Wednesday 11 September 2013

Big Gun enlisted to deliver Conway rocket

Following representations from LVIG and Ladywell traders, Mayor Sir Steve Bullock will on Friday meet representatives of the Ladywell business community - and has invited contractor Conway to attend.  In its recent letter to the Mayor, LVIG Chairman Tony Rich wrote:
" . . . the Ladywell Village Improvement Group has fought hard for, and is strongly supportive of, the Ladywell public realm improvements currently underway . . . We write to you now, however, because we've been notified of further major slippage on the scheme - in particular that Ladywell Road is unlikely to be reopened until the end of October.  This significantly prolongs the disruption to local businesses, residents and others for whom Ladywell Road is the obvious route to work.  Whilst the scheme has experienced some unforeseen disruption I do feel that some of the delays could have been anticipated, obviated and/or minimised by better management of the contract, and the application of greater pressure on Conways to adhere to agreed timescales and to bring in more staff as necessary.  Clearly Ladywell is going to be a better, brighter, place once the works are completed, but I urge you to do everything you can to expedite completion of this project, especially for the sake of the businesses who, if we're not careful, will be out of business before the scheme is completed so will never see the benefit - which would be cruel. Whilst I appreciate you would not normally intervene personally in matters such as this I wonder whether you'd consider, in this instance, meeting with the senior manager at Conways responsible for this scheme to seek assurances in relation to early completion on-site.  The overrun of this scheme is causing a lot of bad feeling locally - which is shame as this is an excellent scheme - so LVIG urges you to do all you can to build bridges: in particular local business would, I am sure, welcome the Council's help in 're-launching' Ladywell, in the week the streetworks end, in the form of flyer, blog, twitter and website publicity so that nobody in SE13/SE4 in unaware that the brighter, better Ladywell is again "open for business".

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The representatives of the Council, (Deputy Mayor Smith apparently, not the sharpest tool in the box (I've met him) will fob people off with constructed excuses (they'll have someone working on those right now) and regrets for delays etc etc.
The problem is that Conways are renowned for poor workmanship and they're locked into the Council as an 'approved supplier' and will have a contract signed in their own interests rather than the interests of the residents (same goes for the CPZ)
Don't expect too much
Paving stones do not a community make

Anonymous said...

Would be nice to have a little communication to the residents as well and not just the businesses. Apparently Slagrove Place is going to be closed on Monday with no thought of how emergency vehicles are going to service residents who live further up - certainly not going to fit through Malyons Terrace. Great organisation and forward thinking !!

Anonymous said...

removing the central pedestrian refuge at the main road junction - and apparently with no intention to replace it because of the road narrowing, is an accident waiting to happen, and there will be an accident sooner or later - I wonder how the 'architects' of this scheme will react when it does happen?

val said...

Still like to know if there's a penalty clause, and why businesses have not been given full business rate relief for their massive losses, instead of a measly 10%.

Geoffrey said...

An extended session at the Ladywell Ward Assembly last Thursday (3rd) led to a bit more information: Ladywell Road open mid October; pavement works finished end November. Good to see that the refuge has been replaced a the Algernon Road junction; apparently there's going to be one at the Chudleigh Road junction as well. Will make it interesting for the 284, I'm sure.
The man from Skanska street lighting replacement programme failed to appear.
And the police said they will be carrying out speed checks, following up with enforcement,on Vicar's Hill when the roadworks have finished.