Once again Thames Water sorry Turd Water has caused gridlock in SE23. Due to them doing roadworks and reducing the Waldram Park Road down to one way traffic with controlled lights by the railway bridge for the third time now.

Due to the chaos with the traffic it took me over twenty minutes on the bus to get from Horniman Museum to Waldram Crescent were it terminated and had to get the following bus to Catford on my return from Ladywell with heavy shopping got the P4 back to try and avoid the South Circular and took over 30 minutes from Honor Oak Road (Benson Road) to get to Horniman Park stop

Local Authorities such as Lewisham Council just hand out highway permits like confetti willy nilly and the public has to put up with the total incompetent of Turd Water as they are NOT fit for purpose as their can't manage their network sufficiently the many other times locally they have failed to repair their pipes like Honor Oak was closed for about two weeks and dug and left unattended for two days. Also the bottom of my road the pipe burst twice and was closed for about three weeks in total and again the residents had to used a unmade private road unfit for vehicles to used and cause damage to them and no large emergency vehicles such as fire engines could get access due to the layout of the road and putting residents at severe risk to lives. Also in the quiet part of Stanstead Road were pipes was been replaced the site was left unattended for large parts of the time sometimes for over a week.

I am fed up with Thames Water and their total incompetent managing their network and are withholding my Water bill if only 10% of the Forest Hill population did the same this would cause an bigger backlog of courts appearances. It would make them think how they could improve the service

These water directors who are on £2m per year but does not supply an sufficient service and are totally unfit to run the business Also the Head of the Lewisham Council Highways Department needs to be held to account for their actions and should have the power to charge their companies by the hour for road closures of say £250,00 per hour and £2m deposit.

Everyone SE23 resident should contact by E-mail or phone the three 'invisible' useless ward councillors and complaint about Thames Water performance.

Councillor Peter Bernards
Bus. phone: 020 8314 9927 Email: peter.bernards@lewisham.gov.uk
Councillor Sophie Davis
Bus. phone: 0208 314 3493 Email: Sophie.Davis@lewisham.gov.uk
Councillor Billy Harding
Bus. phone: 0208 3147966 Email: Billy.Harding@lewisham.gov.uk

Rant over

And that's after Thames Water dug up another part of the South Circular at Dulwich Common at the Lordship Lane junction where temporary lights were on until Thursday afternoon causing traffic along London Road towards Dulwich.

It’s strange, that having given some detail of Thames Water and its failures, to assert the reason for being inconvenienced on a bus is the fault of three hard working local councillors. And then to call for people to harass them seems to suggest a need for some anger control.

Given the broad range of failing services at the moment - water, power supplies, transport, housing, plus the cost of living - none of these would seem to be the responsibility of the Council at all.

The problem with having a rant is that it can be unnecessarily accusatory if not downright rude.

I’m sorry that a bus was delayed, but looking at the bigger picture might be more informative

Large parts of SE London have been "inconvenienced" by Thames Water works since early 2022, however it's worth noting that the works are frequently undertaken by third party contractors, those that dig up and re-instate roads and pavements. Thames Water only deal with the repairs to the pipework and I guess it is likely that contactors may also do some of those actions.

SE23 has experienced a larger number of instantices where Thames Water have had to take remedial actions to fix and restore the water supply, the most recent occasion in memory being under the railway bridge over the S.Circular just before Waldram Park. Due to the clay around here SE23 is more susceptible to water outages.

You said "Local Authorities such as Lewisham Council just hand out highway permits like confetti willy nilly" can you evidence that statement??

I'd suggest contacting Thames Water, raising your concerns with them and see what explanations they provide and if dissatisfied with the response escalating it with Thames Water, they have an excellent complaints department who investigate and respond appropriately.

Perhaps, council officers should be out more checking that permits are being used appropriately and works are being undertaken????

In terms of withholding your bill payment, sure you'll eventually get a court summons but also a visit from the bailiffs, is it really worth the aggro, probably NOT.

In terms of the councillors, they perform their roles alongside, I suspect holding down 9-5 jobs to make a living. IMO I think it is unfair to criticise the councillors as all they are able to do is highlight issues to the council officers who effectively through their roles run the council on a daily basis, plus the staff on the ground who actually do the things which keep the council doing what they do every day.

I totally sympathise with you about the delays you experienced, however once the works are done Thames Water will move onto their next job wherever that maybe. The amount of traffic at certain times of the day unfortunately cannot be averted and also contribute to the delays.

It's worth noting that the two times Waldram Cresent/Waldram Park Road has been dug up, those roads are managed by Transport for London rather than Lewisham Council, so it'd be TfL's roads division that give the permits.

The whole A205 is managed by TfL.

" ...the three 'invisible' useless ward councillors... "

Just to take this little bit in isolation, from my experience, I have found all three of these councillors to be very approachable and keen to help local residents and businesses - and if anyone would like to meet them, I believe they're still doing their 'surgeries' on alternate Saturdays at 11am at the Forest Hill library.

My personal experience of councillors is that they are very approachable and hard-working for the benefit of the community.

Problems with Thames Water are the result of a very strange attitude to the water infrastructure. I am not an expert, but I think most of London's water pipes are rusting away and are in urgent need of replacement.

And sit in clay which is lumpy when damp/wet and shrinks when dry causing pipes in the ground to burst. TW are "slowly" replacing the old pipes with new blue plastic piping, but it takes time and effort to do the replacement, currently one road at a time. We were partly done down one side of the road in late 2021/early 2022.