I understand there was a horrible accident on Bugsby’s Way yesterday, between a pedestrian and a 486 bus, at the crossroads where the Odeon is. The Twitter feeds I saw claimed it was fatal, and if so I am thinking of that person’s relatives today, and what they must  be going through. I can’t imagine what that must be like or what I could say to make it any better at all.

Thing is, though, this isn’t the first accident there by any means. Jon tells me that  “this happened 3 weeks ago at the same spot with a 108 bus and a pedestrian” but despite the air ambulance’s attendance there “was no mention in the local papers or anywhere else” – certainly it wasn’t mentioned here as I didn’t know about it. Nor did I know about  the incident a year ago at same spot when a school girl was hit by a bus.

Clearly the proverbial ‘something’ needs to be done about this junction. There’s certainly a very odd piece of road management for car drivers coming from the direction of the O2 and wanting to turn right to go to B&Q /Sainsburys/Comet/ Odeon, where the ‘obvious’ place to turn is actually a bus-only lane; drivers are required to take the one immediately left of that. It is marked with No Entry signs, but isn’t clear if you’re seeing the junction for the first time and I’ve seen dozens of cars taking the wrong route over the years. I’ve never made that mistake myself (though I have accidentally driven down the bus lane on West Parkway thanks to duff signage) but I have to stop and think every time.

But this wasn’t between a car and a bus, as far as I know, but a pedestrian. Now, part of the problem could be pedestrians jay-walking because there’s a long wait between green men, or because there’s only an official crossing between GMV and the retail park on one side – if you’re coming from, say, Moseley Row and wanting to cross on the side near Holiday Inn, it’s pretty tempting to nip across the bit that doesn’t have a proper crossing. I know I’ve done it on occasion, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

According to Jon, even that’s not the issue. He lives at GMV and tells me that he watches, day in, day out, buses speeding and running red lights. If it’s that, then short of cameras at the traffic lights to catch people doing that (and I’m not even sure if it counts for buses?) then I’m a bit stuck.

Whatever, yesterday’s tragic incident is the third in two years. With building resuming on the peninsula, this really needs to be looked at.

Whenever something’s proposed for Greenwich (or indeed the rest of London),  developers these days always virtuously cite their consultations with local focus groups, client teams, stakeholders, ‘local residents’, interest groups, committees and a whole host of other unnamed people who’ve apparently had their two penn’orth on the final plans.

I find myself wondering who makes up these groups, how they’re chosen and how much say these representatives of the rest of us actually have.

So today I’m curious. Are you on any kind of focus group/committee/stakeholder’s forum or interest group? How did you get on it? Do you think you have any notice taken of you? Have you had any personal influence? Or do you feel you’re a mere fig leaf for the developer’s embarrassing parts?

I don’t necessarily need details, either of yourself or your project, it’s just a question I’m throwing out to the ether this morning.

Okay – so as you can see from Joe’s pic here, stuff IS happening at the Heart of East Greenwich site. Whether they’re actually doing anything useful or just moving earth around to abide by rules that say they have to be seen to have started by a particular date is yet to be seen, but at least something’s happening. From a distance, this photo looks like a lovely cornfield, but obviously it’s just your bog-standard  urban brownfield site.

You’d have thought you could do anything with a site like that, wouldn’t you? You’re starting afresh – a blank canvas, carte-blanche, virgin territory and other such clichés. You could say you wanted a this, a that or a something else and it would be doable, because there’s nothing there to stop you, yeah?

No, apparently.

I’ve been hearing about the young divers at Greenwich Swimming Club. As most people know, the new leisure centre at our blank canvas site will have two pools – a splash-around fun /teaching pool and a serious ‘fitness’ pool. Perfect for the club, eh?

Er, no.

Elaine, one of the swimmers’ mums, explains:

So many people have told me about the consultation for the proposed TfL crossing proposals that I guess I should at least start a discussion here about them though of course Darryl at 853 has already said much sound stuff about it already.

I confess I’m finding it hard to get worked up about it myself. Not because I think it’s a particularly good idea – I don’t – it’s just going to send the bottleneck from one part of the A2 to another part – but because I sincerely think it’s never going to happen. It’s just been introduced as another random mad idea by Boris a couple of months before – oh, yes, I remember – an election.

Let’s face it – we haven’t got the cash. He cancelled a bridge – which costs a hell of a lot less than a tunnel – ostensibly on financial grounds (though it’s not hard to guess the real reason) and nigh on four years after that fiasco, we have even less money. Ken disapproves of the idea. So – Boris can’t afford it and Ken would cancel it anyway.

I can’t help feeling that this is a battle that we don’t actually need to knock ourselves out on – like the periodic pedestrianisation-of-Greenwich-Town-Centre plans that rock up every so often this is a chestnut that rears its head every few years, then, just when everyone’s got themselves lathered up, ducks itself down again like one of those intermittent faults you get in car engines.

Of course, I know I’m going to be shot down in flames for such complacency. I just can’t help feeling we’ve been here before – several times – and now is just a little early to start mounting the barricades.

Tickets will be available in ten years’ time for Ye Grande Phantome Tricorn-Eating event…

I Say asks:

Are local dog owners going to be instructed to get their act together before the Olympics? The area around The Royal Standard is dreadful; in the last week I have seen 3 full plastic bags of dog poo left at the side of the pavement, what/who do the dog owners expect to remove these? I have given up looking at the sky as the pavements are often fouled,  with the pavement immediately outside Simply Food in Old Dover Road being a regular target. When the park is closed the Heath and surrounding roads and pavements will become even worse…

The Phantom replies:

I confess I hadn’t really noticed the area around the Standard being particularly bad for dog mess but it does seem to be an issue all over the town. In West Greenwich vigilante groups have been painting signs on pavements and neighbouring Lewisham have even had entire events based around this antisocial practice (though I have to say that, being a puerile Phantom I found the local paper’s listing rather amusing – soz…)

Thing is, I suspect that the people reading this post are not the people who are allowing their dogs to foul footpaths. If you’re interested enough in your area to read a blog about it, it’s unlikely you’re going to mess it up.

What’s the answer?

An anonymous reader asks:

What is your take on the subject of flowers/t-shirts/candles/photos being left at the site of a traffic accident? I’m all for the ‘ghost bikes’ as they make a very pertinent point about public safety on the highways and of course, everyone needs to grieve, but after more than two years on I can’t help feeling tributes would be better suited to a more appropriate memorial venue. I know it’s a highly sensitive subject matter – and I certainly wouldn’t want to offend family & friends, but when does a public highway cease being such and instead become a personal memorial?

Hmm – an interesting question and one that I honestly don’t know my feelings on. I, too, would like to know what people’s opinion is on this most sad of subjects. It’s a painful time for the people who have been directly – or indirectly – affected by the death of cyclists on London’s and, more locally, Greenwich’s roads – and we do have the depressing ‘honour’ of several such memorials.

How long do you think they should stay, though? If they are being constantly refreshed and are clearly being cared for, does that make a difference?

I can’t help feeling that the fact that there hasn’t been a new ghost bike for a while (thank heavens) could be partially due to the ‘reminders’ we have at dangerous junctions (after all, no real change has been made to safety provision in that time at those places). But is there a point when the streets should be refreshed and mourning become a more private affair?

Ruairi asks:

The big one’s coming this weekend. The Six Nations is starting and I hear the Queen is putting on some fireworks in Greenwich to celebrate.

As an Irish Greenwichian I am particularly grateful that she has decided to put the display on just after the Wales-Ireland match on Sunday.

I have explained this to rugby type friends who have decided to make the huge trek south of the river to experience the occasion. So, dear Phant, I am looking for suggestions for the best pub to watch the match in Greenwich before running out to the victory fireworks?

The Phantom replies

Congratulations on persuading your friends to venture South into the badlands…

Well, if the Plume of Feathers in Park Vista is showing the match, it’s a good pub and very close to two entrances of the park. That would be my personal choice.

Failing that you could try Hardy’s on Traf Road – it will be a different experience – probably a bit louder. There are sadly no pubs up Maze Hill or Crooms Hill any more – though there used to be – both the George and the Green Man are long gone. I guess there’s the Greenwich Park Bar & Grill, or whatever they’re calling the former Gloucester Arms this week, just across from the St Mary’s Gate entrance, though I don’t know if they have a TV. The Kings Arms, a little further down has one, though, I believe. The Tolly is probably a little too far for the dash.

No – for my money it’s the Plume every time…

BTW I understand that the park will be open until 6.30pm on Sunday to allow for Royal Fireworks.

Photos courtesy of the mysterious “Shaw” who lives in a little 70s timewarp, though of course in the 70s these angels would have had the traditional dirty faces…

I still haven’t seen the revealed cherubs in all their gaudy splendour yet, but they certainly look, um, clean. Perhaps the colour change is most stark from a distance:

For some reason I thought the whole portico was being cleaned, rather than the only things that, arguably, shouldn’t have been. Perhaps that bit will come later. Certainly the whole of the East end could do with a spruce up. But it’s certainly a church of many colours at the moment, what with the gleaming tower, grubby main building and gleaming cherubs. Shaw tells me there’s a layer of mottled paint around the bases to add an extra part of the spectrum.

It was always going to be a tough call cleaning the sad cherubs. Personally, I wouldn’t have bothered – surely by now the dirt would formed some kind of protective layer on their poor, withered faces. Scrubbing them up seems to have made them only look even more vulnerable. I guess cleaning the rest of the portico might make them look a little less ‘stand-out.’

Just to remind you, this is what the pitiful putti looked like before the transformation:

and here is Shaw’s pic of the newly-revealed version:

Based on the flashes I got on Wednesday and these pictures, I’m really not sure about how the sad cherubs have turned out. But hey – perhaps they look better in real life…

ZZZZ asks:

Are you aware of the Maze Hill rail works nightmare? Every night now for two weeks pneumatic drilling late on. I appreciate works have to happen but surely this is a no-trains day activity rather than through the night. Would it be possible to post something asking people to call Greenwich Noise Team on 0208 9218921. Perhaps if we all complain something can be done?

Yes, I’ve been following Mary Mills’s efforts on Twitter (@maryorelse ) and the total inability of (I assume) Network Rail to keep to any promises about at least making an effort to be quiet. And certainly pneumatic drills in the middle of the night seem a bit much.

This is an interesting debate though – and I suspect that much of where you stand on this is whether you live close enough to be affected by the noise or far enough away to be affected by lack of trains at a weekend – and if this has been going on for a fortnight already, presumably that’s a lot of weekends.

When should rail work be done?

Okay, starting oblique here, but stay with me.

Barbara loves Blackheath Halls and loves being part of the group dedicated to keeping it going despite sundry cuts. And they’re doing incredible things. She tells me that recently the Halls persuaded Farrow & Ball to donate paint for the building in return for advertising and she asks:

“Why not the Arches? Every woman I know agrees the Arches needs an uplift in terms of inspiring decor.”

Barbara wants to start a campaign to decorate the Arches and knowing the council are stretched financially, to find other ways to do fund it. She is wondering whether people would want to get involved. She says “obviously we first need to get the council to agree to such a campaign and then form an action committee,” but asks “is there support out there, could you find out? I mentioned the idea at the Curious Comb and everyone nodded in favour.”

I doubt you’ll find many people who wouldn’t nod, Barbara – you’re not wrong that the Arches is in a terrible state. The ghostly apparition of  mythical new facilities at the still-barren Heart of East Greenwich have put paid to anything but the most basic remedial work being done on the Arches, however long we may find ourselves waiting and yes, the place is falling apart around sporty-people’s ears.

Of course there’s a big difference between Blackheath Halls and the Arches. At the risk of looking a terrible stereotypist, I have to point out that Blackheath Halls is a highbrow cultural centre in a well-heeled area largely patronised by Farrow & Ball’s target market. There’s an easy place to trumpet the company’s support, in the programmes to the various events. The Arches is a local council-run sports facility in East Greenwich I suspect Farrow & Ball would have difficulty in placing on the map whose programme of weekly classes is a photocopied sheet of A4.

If the will is there, then there’s no reason in theory why it shouldn’t work, though – and let’s face it, all that painting would provide some excellent upper-arm workouts. It’s just a matter of working out who would benefit from being seen to help the Arches when trying to get commercial support. Target the sort of companies that appeal to people who like exercise and activity – outdoor companies, DIY, professional suppliers –  B&Q, Wickes, Brewers, Selco etc., for whom word-of-mouth is more important than glossy ads and it’s possible they’ll be interested.

So – is anyone interested in joining Barbara to give the Arches a spring-clean? It’s possible they’ll be with us for some time yet…