19 June (Part 3) - Pure speculation. Probably
Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour, North End) came out with an intriguing 16 second aside at last week’s council meeting. He said that the Tories had finally seen sense and that they agree Bexley should have a Thames bridge.
As yet no councillor, not even a friendly one, has been willing to enlarge on that so I can only speculate.
The facts are that the majority of residents in Bexley and nearby
voted
for a bridge in the TfL consultation. Boris Johnson said during one of his
LBC radio appearances that more lower Thames crossings are essential and of course simple
common sense says that you cannot forever have a major city with such poor transport links
and expect it to remain an international class city however much the Luddite Teresa O’Neill protests.
I suspect that Boris has made a decision and whispered it to his favourite local politician
and it is not as isolationist as she would like which has the potential for leaving local
Tories with egg on their faces. So they are going to change tack in order to be able to say they were behind the idea all along.
Guessing again, I'd say a Bexley bridge will come ashore in a strong
Labour ward which must be Belvedere or Erith where it could connect to Bronze
Age Way. Everyone could then claim victory except perhaps poor old residents
who could have avoided the poisonous air around Blackwall Tunnel from the end of last year
had it not been for the mobile road block which is Teresa O’Neill.