Trolley 324

Trolley 324 was sat all by itself in the Ashmore passage, with my still being able to remember a memorable day a few weeks ago when there were a dozen or more of them. Returned to the stack without incident.

Further round the anti-clockwise, in Ewell Village, I came across a lorry full of scaffolding outside what was the Star public house and scaffolders erecting scaffolding - on a public house which has only recently been repurposed as flats - with a retail unit retained at the bottom to keep the planners quiet. How long will it take to let it? Will it end up as a charity shop? Will it be yet another coffee shop?

The scaffolders told me that the refurbishers had, without appropriate permissions, put the wrong sort of rendering on the outside walls, and it all has to be stripped off and replaced. Slightly puzzling, given that the place was, as far as I can recall, rendered in the first place and I don't recall it being stripped off first time around.

Certainly very wasteful, although it is hard to see what else a hard pressed council can do in the face of flagrant breaking of the rules.

PS: a public house which I was sorry to see go, a place which I used to use occasionally in the past and rather liked. Another case of the owner - I think a provincial brewery - racking up the rent so high, that sale for flats was the only proposition which flew? Not that I particularly blame them, the glory days for public houses clearly being over.