The Hamlet resurfaced - well nearly!

Modest fanfare - The Hamlet has been resurfaced!

Premature end of fanfare - part of The Hamlet has not been resurfaced!

I was staggered to learn yesterday that although the vast majority of The Hamlet had been resurfaced (after a particularly long-running campaign and over 40 years of deterioration) the section to the left of the entrance from Champion Hill had been ignored by the men with the asphalt last week! This means that those residents at numbers 1 to 8 of The Hamlet have still not seen the benefit of the decision taken by Camberwell Community Council at the end of last year to resurface the road.

After being alterted by local residents to this omission I have been in touch with the Council's roads team and am anxiously awaiting a response as to why this bit of road has been ignored! Hopefully it was just an oversight and this section of the road will be resurfaced this week!

The mystery of how Southwark Council operates continues!

UPDATE - 11 AM

This the text of a reply I have just received to my enquiry -

"Dear Councillor John,

From our pre works inspections we were concerned over the integrity of the existing carriageway which was badly spalled and coming loose in places. In a worst case scenario, if we were obliged to carry out a full depth reconstruction due to the poor condition of the sub strata then we might exceed our £80k budget, if all the roads in the Hamlet were to be treated

We therefore elected to proceed with caution and initially undertake the milling off / excavation and resurfacing of the section from the round about or round the circular route and back to Champion Hill. During the milling off / excavation the condition of the exposed sub strata proved to be in better condition than expected.

Once we had confirmation that the budget was sufficient for the remaining two side roads we instructed the contractor to programme the works, which we expect to be undertaken in April / May. We are intending to letter drop the residents informing them of the slight delay in completing the remaining work."

So it looks like the resurfacing celebrations can go ahead - but not for a few months yet!