15 October (Part 1) - Sidcup’s Annus Horribilus nears its conclusion
On Friday afternoon Sidcup High Street is to be reopened for two way
traffic after almost ten months of chaos around the town. Make the most
of it folks because the following Monday evening it will shut again for resurfacing work.
You will presumably be pleased to hear that the works will be done over night, unless perchance you live within earshot of the work. The following
email relates how residents in another part of Sidcup suffered when FM Conway resurfaced Hurst Road a month or so ago.
The road maintenance firm FM Conway has been resurfacing Hurst Road between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m.
in the morning. A nuisance but nevertheless something I will have to put up with for living on a main road.
However two weeks of works has seen them manage to run seriously behind. This is
not for the want of trying: - Shouting abuse between each other as a form of
communication at 1 a.m. has strangely proven ineffective.
Smoking and playing on an
i-pad whilst trying to merge fully laden tipper lorries with regular traffic
has unusually failed to speed up the process. Moving equipment a few hundred yards with
low-loaders at 4 a.m. in the morning has also failed to speed the whole
process up.
All three issues are unacceptable. I want to sleep at 4 a.m. in the morning.
A call to the senior engineer at Bexley Council (who listed two numbers for contact at
any stage during the works) proved difficult to make. Once contact was established, the
poor Mr. Wood seemed beholden to FM Conway. He understood the problem he said, but was
completely powerless to act until Conways rang him back which, he added, they seldom do.