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News and Comment October 2016

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1 October (Part 1) - Greed and desecration

This is a repeat of yesterday’s blog which would otherwise ‘disappear’ with everything else from September. The eyesore in Abbey Wood, if not the other two items, demands the maximum amount of publicity.

You soon won’t recognise the place, pubs are disappearing at an alarming rate as owners recognise that Bexley Council’s primary interest is infrastructure levies and the council tax base and not the overall wellbeing of the borough.

The Coach and Horses in North Cray Road looks likely to go the same way as the Charlotte in Crayford and Belvedere’s Ye Olde Leather Bottle have over the past couple of months.
Pub Planning
Meanwhile, down in Sidcup there is consternation at the prospect of a characterful Edwardian house being demolished.
Sidcup
I don’t think I can add anything to that.

Nearer home but just over the border with Greenwich another monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend is to join the blot on the landscape which is Sainsbury’s Abbey Wood.

Everything you need to know about this proposed dreadful edifice may be found on The Murky Depths blog.

When I first moved to Lower Belvedere in 1987 and was more interested in technology than I have time for now, I was struck by the fact that most people’s television aerials from here to Erith were pointing at Bluebell Hill (Chatham) or in the case of a few optimists, Sudbury (Suffolk), both the home of powerful transmitters. Crystal Palace was blocked for most addresses by the surrounding hills. Fortunately I could see the low powered Woolwich transmitter mast from my front door but as it did not transmit Channel 5 I rigged a large aerial to drag it in from Croydon, from which it came at the time.

Sainsbury’s put an end to that, the TV mast disappeared from view. I’d stopped using it anyway, it only transmits a sub-set of the available Freeview channels and in any case a DIY satellite dish provides a much better signal.

But for anyone in Belvedere or Erith still relying on terrestrial TV from Woolwich, prepare to say goodbye to your favourite programmes.
Carbuncle

Absolutely horrible isn’t it? 30 storeys of ugliness.

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