Southern Gas takes a breaker to Deptford's new pavements

Remember all those weeks of inconvenience we suffered when the pavements just north of Douglas Way were being renovated? Well this morning it felt like a bit of a deja vu moment as I walked down the high street to find more bloody barriers blocking the pavements and some chap with a jack-hammer carelessly breaking up all the brand new paving stones outside the Vietnamese cafe.

I'll admit I was a little surprised to witness the level of destruction being let loose - why they couldn't just lever up the paving stones and set them aside for the reinstatement work I don't know. It seemed like an awful lot of noise and brute force for such a task.

Utilities companies are in fact required to reinstate anything they dig up to the same standard and quality of work as it was before, in a reasonable timescale. They are supposed to use materials of similar, or better, quality. I trust that Lewisham Council is going to inspect the reinstatement work, when it actually happens, and ensure that it meets these criteria.

So Southern Gas if you are reading this, that means you can't just dump some asphalt in the hole and run over it a few times with a roller. Although I'm sure you're not entertaining any such notions...