13 February - Under Labour there is no money. Not yet anyway
I was on my way home from Bexleyheath
this afternoon sitting in the front seat of a bus and staring at my phone like a
teenager and became aware that the bus had stopped. Not at a stop and with no traffic
in front of it. A moment later the reason became clear. The driver eased his bus
into what must have been an enormous pothole and as he did so there was a loud
bang. Several passengers cried out in alarm as the front of the bus dropped into the hole.
It was on Brampton Road just before the Knee Hill traffic lights and presumably a Greenwich Council responsibility.
Definitely in Bexley, or Sidcup to be more precise is a similar hole which is a
month or more old. A resident (@tony again) sent the picture to his Councillor and Richard Diment replied as follows.
Despite the claims being made by the Labour Party, the council has still not
been given final details of the settlement for road maintenance for 2025/26.
The total does not appear to be materially more than was allocated by the
previous Government for 2024/25 but all councils have been told that 25% of
the money will be held back and only released if performance criteria have
been met. The details of those performance criteria have not, or at least
certainly hadn’t up to a couple of days ago, been given to councils. The
other point I would make is that any money for the 2025/26 settlement will
not be released until after 1 April so is not yet available for spending.
I heard exactly the same message from the Highways Manager. Despite the Labour Government’s
doorstep campaign message (Click to expand image 2) there is as yet no money
available for pothole fixing. Greenwich is likely to be in the same boat. Maybe literally after rain.
Note: BiB has a couple of problems at present which are
taking up too much time. The Litigious Liar is on the prowl again and not
unconnected is that I discovered a coding problem affecting nearly 4,000 pages.
It won’t affect readers - won’t be seen at all - but it does stop me editing
them. The pedant in me wants to see those pages fixed sooner rather than later.
I have an idea for a quick fix. It may work, but it may not!