30 October - More neglect by your caring council
It
is not as bad as it has been since the Spring but this is how the Vehicle
Activated Speed Sign on the B213 looked yesterday. Autumn has ensured it is no longer completely
obscured by foliage but is is still impossible to read from an approaching car.
For speeds under 40 m.p.h. it doesn’t even work, it simply displays three
horizontal bars. It is supposed to be a road safety measure but the Traffic and Road Safety
Group at Bexley council has ignored reports that it may as well be broken for all the use it
is. Actually another one a quarter of a mile to the West is also broken, it hasn’t worked at
all for at least a month. For the record, the white van triggered a 42 m.p.h. reading.
The major inconveniences placed on Bexley’s road users are nearly always said to
be due to road safety considerations, even when expert opinion is that Bexley’s
road planning is either malicious or incompetent. My suspicion is that big
schemes go ahead solely to ensure continuing employment for bureaucrats. If they
were seriously interested in road safety they would deal with the trivial end of
the spectrum too, like this pavement sign left unfinished for more than a year
or the hole in the pedestrian refuge reported yesterday. How is it that Abbey
Road was signed off as completed in 2009 when so many sections of it were not
properly finished? (See yesterday’s photos). It only confirms my view that
project management in Bexley is virtually non-existent. My contracting informant
tells me that Bexley’s idea of an inspection is to turn up in a car, sit in it
and eat a sandwich and go away again. At least we won’t notice the difference
when Teresa O’Neill cuts their jobs. Let’s hope she doesn’t make cuts the same
way as the Prime Minister ‘freezes’ our
E.U. contribution; by letting it rise by more than £400m.