Sydenham/Bell Green/Sainsbury’s/Perry Rise traffic is a total disaster. Emergency (and major) gas works at the bottom of Perry Rise, so there is no access from Perry Rise to Sainsbury’s. Diversion via Houston Road or Priestfield/Lescombe Road.
The northbound stretch of the A212 Bell Green/Perry Hill is being dug up, with temporary traffic lights in place to alternate the flow of traffic making it extremely slow in both directions.
That explains a lot…
This is actually scheduled work, according to the SGN website. Has been in situ since Thursday. This explains why traffic has been heavier than usual on my road (Mayow Road) the past few days.
Swear they have done work at this crossing on several occasions over the last couple years now. Must keep getting it wrong.
Thursday 24 November - Perry Hill, London, SE23
Due to emergency repair work we have put a northbound road closure in place between Sydneham Road at the junction with Stanton Way and Perry Hill at the junction with Perry Rise. Advanced notice signage and a local diversion will be in place.
We anticipate that we will be working here through the weekend and into early next week. We will do everything we can to complete our work as quickly as possible.
Scheduled emergency work? Novel concept! 
The last one at this junction was a water mains burst, if I remember correctly, and was at the bottom of Perry Rise rather than being on Perry Hill.
I made the mistake of going shopping at Bell Green on Friday before I realised about this. Got stuck in B&Q car park - after queuing for half an hour just trying to leave the car park, I had to leave the car, walk back (as otherwise I would have been late) and went back later to collect the car once the traffic had calmed down. Think I’ll be shopping elsewhere for the time being!
Friday was always going to be bad, give it was Black Friday. A double whammy there.
Yep I hadn’t realised Black Friday would be causing trouble in Sydenham! No gadget is worth sitting for an hour in a car park queue in my opinion. Next year I shall avoid the shops altogether on Black Friday!
I was about to hit the ‘
’ button as a way of saying Thanks for the info - but didn’t want anyone to think I ‘like’ the prospect of weeks of road chaos 
The Cranston/Woolstone/Houston junction is chaos at the moment, as a result of this. Best making your way between Stanstead Road and Perry Hill further up and approaching Bell Green from that way.
EDIT: Everyone’s worked this out now, and Perry Hill is nasty, so ignore me.
I’ve just been into the Sainsburys at Bell Green, approaching from Bromley direction. No problems at all that side of the junction, or on the stretch heading back towards Sydenham. There was a small tailback on the stretch approaching the road closure but it didn’t extend into the Bell Green Gyratory. No tailbacks on Sydenham Road, unlike on Friday.
Traffic is heavier than normal on Mayow Road at peak times but the rest of the time it’s fairly normal so would make a good alternative approach. Best avoided at school drop off and pick up times though as there are several schools close together where the road is quite narrow and if there are two buses trying to pass and a lot of traffic there is the potential for gridlock. This happens regularly even without diverted traffic, tbh.
It sounds like the disruption is being confined closer to the actual road closure now, which is good news (and yes I’m including the junction with Woolstone Road as the immediate area as traffic tails back up Perry Rise at the best of times).
Cranston Road resident here. Saturday was daft - traffic backed up down the road and the occasional delightful chorus of car horns. I wondered what was going on until I saw AndyS post…
Yep, was nearly back as far as me (just by the Kilmorie/Loxton alleyway) at one point.
Any CCTV in the area? That’s an appalling amount of damage to just drive away from.
Appalling. Too many bad drivers around who do stuff like this then just drive off. Where’d this happen?
HNY everyone. You’ll all be glad to know the junction has once again been dug up and the bottom of Perry Rise closed.
Ah, was wondering why traffic on Cranston was more nuts than usual, it’ll be the knock-on effect.
Looks out of window. Yup - cheeks out.