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News and Comment April 2019

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10 April (Part 2) - The North South Divide

As residents of Abbey Wood and Thamesmead will know, it has not been easy to get around the area by road for several years and especially the last two when Bexley Council took over from Crossrail as the principal architect of chaos.

Harrow ManorwayThis week they have excelled themselves. Eastern Way, the dual carriageway town bypass that runs from Plumstead bus garage to Erith has been closed east of Harrow Manorway. Not just lane restricted as one would expect of a Council with a ha’porth of sense but all four carriageways at the same time. The excuse offered is central reservation repairs.

The diversion is via Harrow Manorway which is cone restricted to half its proper width and into Yarnton Way which is also lane restricted via a roundabout which can barely be seen for cones. People are reporting five minute journeys taking forty or more with tailbacks to the bus garage on one side and Abbey Wood station on the other.

This photo was taken mid-afternoon today.

On Facebook some are asking who could be so irresponsible as to inflict so much damage on the local economy and asking for his head.

Maybe the answer is Bexley’s Head of Highway Services Andrew Bashford. The same Andrew Bashford who as a mere Team Leader effectively created Bexley-is-Bonkers by lying to me about Abbey Road which he decided should be made so narrow in 2009 that buses do not pass each other on the Lesnes Abbey stretch.

Andrew Bashford told me that his road design was compliant with Transport Research Laboratory guidance on how to safely make roads narrower. Unfortunately for Andrew Bashford he was unaware that the Senior Road Safety Consultant at TRL at the time was my own son. He passed his own judgment on Andrew Bashford’s road designing skills.

Only at a local authority would someone caught out so spectacularly be promoted.

The photo below was posted on Facebook by Danni Değirmenci. It shows the roundabout at the northern end of Harrow Manorway looking towards Abbey Wood station. Progress is so slow that people are driving over the central reservation in order to find another route, but I don’t think there is another route. Maybe they are just going back home.

LBC radio has been featuring the Council inflicted problem on their news bulletins.

Bexley Council plans to create this chaos for the whole of this month and into May. It should be fun when the schools reopen after Easter. One despairs for the intellect of some public servants.
Roundabout jammed solid

 

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