13 September - Another massive Bexley council cock-up
Someone in the know at F.M. Conway’s who do practically all the council’s road works has
called to let me know why the roundabout construction at the junction of Wickham Lane and
Oakhampton Crescent has been on hold for the last month or so. Apparently it has
been so beautifully designed by the council’s best brains that buses can’t get
round it. And you thought I was being a bit hard on Andrew Bashford’s road planning
department and calamitous councillor Craske? Shouldn’t they be made to pay for their costly mistakes?
The same source told me that the power cut last week was caused by someone working on the
Ruxley corner roundabout fiasco severing a very large cable.
Councillor Peter Catterall (Welling) is quoted in the press as saying “these latest
cuts reflect more problems with EDF Energy” but if he is quoted accurately, and there
is evidence that at the very least the words were taken out of context, it could more fairly
be argued that they reflect the total lack of project management skills by Bexley council. My
informant said that someone didn’t want to pay for the detailed plans and took a chance.
Lucky it didn’t kill someone, that sort of power can vapourise large chunks of metal.