Town Planners, who put them in charge?

I've always had a bit of barely repressed aggression in relation to Town Planners. It usually surfaces when I am sitting a traffic queue to get in or out of a badly designed retail park, but last week it rose up on my regular journey to work.

Day 1 - traveling to work over Staines Bridge, I see a yellow sign advertising an impending Bridge Closure, for NINE days from May 9th to May 18th. Bloody hell I thought, that's going to make traffic interesting. The bridge will only be from 9 until 4.30pm, but as my usual departure for work is about 9.15, it looks like I am walking/cycling a for a few weeks. I keep saying I am going to get more exercise that way

Day 3 - traveling from work - The sign has been changed, blue and white writing over original yellow and black - it now says May 9th for just 2 days, ho hum, there goes my exercise routine.

Day 5 - traveling to work, red sign saying delayed over blue and white, over yellow and black, you get the idea. No more dates, no idea if/when this will happen.

Day 7 - traveling from work - sign on this side of the bridge has lost it's red delayed sticker back to plan B

In summary, words such as piss up and brewery spring to mind. How hard can it be to:

a) Plan for the work to be done and how long it will take
b) Advertise it

A footnote, whilst looking for a pretty picture of Staines Bridge for this blog I spotted this fine document all about the closure. They estimated one week, which is shorter than nine days and much longer than 2 days.

But this isn't the end of it, oh no. This all happened in the same week that we received at home notification of the intention to knock down the Spelthorne Council Office and build a block of flats with "90 dwellings"

Why has this annoyed me? Well last year, I had a planning application turned down to turn an unused first floor balcony (which overlooks the school field and said Council Offices) into a conservatory off our main bedroom. The reason given, because it was not in keeping in the character of the surrounding area, despite the fact that the only people that would be able to see it, would be those working at the Council.

So now, it's OK for the council to tear down a very nice looking historical building and fundamentally alter the character of the area by adding flats, complete with residents, cars, kids, noise and everything else that goes with neighbours, but it is not OK for me to make a small and virtually invisible change to my house. That's local government for you.