24 October (Part 1) - The Places meeting. Changing the face of Bexley
Some bits of council meetings are very boring and time can drag but the item on
Strategic Planning and Regeneration holds no such fears. It includes interesting
facts, is delivered at a cracking pace, is not hard to hear and the main speaker is
easy on the eye. At least she used to be, on Wednesday Deputy Director Jane
Richardson was hidden from my view.
Using a totally inappropriate equine reference Mrs. Richardson said she would “canter through”
and so we soon learned that the end of chaos in Sidcup was “within touching distance” and that
during daylight hours two way traffic has been in force since the weekend. The over night resurfacing
will be completed within days. Traffic disruption will however come back to Sidcup next week when
water and gas works commence in Station Road. Presumably too sudden an introduction of free
running traffic might give Sidcup a land based version of ‘the bends’ so any
improvement must be incremental.
Next on Bexley’s hit list for traffic disruption is Broadway
West and after Christmas, Northumberland Heath. How much such things help
traders is a matter for conjecture. Bexley council will only say that footfall
in Bexleyheath since the regeneration has shown “a modest increase”. Given that
a lot of people stayed away last year and the population will have risen
slightly that cannot be a good result.
The western end of Broadway will be regenerated on the cheap compared to the
more favoured end. The raised shared space will be outside the Esso petrol
station and be asphalt based rather than blocked and the Lion Road junction will
be revamped. Looking further into the future Mrs. Richardson will be badgering
Boris for more money for the Abbey Wood station area with particular emphasis on
Wilton Road.
The Agenda listed some of the things wrong with Lion Road that had to be corrected…
Street clutter, collision hotspots, sub-standard street lighting, poor quality
paving, badly designed central reservations, a sterile environment, barren walls,
inconvenient crossings and inadequate bus shelters so it shouldn’t be too
difficult to effect an improvement, but who was responsible for all the original
poor designs?
As regular road users will know all too well, there is no sensible alternative route
for Broadway West. No convenient Albion Road to take the load.
In Welling Tfl have agreed to remove
their traffic
light control gear so that it does not obscure the historic cannon. It looks
likely they will have to cough up the money too.
Cabinet member Don Massey, the recent convert to the cause of integrating Bexley
into the rest of London, spoke enthusiastically in favour not only of bridges here
there and everywhere but tunnels too. A Bakerloo line extension to Lewisham
would be “a good thing” as would extending the Overground to Abbey Wood
and various points south. “Any crossing would help” but the Overground goes
north and not to central London, he said. Councillor Seán Newman reminded him that it crossed
all the East/West lines so remained a useful option.
Councillor Massey went on to say that he is lobbying very hard for Crossrail to
be extended to Ebbsfleet and he was supported by
Paramount who are planning the nearby theme park. Massey, who had spent the
day talking transport with the GLA and others, said of the proposed Silvertown
Tunnel that “it looks set to go ahead” (I thought the consultation hadn’t ended
yet) and a lot of people high up seem to believe the other things will happen
too but he has not seen much of it documented yet.
All the audible transport related questions came from councillor Seán Newman who was
invisible to me so his Labour colleagues must take the photo limelight. I think
councillor Val Clark may have asked a transport question too but she was near
inaudible to me as well as invisible.
Note: The comments reported above are not in the original
sequence and some elements have been taken from outside the Regeneration Update
- Section 7 of the Agenda.