(As it says above, this is an opinion piece)
It’s a full two weeks since VentnorBlog broke the story that the council had given a Mainland company the contract to distribute the new Wheelie bins around the Island.
Before we ran the story, we twice wrote to the ‘Communications’ department at the Isle of Wight council asking some simple questions.
In the passing two weeks, we’ve had no response at all.
Frankly, we think their total lack of response on this is a disgrace (they’ve replied to other queries since then).
The questions
At lunchtime on 12 Jan, we wrote to the council asking if the rumour that 25 Mainlanders had been brought in by the council to dish out the wheelie bins was true of false.
No reply.
At 5pm, having found out more information and spoken to the company who have been contracted by the council to do the bin distribution (Driveline GB), we followed up with …
We’d appreciate your answers to the following …
Why hasn’t an Island company been contracted to distribute the wheelie bins on the Island?
Why haven’t Islanders been employed to carry out the work?How much is the contract worth?
How long have Driveline been working on it and how long will they take to complete it?
Fingers in the ears
All very reasonable questions, we think you’ll agree. Questions that the public has a right to know answers to.
We’ve had nothing back. Now, sadly, this isn’t unusual for questions that the council feels uneasy about.
To us it’s the equivalent of a child in the playground putting their fingers in their ears and singing “La la la la la” in an attempt to pretend something isn’t happening.
OK, the answer might be equivalent to have to admit that a Mainland company has been used when an Island one could have benefited from this sizable contract, but to try and ignore it, infers a guilt at realising that they’ve made a bad decision.
Some good news
Since then, we heard that an Island company has been brought in to work alongside the Mainland contractor, so at least some good has come from us running the story.
Questions as to why the the County Press and IW Radio ignored the story (they’re happy enough to pickup and use our other stories), should be addressed to them.
