Friday 1 February 2013

Darnley Road bridge fiasco

One of the big problems that has blighted Strood has been the Railway bridge on Darnley Road. This has become a site of serious congestion but was to be rectified this past Christmas.

Network rail, who had to repair the rail bridge anyway, closed the road at Christma and the Council were supposed to link in the widening scheme at the same time so as to keep the road closures to a minimum, after all they do cause a lot of vexation for everyone.

The council were also granted £500k by Morrison's to assist in the widening works with the proviso it was done by August next year. So what went wrong?

No one is quite sure. Network rail did their work and neatly shut up shop, there were no works carried out by the Council despite £154,000 having been spent on planning.

Local Lib dem Parish Councillor Andrew Millsom, a structural engineer by trade raised questions at last week's full Council meeting as to what has gone wrong - following up with the scathing question of;

Who will be lead an investigation into how this blunder occurred? Will the report show persons culpable and what action will be taken against them?

Cllr Filmer (con) argued that they were dealing with consultants to try and sort the situation and this is certainly not a blunder.

Further to that Cllr Chitty (con) stated The bridge replacement had to take priority. saying that it was in poor condition and It was a matter of health and safety.

However, Cllr Juby (libdem) told our Executive committee back in September last year that he had learned the bridge would be out of commission over the Christmas period - so the Council knew that the bridge would be out which begs the question;

Why had they not moved at the same time?

Andrew, who is an engineering consultant in his professional life. described the council's actions as incompetence.

If i did what they're doing I doubt many people would be using my consultancy services again.

Watch this space for further developments!

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