The will they won’t they saga of Medway Council and the demolition of the Sir John Hawkins flyover in Chatham Town centre continues to rumble on. In December 2007 the council announced it’s second U turn with the decision that the flyover would be coming down after all. Now that they (the conservatives) have another term in office following the elections in Autumn the need to appease local businesses is clearly no longer so important.
I have posted about it a few times before here, here and here. My predictions as to the flyovers demise have so far come to pass. As an example of local authority deceit, bungling, mismanagement and reckless use of public money this carry on must rank up there with the best of them (wait though there are more to come).
I’m still puzzled as to how anything the council have done or say they are planning to do is going to make the slightest difference in terms of freeing up the town centre and opening up the riverside. The flyover is just one section of the so called “concrete collar” and as far as I know there have been no plans announced to do anything about the road that actually cuts the town centre off from the riverside.
The links below are the BBC’s coverage of the story.
06 March 2006 Works to loosen ‘concrete collar’
20 March 2006 Work to free town centre begins
15 September 2006 Disruption in two-way road switch
17 September 2006 Road closures for two-way switch
18 September 2006 Drivers face two-way road switch
17 November 2006 Traders threaten to blockade town
04 January 2007 Calls to save Chatham’s flyover
05 January 2007 Flyover risk to building society
10 April 2007 Campaign to save flyover steps up
11 September 2007 Council U-turn over town flyover
18 December 2007 Flyover makes way for bus station
