22 March (Part 2) - Drive into Abbey Wood’s Wilton Road at your peril, there may be no way out
The Gayton Road regeneration project has been moving
on rapidly and the goal posts refuse to stay still. At Bexley’s Transport User’s Sub-Committee meeting just over a week ago the Highways Manager
said it would be closed for four weeks causing Wilton Road to be made two-way. A
local Councillor was told that a turning circle would be provided outside the Abbey Arms pub.
Both
of those things are wide of the mark. Gayton Road will close on 1st April for
up to six weeks and the turning circle will be a space for three point turns at the
entrance to the telephone exchange. It is a recipe for total chaos especially for the cab company.
Except for outside Occasions where parking will be restricted to allow for three point
turns, parking arrangements will continue as usual. Two big cars with less than confident drivers and
the result will be instant gridlock extending into Abbey Road and Knee Hill.
You may note that the date on the No Parking notice is for five weeks not six.
So that is three guesses Bexley Council has made, four, five and six weeks!
What about the lorries that deliver to WH Smiths and McColls each morning?
How will they get out of a narrow cul-de-sac? At least the 244 bus is on diversion. It will no longer terminate and
wait ten minutes outside the Community Centre but according to a Council source will go around the roundabout and
back the way it came. If it waits ten minutes on the flyover we are well and truly stuffed.
What about the passengers who wait on Knee Hill? Well somehow they will have to
get themselves up to the flyover bus stop a quarter of a mile away. With luck the lifts will be back in service by
1st April but don’t count on it.
Nearby
residents have supposedly been notified but it is not them who will be most
affected. As of this afternoon some of the traders had received a similar letter.
Their businesses have been under concerted attack since 2013.
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