At the last Full Council meeting
Leader Teresa O’NeilI expressed her frustraton at the disruption to travel in the
borough caused by a plague of utility road works. I think she might do better to
look at her own policies over the past 18 years.
This morning I needed to be in Pett’s Wood by nine o’clock, a distance of exactly
ten miles from home or 10·3 via Sidcup High Street to avoid the stupid width
restrictor on The Green. I left at eight o’clock precisely and the first six
miles to Sidcup took 49 minutes. Once across the boundary with Bromley it was
plain sailing, four miles in 14 minutes.
The really slow going began at the northern end of Penhill Road where there was
a queue to enter it. Local readers will recognise that I was taking pretty much
the route of the SL3 Express bus. It would have taken at least 25 minutes to get
from Penhill Road to Sidcup. The scheduled time from Bexleyheath Library to Chislehurst station.
There were no utility works, no cones, no temporary traffic lights. The problem
is increased traffic and
junctions
designed to restrict flow. Five minutes might have been saved if Rectory
Lane was closed off. That corner gets blocked because traffic cannot turn
into the Lane because of traffic emerging from it. For those unfamiliar with the
area, it is a single track road with passing places. I have not driven down it
since 2012 when I struggled to get through it in my then new tiny Kia Picanto.
Black sacks were in
evidence on Sidcup High Street again but were gone when I returned 45 minutes later.