OnTheWight was approached with a detailed dossier containing serious allegations about the work carried out at Undercliff Drive prior to its collapse.
The account has been to council officers and the MP, with the dossier’s author unhappy at the lack of action.
Today OnTheWight passed the dossier to the councillor who chairs the Isle of Wight council Scrutiny Committee, Cllr Geoff Lumley.
The claims are made by someone with first-hand, day-to-day knowledge of events on-site in the weeks before sections of the road collapsed, forcing the evacuation of nine households and bringing the entire project to a halt.
Dossier claims to reveal additional causes
If substantiated, the claims could throw doubt on assertions that last winter’s weather – the wettest since reliable records began – was the sole cause of the fiasco, which has left the Island facing a potential bill of many millions of pounds if the coastal route is to be restored.
Now Cllr Geoff Lumley, who chairs the Isle of Wight Council’s cross-party Scrutiny Committee, has agreed to examine the dossier.
OnTheWight is not, at present, publishing the dossier for legal reasons, but will report back when we hear back from the head of Scrutiny.
Options to be considered by Executive
As reported last month, members of the Executive Committee will be considering six options at their meeting on Monday 7th July (note change of usual day Executive meetings held).
Officers are recommending Members request more detailed costings of the various repair options before a preferred scheme is agreed.
The options are as follows (provisional estimates in brackets):
- Option 1 – re-establish pedestrian access only (£250,000 to £500,000).
- Option 2 – repair and reopen the road with access from one direction only (£1 million to £2.5 million).
- Option 3 – repair and reopen through road from Ventnor to Niton (£6 million to £20 million).
- Option 4 – establish a new access road to properties along the base of the cliff (£200,000 to £500,000).
- Option 5 – establish a temporary low cost road from the west (initially less than £100,000).
- Option 6 – permanent vehicular closure of the affected part of Undercliff Drive, pedestrian access limited to residents.
Members of the public are welcome to attend the meeting at County Hall on Monday 7th July from 6pm.
