Salt bin for New Road

A long-running saga has finally come to a satisfactory end. I reported over a year ago that I hoped to install a second salt bin, paid for from my Combined Member Fund, in New Road, South Darenth. I had already had one installed near The Queen pub, which is certainly useful for the middle to higher sections of the road. However, the lower sections approaching the Horton Road junction were not covered by this, and residents had quite rightly raised the issue.

The difficulty was finding a site where the bin would not block a pavement, and last year a Highways engineer and I visited and agreed that we would try to install an older, smaller bin in a passageway leading off the northern side of the road. However, the installation did not take place and it emerged that we no longer have the smaller bins that could fit on the site without creating an obstruction. Since some of our Highways staff had changed in the meantime, there was a certain amount of revisiting the issue needed to that New Road needed two salt bins rather than just the one.

One of our Highways officers came up with the creative suggestion of approaching H&V Building Services to ask their agreement to install the bin at the front of their premises. I am very grateful to H&V for agreeing to this.

So, as the picture shows, the bin is now installed - at the tail end of this winter, but now there for future cold spells.