22 November - Bexley. One very inconsiderate Council
I suppose it must be getting on for twenty years since I first noticed Bexley
Council’s preference for closing roads completely when it could almost as easily
be kept open and I wondered if it might be for Health & Safety reasons;
however I have come around to thinking that the real reason is that Bexley and Councils more generally make
no attempt whatsoever to consider the inconveniences they impose on the people
who pay their inflated salaries if it makes their own working lives easier.
New
Road in Abbey Road is closed again for two weeks for the second time in a
handful of months. Once again the reason is gas works at the top end, but is total closure necessary?
New Road resident Roger Keene has drawn my attention to
his Facebook post but his comments need to be given wider publicity.
The loss of three bus routes and nearly 30 buses an hour has a significant
impact on Abbey Wood and Belvedere. TfL re-routed the 469 to give Upper
Belvedere a direct link to the Elizabeth line. Now it is diverted into Plumstead
which makes it an unnecessarily slow journey. A disabled lady in New Road now
has a long walk which includes the Gayton Road stairs to get a 301/B11 into
Bexleyheath. Only this afternoon I had to tell someone waiting for a bus outside
the Community Centre in Knee Hill that he would have a very long wait if he stayed there.
Bexley Council really doesn’t care and would prefer that we blamed the gas
company’s contractor, but to do so would not be fair.
JDT, the contractor has told Roger that they didn’t need a road closure, it was
Bexley Council that insisted on it.
Three days after closure there is no obvious sign that work has commenced and
Bexley Council has yet to respond to an email asking why they demanded a closure
that the contractor did not ask for.
Can there be any doubt that Conservative Bexley Council works against residents’ best interests?
