A self promoting tweet is pointless & doesn't change the truth

In the eighties Mr Mustard used to debt collect door to door in Dollis Valley (and across many of the poorer parts of EN5) so he knows it quite well. It should never have been built but the milk is spilt.

Now, finally, the council are doing something about it and are trying to hoodwink us into believing that they are cracking on, hence this tweet which probably tripped off the tongue of the Tooting Twister as he was taking notes at Monday's meeting of the Degeneration Committee (it may be called something slightly different) and didn't laugh when talk of social cleansing of the borough came up and Mr Mustard leant across and suggested we send our poor to Tooting.

Mr Mustard knew that redevelopment had been decided upon a long time ago and he googled the place and found this note in council committee papers

It takes a pair of rose tinted spectacles to decide that we are going more "quickly than originally planned" unless of course the council decided back in 2003 that they would take 11 years.

By all means tweet concrete achievements but, please, not this misleading nonsense.

Thank you.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The third interesting Christmas Eve DPR - hidden signs

Mr Mustard had to look hard to find this DPR numbered 1498.

DPR 1498 Dollis Valley Walk Signage

Now why was this DPR hidden so far back in the lists? Go to the DPR page here and then page down 3 times and then under the date of 31 October ( which does not appear anywhere on the DPR control sheet ) one finds this DPR. Anyone would think that the council didn't want the public to find it?

The DPR details yet another failure in the directorate of Ms Pam Wharfe, EPR, to follow simple rules and then the attempt to regularise the situation looks, to Mr Mustard, to be inadequate. Here are the rules:

Contract Procedure Rules

So back at the start of 2011 Barnet Council tried and failed to find more than one supplier of signs and map boards ready, willing & able to make signs and maps for the Dollis Valley Greenwalk. This is not the hardest thing to do. There are loads of makers of signs and map boards ( just google those phrases ) and perhaps if the council asked 5+ potential suppliers instead of just 2 ( para 8.4 of the DPR ) then they would get 2 or more positive responses. In Mr Mustard's decades of experience in business there is rarely a shortage of willing suppliers.

Table 6.1 of the rules says that a minimum of 2 quotes must be returned and if not REPEAT COMPETITION which has yet again, as for RM Countryside and the removal of parking meters, not been done.

Ms Wharfe has, the report says, managed to get the "Commercial" Director Craig Cooper to agree that "the market has identified a single supplier for this requirement" so this must surely mean that every single sign in the whole of the countryside has been made by Fitzpatrick Woolmer? No! what really not, are you sure? So this attempt to correct the rule breach by virtue of para 6.11 of the rules is just not playing by the rules; it is a breach of the constitution. Just because you both get paid £132,480 p.a. does not mean you are able to simply do as you please.

What do the rules say? They say that is there is an oversight of this nature caused by urgency that approval should be sought from a Cabinet Committee (Mr Mustard can't see them causing trouble) under rules 5.7 & 5.8. Please could all Directors read this rule and implement it in the future.

One final point. Para 10.1 of the DPR. Should it not be "retroactive" authority rather than "retrospective" authority?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard