After OnTheWight published excerpts from the Geotechnical Design Reports produced by Ramboll for Island Roads prior to work starting on Undercliff Drive, we posed three straightforward questions to the Isle of Wight council (IWC); who in the council gave the go ahead for the work; who in the council signed off the design report; and who in the council saw the report between it being produced and the landslip occurring?
It took the council twelve days to provide a response (details to follow) and as is often the case, the response didn’t address each question in turn, but simply provided a quote from a senior officer offering a whole lot of words to say very little. The council failed to answer two of the questions.
BBC having problems too
OnTheWight isn’t the only media organisation having difficulty getting answers from the council.
Producers for BBC’s Inside Out programme told OnTheWight that over the period of one week, they’d contacted the council on a daily basis seeking answers, but still received no information.
The Inside Out feature with Jon Cuthill they’ve been working on over the last few months, will be broadcast on BBC1 on Monday 8th September, the day before the IWC Executive make a decision on the future of the road.
Slow response to residents
As well as the media having problems getting responses to questions asked, residents of Undercliff Drive, who had attended the Executive meeting in July had to wait almost two months for a written response from Cllr Gilbey.
Tim Wright, who was forced to abandon his home over six months ago, confirmed he didn’t receive a following response until 29th August to his question asked on 7th July. He’d asked,
“Excessive rainfall and ground water levels are cited as the main cause of failure. The observation is made in Paper E that further extremes of weather are more likely. Having discounted drainage on the grounds of excessive cost for the recent works, is it now accepted that any future proposal which fails to deal with groundwater is a futile exercise which is neither cost effective nor viable?”
Response made resident’s ‘blood boil’
Mr Wright told OnTheWight the response he received from the council made his ‘blood boil’. He said,
“Their response made my blood boil even more and tried to credit me with making assumptions, when in fact, the information I based my questions on was provided by Mr Murphy at the residents’ meeting in February and in subsequent correspondence from him.
“I wanted to know if a scheme without any drainage ie. site specific, local or comprehensive, would be futile. The answer I received concentrated in draining the whole Undercliff only.”
The response from Cllr Jon Gilbey, Executive member for PFI and Finance, read,
“It is difficult to provide you with a definitive answer to your question. It is correct that the potential for further extremes in weather may increase the likely occurrence of raised groundwater and consequent ground stability issues along the Undercliff.
“The proposals which were incorporated into the PFI contract to deal with areas of known ground instability areas affecting the road, and which are now subject to the Failure reports covered by paper recognised this.
“It is not strictly speaking correct to say that a wider scheme dealing with drainage along the whole length of the Undercliff was rejected due only to cost considerations, it was also apparent that there were major issues involved in obtaining the agreement of bodies such as the Environment Agency and Natural England given that drainage options under the Habitats Regulations would have to ensure that there was no adverse effect on the international designations in the area.
“You will be aware however that the executive has asked officers to also report back on what was called option 7 during the meeting which in essence would be a scheme based around positive drainage. It would be premature to comment further on this point until members have considered the option further once officers have completed their report.”
Details of the council’s response to OnTheWight queries to follow once they’ve provided answers to all three questions.
Article edits 12.54: Changed response to Tim Wright from Bill Murphy to Cllr Jon Gilbey.
