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Thames Water incompetence

A month or so ago, I noticed a TW worker painting marks and symbols on the tarmac in our cul-de-sac at 358-372 Lionel Road North. I asked what was happening and he said something about a leak and they would need to close the road and dig up the appropriate pipes etc for repair. I asked how long the work would take and he replied that it should be done in a day. I told him that there were several disabled, elderly, seriously ill people in the road so that they should maintain access for emergency services.  A week or so later, the residents received a letter from Thames Water saying that work would commence on 22nd July and would take 4/5 days. We rang Thames Water to remind them of the issues and waited with some trepidation for work to begin. 22nd July arrived and no activity. In fact no activity and no communication from TW for the next week. Then on Saturday 29th, workmen arrived, closed the street (trapping several of our neighbour’s cars) and started work. Phone calls to TW resulted in them telling us that the work would be completed and the road reopened either later that day or, at the latest, on Sunday 30th July. On Sunday 30th a little more work was done but the road remained closed.  A team did come along and resurfaced a small hole in the pavement but ‘forgot’ to fill in the main hole in the roadway. On Monday, despite more phone calls and messages to TW no progress was made and we were told that we could not talk to anyone higher up in the organisation. Again on Tuesday the same lack of any result. This morning (Wednesday) all the residents had to lug their dustbins and recycling boxes to the top of the road as the lorries couldn’t access the road as they would normally do.Any ideas about how we might get this situation resolved???

Mick Brent ● 1135d8 Comments ● 1134d

Billions of pounds of taxpayers' money wasted on 'active travel' schemes, says watchdog

I’m sure we’re all interested in liar-Lambert’s musings on the future of car ownership – a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy given that his deeply unpopular policies of closing roads and taking parking spaces will surely force some people to give up their cars. We’ve all seen in the last few of weeks how the combination of road works on Windmill Road and the A4 have caused gridlock in the whole of Brentford and this was made 100 times worse by the unnecessary LTN road closures. We’ve all experienced more congested, dangerous and polluted roads and longer journey times – all created deliberately by a council who have no interest in supporting the needs of the majority of its constituents. Interestingly there has been a report published by the National Audit Office that confirms what we all knew – that the LTN schemes were a massive waste of taxpayer money that have achieved precisely NOTHING. There’s a link to the article below but, in summary:“Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash has potentially been wasted on ‘active travel’ schemes such as controversial low-traffic neighbourhoods, according to a report.”“Despite an estimated £3.3billion being spent on delivering such measures between 2016 and 2021, cycling and walking rates fell over that period, the National Audit Office study found.”“It said many were imposed on residents without proper consultation and poorly planned ones have subsequently been scrapped.”Could we hope that LBH will see sense and roll back these horrible schemes? Could individual councillors be surcharged to recover some of the money that has been wasted? We live in hope.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12167319/Ministers-wasted-billions-pounds-taxpayers-money-LTNs-says-watchdog.html

Graham Thorpe ● 1185d24 Comments ● 1153d