22 October - Parking irregularities - click any image for photo gallery (2 images)
Yesterday
Abbey Road was left coned off all day although no work was done that
would justify it. Inevitably it caused disruption to the lives of commuters and residents.
However at 6.50 a.m. this morning all the cones were being removed (apart from the two
pictured) by the white lining contractor. He doesn’t appear to have completed his
work and as I write, (7.30) his vehicle is parked in the road. Presumably he still has
the cycle path to mark out.
One consistent thing running through my correspondence with Bexley council and
their assurances to the few residents they bothered to consult is that there
would be no reduction in the number of parking spaces. “No loss of parking
space” was picked out in bold on the
consultation document so I am watching
this one closely. It looks like the residents’ bays have been made short because someone,
presumably the incompetent Andrew Bashford, Team Leader (Traffic Projects), has belatedly
realised that the road is too narrow to accommodate all the spaces.
Not directly connected to the Abbey Road situation, but in Gayton Road a BMW has
been abandoned for the last three weeks and apart from the parking gestapo
affixing a penalty notice to its windscreen nothing has been done. Bexley
council is presumably content to see a sixth of the parking capacity outside Abbey Wood railway station lost.
My early morning photographic sortie was marred at the end when I saw a man hanging
from a tree alongside Abbey Road. The police arrived followed by an ambulance as I watched.