The Western Gate

Ladbroke Grove / Harrow Road. (It should be pointed out to anyone not from London it is pronounced Lad Brook – not Lad Broke, even though that is how it is spelled)

It were by my reckoning the eighth time in as many months that the crossroads between Ladbroke Grove and Harrow Road was subject to intrusive road works impacting the already normal congested flow of traffic. The reasons this time were given as essential waterworks, essentially this was the fourth excuse this year of the same essential necessity to the ill-fated essential water pipes under that doomed thoroughfare, the other excuses in previous works being essential gas works (x3) and essential sewage pipe upgrade.
The traffic cone’ers and barricade blockers were sneaky, they had put out the snakelike barriers and flow direction obstructions during the Notting Hill carnival, the locals assuming it was traffic calming measures for carnival, however were perplexed long after carnival had finished, long after the mountain of laughing gas canisters and polystyrene jerk chicken containers had been swept from the kerbsides and from the great Union canal that strode under the grove. Days after the swathe of graffiti sprayed hoardings that barricaded the houses and shopfronts had been dismantled, but still the crossroads was subject to restriction, up went the signs warning of delays, in came the temporary traffic lights requiring four single flows of traffic on the crossroads.

It was more than some could take as various cars ignored the red light and thus found themselves facing cars coming the opposite way on account of being given the green light, it was now a question of who should reverse which was usually chosen by who had the biggest car or the biggest flex of muscle as opposed to who actually went correctly on the green light. This created a huge backlog and congestion of traffic, not least impairing the use of any emergency vehicles trying to get to somewhere or another, fire engines stuck by Sainsbury’s turn off unable to progress to the small house fire, that now likely had turned into an inferno which radiated heat to adjacent houses, Ambulances stuck trying to reach a road traffic accident caused no doubt by the same jam and irate road rage activists that impeded their progress.

The traffic jam stalled its way down Ladbroke Grove even past the distant rail station where beggars proffered for loose change, apparently to “buy a cup of tea” as opposed to the palmful cache destined for some crack cocaine. That awful substance whose nightmarish comedowns are only appeased by another inhalation of the promise of a mind orgasm that lasted only as long as the poor soul could muster themselves back to the train station to try and get the next clutch of change to offset the inevitable and soon to come dread comedown.
All down the grove looking up towards the crossroads, cars would be seen to u-turn, veering off towards Portobello road and eventually over towards the Great Western Road area to try and find a ‘quicker’ route (It should be pointed out to anyone not from London it is pronounced Porta Bella – not Porto Bello, even though that is how it is spelled).
Some of the stalled motors and buses, lorries and vans would turn into the area of Latimer road and perhaps espy the mausoleum that is Grenfell tower, clad in cheap inflammable exterior, signed off by petty criminals in the shape of counsellors and town planners, none of whom, those brothers on the square, in the know, in the club and circle, hush hush nod n wink, have been arrested. The simple man in his simple car now furious that time is wasted does not reflect on his position as he hurtles past the doomed tower block, even though he himself would be arrested immediately if his hands caused the slightest grievance or injury to somebody, no, his mind fixed on replacing those lost minutes whilst sitting, blood pressure rising, anxiety increasing, finger wheel tapping, in traffic in the Grove.

Questions are asked of course, none are given. People at bus stops mumble and comment, raise eyebrows to the vacant sky and perhaps even dare to express their disdain to the stranger next to them.

The service pipes under those lamented crossroads have been serviced so much they must be gleaming, they must be the cleanest sewage, gas and water pipes in the country, one would hope. But still up comes the tarmac, in come the builders in orange hi visibility clothing to crowd around the solitary worker drawn the short straw who works every five minutes in the hour, watched by those workmates discussing last nights football or tv trap having another smoke break or drinking weak builders tea bought from the local corner shop by that only worker who seemingly does the work, when he’s not having a break, or getting the teas.

It took some time for action to be taken, and as a great work of community art once commented, and let us remind ourselves, when commentary and analysis are proffered by the acceptable classes it is literature, when it is ranted by the ‘common and dismissed’ it is graffiti, “How many times must we knock before someone opens the door” said the spray can announcement, But eventually an enquiry was set up. Why does the ill fated Ladbroke Grove/Harrow Road intersection suffer with so much and have so many remedial or essential repairs?
Of course there would be a preview meeting, a few steering committees, a few additional consultation brainstorming sessions, perhaps some other review meetings with the promise of getting the process into gear over some flasks of filtered coffee in flasks that either dribble or gush, and plates of heart burning shortbread biscuits, if the attendees were lucky they might attend the final meetings held in posher spaces with polished tables and sandwiches served on silver platters, prawn, salmon and such like, and still, let us not forget, the man to do the work has not dotted a single ‘i’ nor crossed a single ‘t’, awaiting the go ahead from the crowd of workers above him, not dressed in hi-viz P.P.E. But starched suits n ties and power dressing garments, all huffing puffing, murmuring and stroking each others egos.
The waiting game was over, alike the still humming cars and tooting white van delivery drivers falling short on their slave driven agenda and quota it was agreed and finance appropriated from the pot of money from the “small rise” in the council tax to employ a certain Mr. Beaker to carry out the audit/investigation and present at another meeting his findings using as many pie charts and PowerPoint presentations as he could muster to justify his time effort and substantial renumeration.
It, of course, took a while, there was much liaising with the Gas company, Water work people, Sewage consultants and all these discussions would need to be got, sat down, in some meeting room or another and perhaps data collated to be presented from the utility companies to that Mr.Beaker at a later date and meeting.

Assembled then, at last ! they sat. The counsellors and town planners, the members of parliament, the advisory commitee and other entities from concerns that do not concern us here.
Mr.Beaker fired up the laptop projecting his analysis and data and all the times and frequencies of the works at Ladbroke Grove/Harrow Road, for all to see. This information gained from extensive searches and meetings with the utility companies. A consultant of course, as is oft said, will ask to borrow your watch and then charge you when you ask for the time. In other words, everything Beaker was illuminating was information obtainable by anyone, except it would mean those asking for the information would have to do the work. Delegation! Like asking the poor sod with the pick axe to get the teas, it’s how management works after all.

Mr.Beaker didn’t care of course, in his time of compiling his report he had generated more work for himself from the utility companies. Gas works wanted him to work out how to make efficient cuts to its staff. This was easy simply half the number of manual workers and employ a few more taskmasters and managers to offset the confusion, of course this would need to be presented in as many pie charts and PowerPoint presentations as he could assemble. It would involve his clipboard and Mont Blanc pen and to monitor the workers who, being monitored, would work 30%harder compare to previous work logs and ‘Key Performance Indicating’ databases and thus give Beaker recourse immediately to slash the workforce by a third.

The waterworks people also commandeered his services at a later date in order to revitalise their call centre. A costly centre on the edge of Wembley in a new breeze-block building fitted with expensive Herman Miller chairs and carpets that generate enough static electricity to give any Van der Graf generator from an early Frankenstein film a run for its money.
Beaker merely had to dig out a previous survey of a similar exercise and rewrite/edit it. Inevitably it resulted in giving the contract, outsourcing, to a call centre, based elsewhere, like India for example. The beauty being many complainants give up their concerns due to the exasperating trial of not being understood or continually passed from one adviser to another.

Mr Beaker delivered his verdict (as gained from the information the Gas people, the sewage works and the waterworks had told him. )
The initial necessity of digging up the crossroads to repair the gas pipes was caused by disturbance and fracture of its infrastructure by the upgrade works of the previous sewage pipe upgrade and reinforcement.
The following work- the next time that the crossroads was disrupted;- essential maintenance to the water pipes was a result of disturbance in the supporting ground caused by the previous gas works maintenance as a result of the sewage pipe upgrade.
Of course these works then intrusively impacted on the stability of the nearby water pipes which necessitated Ladbroke Grove/Harrow Road being dug up in order to strengthen the subsoil and repair a resulting slight fracture in the pipe.
And so the ‘damming’ report went on, each repair and essential maintenance as a result previous works causing the damage. It was like a game of leapfrog, where each obstacle had previously been the victim.
O course, this was both embarrassing and needed immediate action from the planners, perhaps by retaining Mr.Beakers services to coordinate a viable workable plan to end the ceaseless cycle of disruption. This involved a major work enforcement program, the crossroads would not only need to be barriered and single lanes set in motion by use of temporary traffic lights but in fact, the whole crossroads would need to be shut off …entirely. The area would be ‘no go’ for at least a fortnight. It was colossal, diversions in place, massive traffic jams in the surrounding area, the police and every authority that had been authorised to be of authority were offered a right to authorise the action.
But it was essential and finale. To end once and for all the cyclic repetition of the troublesome embarrassment of the continual closures of Ladbroke Grove / Harrow Road crossroads.
Well, Sainsburys reported a massive loss in revenue when the major works happened, they would probably have to lay off staff to pay for the drop in profits. They had already made substantial cuts to staff by bringing in self service tills etc despite being awarded the initial contract to build a Sainsburys on the plot of land with the promise of providing the community with a set number of jobs, this of course, greatly reduced by now, but those who awarded the tenure for Sainsburys were long gone, who cares.
Road rage incidents tripled, local businesses in the shadow of the behemoth of Sainsburys, already on their knees now crawled on their bellies to survive.
At last, the work finished, re-tarmacked, the road and crossroads looked pristine clean. Though the tarmac was of sub-quality to the usual, would probably need redoing in a few years time, or maybe a few months if the estimated wear/traffic algorithm was a tad out.
The residents of W10 could now, at last enjoy a better flow of traffic in the area without constant disruption and temporary traffic lights and road works. Well, that was the hope until someone noticed sewage from the brand new, well nine month old, sewer pipes were leaking and sending raw sewage via the subsoil and into the nearby canal and also overflowing in the drains at the bottom of Ladbroke Grove/Harrow Road. No explanation could be reached except maybe the sewer pipes were disturbed by recent works upgrading both the Water pipes and Gas pipes in tandem. If that wasn’t enough, there was concern the sewage was depreciating the mechanical strength of the underground electrical cable system that ran directly under the road. Mr.Beaker was called but had been retained by the gas company delighted at the increase in profits due to his slashing of the workforce.
Meetings would need to be arranged, emergency meetings. Meetings of concern, extraordinary emergency discussions as one councillor explained to the press regarding the cursed Ladbroke Grove Harow Road Crossroads.