22 March - The Welling time warp
A contractor working in Sidcup has dug up a time capsule from 1846 but I decided to visit one closer to home today. It’s in the centre of Welling and anyone can see it at any time. Here’s a few photos to show you what is going on there.
Chaotic as you can see but I am not being entirely honest with you, the photos above were taken ten months ago; today’s are below…
How can a simple job go on for a whole year? I suppose Sidcup residents will know, they’ve seen
how their High Street can be closed and nothing happen over two months.
A few more photos will show that the disruption is for pedestrians and drivers alike.
Surely a year to get not very close to finishing the job can only be due to mismanagement? And what will be achieved at the end of it all?
I’m not very familiar with the history of Welling Corner so I asked a reader who lives nearby if he had anything he’d like to say…
The
roadworks at Welling Corner are now entering their twelfth on and off month.
In that time Bexley council has ripped up a bit of paving and replaced it with shiny new
slabs and some very nice but impractical curved marble effect benches - guaranteed
to give you piles on a cold day - and a bit of funky looking metal work that has
been bashed about by the green plastic temporary barriers that have blighted the
area for far too long. New pedestrian refuges that are much wider than before
leading to what used to be two lane sections of road being barely one and three
quarter lanes now. I’ve seen more than one wing mirror lying on the pavement.
Ten
months of temporary traffic signals were finally replaced two months ago with
portable signals. The portable signals have led to even worse traffic
congestion. Upper Wickham Lane is frequently backed up all the way to
the
roundabout at Lodge Hill. This has led to a lot of rat running down streets like
Elsa Road and Somerhill Road, Including idiots who have tried to race down our
back alleyway. Didn’t get them very far as it’s a cul-de-sac.
Getting through Welling Corner along Bellgrove Road is no picnic either. That can take 15
minutes to get through at times. To top it off there is no pedestrian crossing
indication so you take your life in hand when crossing as there is no clue as to
which direction traffic will be coming from next.
Why the portable signals? Well it looks as though who ever dug everything up
last April forgot to put in new cabling and ducting for the replacement signals.
Now we have the situation where massive sections of the shiny new paving has
been ripped up along with several bits of the pedestrian refuges in order to put
down new lengths of wire for the traffic signals. On top of that it now looks
like they’re going to be repaving Welling High Street and Bellgrove Road again.
Bits have been done already but if memory serves they are the same bits that
were repaved around 5 years ago.
Bexley is truly bonkers. (plus a few other words that aren’t suitable to print).
Click any image for enlarged view.