North Cray
Road is not Bexley’s only road to nowhere, Albion Road (which runs parallel with
The Broadway in Bexleyheath) is another four lane road for no obvious reason but
maybe the work was done when money was not in such short supply.
When the dual carriageway was built, Oaklands Road was sealed off at its northern end
making it little more than a useful parking spot for shop workers and others who
work in the town centre. Just to emphasise their ability to do whatever they
like Bexley council moved the War Memorial to ensure the road remained blocked.
Following the alterations the adjacent Townley Road gets twice the traffic it used to;
what a pity a councillor wasn’t living in it, probably
if recent events are a guide he could
have put a stop to it. A resident who has not forgiven
Bexley council for making his life a little bit more difficult reports
that they are at it again, this time building width restrictors at each of the
intersections in Oaklands Road. He wonders why and so do I.
If this were a busy road with a lot of traffic, making it a potential danger to
pedestrians, one might just be able to see a reason but it is basically a
cul-de-sac with very little traffic. You could be
forgiven for thinking that it is another of Frizoni’s (Deputy Director, Public
Realm Management) ego trips or maybe a way of keeping F.M. Conway happy. Why
is it, by the way, that Conway gets all of Bexley’s road contracts?
When Bexley council put in similar obstacles in Brampton Road,
they caused accidents and removed them.
My correspondent asks if I know why Bexley council keeps building
obstacles in the road and I don’t apart from because they are “either malicious
or incompetent” which was what my road safety consultant friend said after
looking around Sidcup. So I rang his office to get an expert’s opinion.
Unfortunately he is away chairing some EU meeting on the subject, but I hope he
will get back to me on his return. If he can think of a good reason why any sane
person would want to build little outcrops from the pavement in a minor
residential road, I will let you know. In the meantime I shall assume it is
because councillor Craske is keen to be able to claim again that he is spending just as
much money on roads this year as he did last. That may be a laudable achievement
if he wasn’t wasting so much of it. Doesn’t he know that money is short? Last year he
failed to salt the borough’s roads
and pavements, the little that was done was done by neighbouring boroughs paid to do it.
Salting a few pavements may have saved more injuries than a few Frizoni Follies in Oaklands Road.