well see a few more of Martin's images over the coming editions of the Maggot Sandwich. Watch this space. 

On Monday evening I was carrying out my daily chore of taking my rubbish round to the recycling facility in Morrison’s car park in James Watt Way, Erith. As I have previously mentioned, I don’t have recycling boxes outside of Pewty Acres, as I find them unsightly and smelly in the summer. Instead I take all of my recyclable materials round to the recycling centre – effectively cutting out the weekly bin collection. It only takes a few minutes each evening, and it means that the house never has rubbish in it for any length of time. When I made the short trip on Monday, at about 8.30pm, I saw a car parked by the recycling hoppers; there were two women and a man in front of it, using light from the headlights to illuminate what they were doing. The man had forced open the Salvation Army clothing donation hopper, and was taking all of the clothes out of it, then passing them to the two women, who were then packing the stolen items into black plastic rubbish sacks, then filling the back of the blue Ford Focus with their stolen goods. I pretended to ignore them, and proceeded to deposit my rubbish into the correct collection hoppers. I keep all of my plastic, glass, cardboard and tins separate for this purpose. Whilst doing this I managed to get a look at the three thieves and made a mental note of the car registration number, which I later wrote down. Needless to say the incident has been reported; I will let you know more when I do. I detest thieving scumbags.

In a joint survey published earlier this week by upmarket estate agents Savills and The London Evening Standard, it was announced that homes priced at less than £300,000 are now an “endangered species” in London as huge demand forces up values in the capital’s last affordable neighbourhoods. The number of wards where prices averaged below the £300,000 mark plummeted from 104 to 40 last year, most of them in the outer fringes of East and South London, according to research. The analysis by estate agency Savills also shows that for the first time, there were more wards with a price average of over £1 million than there were with under £300,000. The £300,000 barrier is seen as significant because it represents the outer limit of affordability for a typical London household who have a joint income of about £50,000 and a 25 per cent deposit. That would still leave them needing to raise a mortgage four and a half times their salary — a multiple that few lenders are prepared to exceed. Lucian Cook, director of residential research at Savills, said in an interview in the Standard that: “The scale and spread of house price growth over the past five years means the £300,000 neighbourhood, though not extinct, has certainly become an endangered species in London. It is symptomatic of the housing affordability issues in the capital.” Five years ago almost half of London’s 649 wards had an average price below £300,000. Of the 40 sub-£300,000 areas left, 15 are in Barking and Dagenham, five in Bexley, four in Croydon, three in Havering and the others in Ealing, Merton, Haringey, Enfield, Redbridge, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Greenwich and Newham. The cheapest ward is Thames in Barking and Dagenham, at an average £228,386 last year. The London Borough of Bexley came out as the second most affordable borough in Greater London, with a percentage of wards in 2016 with average price below £300,000 of 24 percent. In 2011 the percentage less than £300,000 was 95 percent. Paula Higgins, of The HomeOwners Alliance, said in another interview in the Standard that: “Without parental support, young Londoners on normal salaries are effectively priced out of over 90 per cent of the capital’s properties.” Personally I think that the £300,000 definition of being "affordable" is very much on the high side; I don't think many families in the local area could be described as having a joint income in the £50,000 price bracket. Savills are an up market estate agency normally selling houses well in excess of the £1 million mark; I get the feeling that £300,000 seems like piddling small change to them, unlike us who live in the real world.

Bexley’s Churches, in association with local charity Housing Justice, are setting up a Winter Night Shelter for the rough sleepers of Bexley Borough. Sunday 22nd January has been designated as “Homeless Sunday 2017” The shelter will open on Sun 22nd January 2017 and will run every night until March (the date is not specified yet) The location of the shelter is going to be:- Monday nights - New Community Church, 24 Station Road, Sidcup DA15 7DU. Wednesday nights:- The Boys Brigade Hall, Bexleyheath DA6 7EE. Other 5 nights:- Salvation Army, 124 High Street, Welling DA16 1TJ. Guests may not turn up at the shelter without pre-registration, which will be done by Cornerstone Recovery at the Bexley Food Bank. The Night Shelter will be keeping a waiting list as there are only 12 places. There are guidelines and expectations which will be explained clearly to potential guests. Many volunteers are now in place, and the organisers have the following needs Volunteers for the Welling centre only are needed (Tues, Thurs-Sun nights).  Several people have offered donations in kind. Please address your offers direct to the team, who can assess if and how they can use them. Sidcup and Bexleyheath will finance the cost of food, heating, welfare etc. Welling venue will need help with funding for 5 nights. Other costs: Registration with Housing Justice to get started: £1500, training and other support, bedding, food.  The initial aim for financing the venture is £3000. If you wish to make a donation to this very worthwhile cause, cheques (or cash if delivered) should be made out to “Bexley Winter Shelter” should clearly be marked Winter Shelters and sent to Bexley Winter Night Shelter, c/o Welling Baptist Church, Axminster Crescent, Welling DA16 1HF. Please write your email address on the back of the cheque, or if no address then your postal address.

Work is shortly to start to refurbish the much loved Erith Riverside Gardens, which you can see in the photo above - click on the photo for a larger view. The proposals and the work specification can be seen below. Discussions are to be undertaken by the Friends Of Riverside Gardens Erith (FORGE) are due to take place early in February, and the execution of the work shortly thereafter. The proposals and specification state that:- "Prior to removal of shrubs the Contractor shall check for the presence of underground services. The Contractor shall dig out and remove shrubs of varying sizes from the bed by hand or mechanical method, ensuring that adjacent features are not damaged. Shrubs shall be cut down, levered out and have their roots removed. All shrub parts shall be treated as arisings. The Contractor shall not use other adjacent trees or shrubs as winching anchor points. The resultant hole shall be backfilled with material from the bed surface and when necessary with topsoil.  Soil shall be left level with adjoining hard surfaces and kerbs with a surface that has a medium tilth with no footprints or indentations. Reinstating Area with Grass Seed - The whole area shall be thoroughly cultivated by hand or machine to a depth of at least 150mm to relieve compaction and remove all weed growth and old turf. The area shall be graded to meet and match adjoining profiles and levels, and left level with adjoining hard surfaces and kerbs. If topsoil is required to make up deficiencies in levels, it shall be ordered and paid for separately on instruction by the Client Officer. The area shall be consolidated by treading and then raked to a fine tilth to leave the soil surface free of all weeds, Litter, Debris, hard debris and stones in excess of 25mm diameter The Contractor shall broadcast seed by hand or approved pedestrian operated machine onto a moist seed bed at the correct rate and evenness of application. The seed shall then be incorporated into the soil surface by raking with spring tined rake. The Contractor shall be responsible for establishing the resultant sward to the Standard of the adjoining area of which it is part by all necessary rolling, irrigation and cutting.  Any variations in soil level during establishment due to settlement, or any gaps that open between turves shall be dealt with at the Contractor's expense by top dressing, lifting and soiling and over seeding as required. Any damage to surrounding features would have to be rectified by contractor at their own expense. Planting - The Contractor shall carry out the planting of shrubs into an existing bed. Species, size and quantity of shrub must be agreed by the Authorised Officer prior to any planting works taking place. The Contractor shall accept full responsibility for the condition of delivered plants once they arrive on site. It shall be implicit in his acceptance that the contractor is satisfied that plants are to the standards specified by the Authorised Officer when ordered. The Contractor shall comply with the requirements of CPSE ‘Handling and Establishing Landscape Plants’ from the Horticultural Trades Association. Prior to planting all container grown plants shall be thoroughly watered, and bare root plants shall be immersed in water for a minimum of thirty minutes. Planting holes shall be dug on the day of planting. Planting holes shall be dug 100mm wider and deeper than the size of the root ball or bare root spread, and have the base broken up to a further depth of 150mm. The Contractor shall supply and mix recycled composted green waste into every planting hole by placing half in the base of the hole and mixing the remainder into the back fill. Planting shall be carried out to leave shrubs evenly spaced at the correct density, upright, with `best face' facing to nearest point from which it will be viewed, at the correct depth with nursery collar level with soil surface. A minimum space of 500mm must be left between the planted shrubs and any adjacent feature. The hole shall be backfilled with previously excavated topsoil, to leave each plant firmly anchored into soil by treading each 150mm layer leaving all roots in contact with soil and whole shrub undamaged. All excess backfill will be evenly distributed around the bed surface. On completion of planting all identification and supplier labels shall be removed. The Contractor shall evenly apply granular slow release fertilizer around the base of each plant over an area of 1m2. The surface of the soil shall be left with a medium tilth with no hard debris and stones in excess of 25mm diameter or litter present. There shall be no footprints or indentations present and the soil edge shall be left 75mm below adjacent hard or sward surfaces with a camber sloping gently up to the centre of the bed. The Contractor shall be responsible for the arrangement of supply of shrubs to site". I sincerely hope that FORGE get the go - ahead for the refurbishment work to the gardens, which are one of the highlights of Erith - the only place in the whole of the London Borough of Bexley where the public can get access to the banks of the River Thames. More on this story in the future.

Much has been said in the past of the work that Erith and Thamesmead MP Teresa Pearce has been doing to get step free access to Erith Station, and the London bound platform. She has been plugging away for a number of years now, trying to get Southeastern Trains to install a lift at the station, and thus far that campaign appears to have been broadly ignored by the train company. You can see Teresa’s “Get a lift installed at Erith Station” site here. Unfortunately the site is now closed to new submissions. I know that installing a lift is far more technically onerous and expensive than the relatively straightforward work carried out at Crayford – but the principle is the same; if Southeastern Trains have agreed to improve access at one local station, thus admitting that an access problem existed, then why would they not do the same for Erith Station, where the access situation is so much worse, and the station caters for far more travellers than Crayford does? The fact remains that if you are a wheelchair user, or a parent with a heavy pram or buggy, it is not possible to take a train towards London from Erith. You have to go on the Kent bound platform to Dartford, then change there to pick up a London bound train. This means you go three stops in the opposite direction, only to then come back on yourself. Apart from the inconvenience this brings, there is the added expense of what should really be an unnecessary journey. It struck me recently that the relatively new Bexley College campus adjacent to Erith Station would be an excellent opportunity for some joined up thinking to ensure that step free access to both platforms at Erith Station becomes a reality, but it would not appear to be the case - nothing has been done, and other local stations such as Bexleyheath get lifts - which don't really need a lift as there is a road and pedestrian bridge at one end of the platform that enables anyone able bodies or not to get from one platform to the other without the need for the use of stairs. 

In another travel related story, a report was published last week that will concern many public transport users in and around London. The Oyster card system has been called into question in respect of the amount of unused and unclaimed credit that exists. The number of “dormant” cards - those that have not been used for more than 12 months - has jumped to nearly 43.7 million, up two million since the end of June last year. The figures sparked fresh demands for Transport for London (TfL) to make it easier for passengers to claim refunds. The amount of money left on the cards has risen to nearly £236.6 million, with one of the reasons the 48-hour restriction on Oyster refunds. This means that if someone buys an Oyster card, pays the £5 deposit and puts money on it they can only claim a refund after 48 hours, which is hitting tourists and visitors to the capital. The increase in contactless travel is another explanation. Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat member of the London Assembly who highlighted the statistics, said: “Fourteen years since the start of Oyster the amount left on dormant Oyster cards has reached a staggering level with TfL now sitting on a massive cash pile of a quarter of a billion pounds. TfL should never forget that this is the public’s money they are holding and people should be able to reclaim it as easily as TfL take money from passengers in the first place. Ending the 48 hour restriction facing passengers before they can claim back their deposit and any remaining balance on a card is long overdue, and is just one of the many changes TfL need to make to ensure that people can easily get back their own money left on unused Oyster cards.” A recent report by the watchdog London TravelWatch examining the impact of the Tube ticket offices closures recommended changes to the system including the removal of the 48-hour restriction. It stated: “Passengers currently have to wait 48-hours from purchasing an Oyster card before being able to get back their deposit and any remaining balance on the card. This does not represent good customer practice especially for visitors to London who are only here for a short period of time. It should be possible for customers to get a refund on their Oyster card whenever required.”

After my observations last week on the sadly much in decline Belvedere Tandoori, which now no longer has a drinks licence - one reviewer on Trip Advisor wrote:- "I really like this restaurant, the food is always well cooked, tasty and not at all oily. But what a surprise to find they stopped serving alcohol on the 6th June. Can't see it surviving and we witnessed 4 people walking away when they read the notice on the door". I understand is up for sale have led to a couple of readers asking me about the local competition - the Spice Master restaurant, also located in Nuxley Road, Upper Belvedere. Spice Master is by far the biggest eaterie in Upper Belvedere, or possibly even the whole borough. The dining area is open plan, and even has a small dance floor in the centre. Several times a month the restaurant has a singer performing – quite often a tribute act such as an Elvis or Michael Jackson impersonator. I am not too keen on this kind of thing personally – you cannot hear to talk when the singer is performing, and for me talking is part of the whole dining out experience. Food – wise, the restaurant is pretty standard high street curry house, that is, Anglicised Bangladeshi and Punjabi dishes. The food is good, though not spectacular, portions are decent and service is excellent – the waiting staff to visitor ratio seems higher than in most curry houses in the area. My most recent visit was on a Friday night some time ago, and I suspect that they may well have deployed a few extra pairs of hands to cope with the increased number of guests that the weekend brings. I must admit that my own menu choices were pretty pedestrian – Chicken Korai (a dish that gets overlooked by some people, yet when they see, hear and most importantly smell the wonderful aroma of the chicken and peppers sizzling on the cast iron skillet that the dish is served from, they then wish that they had ordered it too).  Along with this I ordered mushroom pilau rice and a garlic naan – anything with mushrooms and garlic is always a favourite with me. Spice Master is never going to set the world alight from a culinary standpoint, but that is not what it is about – it knows its’ role – a large, bustling curry house with regular entertainment that a lot of people will like. An avant garde fine dining restaurant would just not work in Upper Belvedere, and it would be pointless trying. The owners of the Spice Master know what works and stick to it, which seems eminently sensible in my opinion.  If you have visited the place, please feel free to leave a comment on your thoughts about the restaurant. I am of the opinion that Spice Master will just hoover up the customers of Belvedere Tandoori now that it no longer serves alcohol, meaning that the owners will have a challenge selling the place now that the customer footfall has dropped off dramatically. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.

It would seem that my speculation regarding the future of the proposed river crossing between Rainham in Essex and Lower Belvedere was not without merit; I have it on good authority that the whole plan has now been kicked permanently into the long grass by London Mayor Sadiq Khan. It would appear that he has pulled the plug on several of the proposed Thames river crossings, including both Gallions Reach and Lower Belvedere - as shown on the map above - click on it for a larger view. Fellow local Blogger Darryl of the excellent 853 Blog, who covers the Charlton, Lewisham and Greenwich area, has written extensively around the changes to the proposed river crossing strategy, which you can read here. I know that there will be mixed feelings amongst local residents regarding this decision.

The Metropolitan Police are promoting a service which has been in place for some time, but many people are completely unaware of it. The "Silent Solutions" system is used to help decide whether officers are sent out in response to a silent 999 call, thousands of which are made each day. If you ring 999 you will be asked which emergency service you require. If you do not say anything, the operator will ask you to cough or indicate in some other way if the call is an emergency. If you do not feel it is safe to make any noise (eg if you do not want to alert someone to your presence, say for instance during a burglary or a terrorist attack), then your call will be transferred to a system that will ask you to press 55 if your call is an emergency. National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for National Contact Management, Deputy Chief Constable Alan Todd said: “The national ‘silent solutions’ system enables people to contact the emergency services without speaking by detecting background noise and prompting the caller to press ‘55’ if they want to be directed to police. Our steering group has reviewed the system and concluded that it is effective at enabling people who are unable to speak to contact the police while filtering out the huge volumes of accidental 999 calls made every day. However, the system is only effective if people understand how it works. The IPCC investigation into the police handling of the murder of Kerry Power demonstrates the tragic consequences of people not knowing how the system works. We are now considering how we can best educate the public and police officers about the system to ensure that those at risk of harm get the help they need.” A police spokesman added: "Please do not think that just because you dial 999 that police will attend. We totally understand that sometimes people are unable or too afraid to talk, however it must be clear that we will not routinely attend a silent 999 call".

The ending video this week is an exclusive, thanks to Millie and Becky of Grayling public relations, who sent me this short video showing the local school children planting trees on the Erith Quarry development site earlier last week. Do give it a watch, and please leave feedback by commenting below, or by sending me an Email to hugh.neal@gmail.com.