The Legal Compliance officer for Eurovia (parent company of the PFI contractor, Island Roads), has informed one of the property owners in the landlocked section of Undercliff Drive that the company will ‘thoroughly investigate’, at a senior level, serious allegations made in a dossier of events leading up to the landslip.
The dossier – which was shared with OnTheWight last month – makes serious allegations about a number of the people involved and raises questions about assertions that last winter’s wet weather was the sole cause of the problems on Undercliff Drive.
Formal complaint lodged
The investigation follows a formal complaint being lodged with Island Roads,
The author of the dossier told OnTheWight he expects to receive a formal response from Eurovia by the end of August.
No Inquiry from the Scrutiny Committee
Last month, the dossier was passed to chair of the Isle of Wight council scrutiny committee, Cllr Geoff Lumley.
He agreed to read through the dossier and consider whether a formal Inquiry by his committee could be carried out.
Cllr Lumley last week told OnTheWight,
“I have now received advice from the Council’s Highways PFI Contract Manager and have concluded my own deliberations over what, if anything, the Scutiny Committee can do.
“The alleged conduct of Island Roads staff and their sub contractors to Mr X is a matter for their management to address, if and when they receive a complaint and in accordance with their company policies. I would urge Mr X to submit a complaint to them, the investigation of which will be monitored by the Council’s Contract Manager.
“The other allegations are clearly something that neither I nor the Council could condone and again Mr X needs to add this to his complaint.
“The Contracts Manager would monitor how properly the company’s policies were applied on this complaint. However, the Council would not have any role in the investigation or any sanction, not least because it would want to reserve the right to comment if it felt they had not taken the allegations sufficiently seriously. In my experience the private sector can act much more swiftly and sharply than Councils where there has been misconduct!
“The section on what Mr X calls the ‘incomplete and misleading report’ has been addressed by the Council in a letter of 25 July from Bill Murphy to the Island’s MP.
“In conclusion, I do not propose to undertake a scrutiny inquiry into Mr X’s dossier.
“You understand that the remit of my committee is quite narrow and I do not feel we can add much more to what effective Contract Management will do or what Mr Murphy has committed to in his letter. I will be asking the Contracts Manager to keep me well briefed on his monitoring of any complaint submitted by Mr X.
Image: stevendepolo under CC BY 2.0
