Category: News

Bromley Community Engagement Forum Public Meeting

The next BCEF public meeting will be held on Wednesday 7 March, 7pm, Bromley Football Club (full address below) – all welcome.

This meeting will also offer the opportunity to meet the Borough Police Commander Stephanie Roberts.

The main meeting will commence at 1900 hrs but from 1830-1900 there will also be the opportunity to meet with local community groups. If your organisation would be interested in hosting a table information stand, please get in touch with me as soon as possible to discuss further.

Could members please confirm your attendance or let me have the name of your representative in advance of the meeting.

TSI warns of dangerous energy saving scam targeting elderly

Trading Standards Institute is urging consumers to be aware of rogue telephone cold callers offering energy saving devices after trading standards up and down the country reported hundreds of complaints.

Trading standards are currently dealing with more than 200 complaints about people claiming to be their energy supplier or working in partnership with them, offering a plug in device which they say can save them 40 per cent off their energy bills. Trading standards have had a number of the items tested which not only failed to satisfy electrical safety standards but do not deliver any tangible energy savings.

Ron Gainsford from the Trading Standards Institute said: “Consumers are warned not to use the product as they pose a risk of fire and electrocution and a safety recall has been issued for the items traced so far.

“Unscrupulous criminals are using the rising energy prices as an opportunity to lure in cash strapped consumers – elderly people seem to have been deliberately targeted.

“The number of complaints we are currently dealing with is bound to be only the tip of the iceberg.”

Westminster trading standards have been investigating the scam as the caller gives a London W1 Oxford Street address for the company.

Sue Jones from Westminster trading standards said: “The address they give is that of a virtual office provider, the companies involved in these scams are not actually situated there – we believe the call centre they use is based abroad and the appliances appear to be distributed by a number of individuals in the UK.

“We know that these fraudsters have been duping consumers across the country into paying £99 for the energy saving device and have been told the caller always appears to be very credible by already knowing the consumers’ details, their energy supplier and sometimes some or all of the digits of their credit/debit card.

“Often consumers do not realise that they have been defrauded until they receive the dodgy looking device with instructions in broken English and the accompanying invoice which names an unknown supplier and often gives an American address.”

So far four different suppliers have been named, 1 Stop Marketing Solutions, ITC Development Corp, Power Saver and Athico Ltd. but the fraudsters could be operating under other names too. Some of these names could be very similar to genuine companies – for example Power Saver Ltd, based in Tonbridge, Kent is not involved in this fraud.

The director of Athico Ltd appears to have been a victim of the scam himself. He fully cooperated with trading standards and the company has now ceased trading.

Advice to consumers

If consumers have responded to one of these cold calls they should report the matter to Action Fraud on http://www.actionfraud.org.uk 0300 123 2040 or Consumer Direct on 08454040506 . They should also contact their bank to stop their debit/ credit card. If a device has been received they should not use it and dispose of it carefully.

Consumers should be cautious about giving out any personal or financial information. They should independently verify a caller’s identity before agreeing to purchase any goods or services.

Draft National Planning Policy Framework Document letter to Eric Pickles

The Localism Bill, the provisions of which were fully expected to continue to be discussed beyond the timeframe originally allocated, did in fact receive Royal Assent on 15 November and therefore have become embodied in law as the Localism Act 2011.

Letter about the Draft National Planning Policy Framework Document written by CCARA to The Rt. Hon. Eric Pickles MP. Read it here.
and read the reply from The Rt. Hon. Eric Pickles MP here.

Safer Christmas Shopping – purse bells

As you are probably aware, across the borough we are still experiencing high demand for purse bells. In order for us to get them out to the broadest audience possible we will be delivering 200 purse bells to every charity shop in the borough. Some have already been delivered, others will be delivered in the next day or two.

The idea of the purse bell is for one to be attached to a purse, wallet or hand bag and it will draw attention should anyone try to interfere with it. We particularly try to encourage vulnerable shoppers who may be targeted by pick pockets (without alarming them).

We are asking for your cooperation with letting your colleagues, panels, local groups, day centres, NHW contacts and residents know that these purse bells will be available at the till point in every charity shop that accepts them from Saturday (if not already). From previous experience, not all shops accept them, but we try and get as many as possible on board. We find that by using charity shops to distribute them we can get them to some new faces in our target group, and by requesting a small donation towards that charity shop for each purse bell, we avoid people taking 10 at a time!

There is a press release going out – hopefully in today’s News Shopper – which will also be letting residents know.

If your ward does not have a charity shop please get in touch with your respective Safer Neighbourhood Officer and we should be able agree an alternative venue to take them to.

Thanks

Amanda

Amanda Davis
Safer Neighbourhood Development Officer
London Borough of Bromley

Tough choices – Public Meeting – Citygate Church, 28th November 2011

Chair: Doug Patterson, Chief Executive.

Panel: Cllr Graham Arthur; Cllr Stephen Carr; Cllr Robert Evans; Cllr Peter Morgan; Cllr Ernest Noa; Cllr Colin Smith; Cllr Tim Stevens.

Capacity audience.

Doug Patterson opened the meeting by spelling out the savings needed to be made which amount to a reduction of £50million over four years. Of this, approx £22million have been implemented, leaving approx £30million to be cut in the next two years by identifying £15million per year. For the coming year, £6.5million has already been identified and implemented – the purpose of this, and the previous three Public Meetings around the Borough, was to gain residents’ opinions on where these should be found.

Questions from the floor included:

Why can’t the Council use its reserves instead of making cuts? The answer from Cllr Carr was because half is automatically allocated, and the remaining half is for conducting normal business. Taking this for the short-term would store up trouble for the future. Cllr Arthur advised of a change in policy to make half the reserves ‘work harder’ via investment within the Borough.

Why are School Crossing attendants are being cut at the risk of young lives? The Council is in discussion with Schools putting forward three options for retaining the service in other ways, for instance parent volunteers, or individual schools paying for the service.

Questions were asked on the closure of Day Centres – The Council said all were under review, but those being named as expecting to close were rumours only.

A question on the Athletics Track received the answer that there are no plans to close it, but that the Council is trying to attract private money to fund improvements.

How can groups feeling disproportionately affected make their case to the Council? was answered with the usual list of communication routes.

The Council mentioned suggestions such as raising parking fees to raise revenue (but also acknowledged a steep drop in footfall in the High Street and the difficulty traders are already suffering), and the suggestion that Council Tax should be raised by 4% or 2% was put to the vote (but no result of the show of hands declared). However, apart from one member of the audience saying he was willing to volunteer after work for a couple of hours a week at the library for instance, there were no suggestions of where the £30million of savings/cuts should be made in the next two years.

A queston was asked about the proposed revamping of Beckenham High Street with stream and train. It was confirmed that these plans had now been set aside.

Drink Banning Orders

These came into force on 31 August 2009 and are civil orders that can be made against an individual aged 16 and over if they have engaged in criminal or disorderly conduct while under the influence of alcohol.

An order may last for between two months and two years and aims to protect communities from future bad conduct of this kind by prohibiting the individual from doing things prescribed in it.

Will these orders protect the residents of Beckenham from having their fences, walls, cars and trees damaged so often? Police would have to be in the right place at the right time to catch the culprits, which is very rarely the case. But giving them greater powers may help.

At a national level, perhaps those who make our laws should be listening to local residents and reviewing or repealing the 2003 Licensing Act.