27 August - Readers comments - Shard to charade
Five
blogs from the past week owe their existence to very welcome tip offs
from readers. There were more, some of which are not appropriate for use right
now, but a couple are.
One message told me that the contractor chosen to
refurbish the new
Civic Offices is coming down in the world. The same company, Mace, built
the Shard at London Bridge. It is particularly interesting to note that Mace
have been given responsibility for “furniture provision, fixtures and equipment”
and “responsibility for move management”. Buying desks seems to be a long way
removed from sticking a crane on top of the Shard. Does Bexley council know what
it is doing?
I expressed some misgivings about the bland appearance of
the new Travelodge in
Sidcup and lamented the lack of the veranda which prompted The Sidcup Community
Group to send a copy of the plan. The developer has a way to go yet and seems
unlikely to be forgiven for bringing down the old facade which was supposed to
be preserved.
Blaming the developer and Bexley council in equal measure the SCG
reminds us that “after the developers had excavated an underground car park and
positioned a concrete crusher immediately behind the Black Horse facade (which
had scaffolding around it erected in such a way that the facade was supporting
it rather than the reverse), the developers returned for permission to complete
the demolition. Going back on undertakings, in order to ensure that the total
destruction of the Black Horse was rubber-stamped”.
A thinly veiled suggestion that the original facade was weakened by careless
construction methods, or worse.