I was unfortunate enough to be in Houghton during the road closures yesterday.
Whilst I quite liked using the set up behind Lidl and feel it may be a more suitable alternative to the stops on Newbottle Street and The Broadway, it seemed communication was lacking totally.
I boarded a bus heading to Houghton, with the intention of changing on to another service. The Washington based driver hadn't communicated the diversion to passengers and it seemed that some of Deptfords drivers were totally unaware of the closure.
I saw one driver of a 36 coming down Wallace Street (why I have no idea - as Burn Park Road wasn't affected by the closure). I can only assume he has had some sort of wobble after coming down Newbottle Street and saw the 'road closed' signs and tried to pick up his route from the rugby club.
When I was waiting for my connecting bus, a driver on the Cats Fast pulled up and asked both myself and another Washington driver what the diversion was. He stated he had no idea of the closure until he had seen buses parked on Hillside Way, behind Lidl.
When Newbottle Street re-opened, it was left to passengers to notify each other of the changes and a walk back towards Newbottle Street.
Apparently this had been the case earlier in the day when the road initially closed.
Whilst operators are left at the whim of authorities closing a road due to unsafe buildings, I wonder what else they could have done to improve the situation for their customers.
