25 April (Part 1) - Bad news for Bexley
The
massive disruption in Bexley Village caused by the bridge replacement
work was due to be reduced from 28th March. That didn’t happen and
the date slipped until
the end of April. Now it has slipped again - to 10th May.
The reason is said to be corrosion found on a Thames Water pipe. The photograph distributed with
Bexley Council’s latest Press Release is of the rusty pipe; no I can’t make head nor tail of it either.
How is your Thames Water meter installation going? Its chaotic in my road.
In November last year Thames Water dug up the pavements and fiddled around
underground presumably fitting the meters or their housing. A couple of days
before Christmas they knocked on the door to tell me what they planned to do next. I
told them they had missed my underground stop cock, which they have. They made a
note of it and said a supervisor would phone me early in the New Year. Nothing happened.
At the end of March I received a letter from Thames Water claiming they had
failed to reach me on the phone and would I call them urgently. My telephone
logs all my incoming calls, answered or not, and there was no call obviously
from Thames Water. The only possibility was two Withheld number calls on 2nd
February, neither of which had been answered.
I discovered that all my neighbours had received the same letter and one (not in my road) had
tried to call but was sent around in circles by their call system until he gave up. I decided not to bother.
Last week Thames Water knocked on my door again claiming they couldn’t find my
stopcock. I showed them where it was and they looked down the hole saying it was
a very old one. I knew that, it has not been touched in 30 years. The two men
went away. I have heard nothing since. When did they first say they were going
to install meters across Bexley? 2013 wasn’t it?