News OnTheWight always welcomes a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below.
This from David Yates, Kingston. Ed
There is surely an urgent need to take a long hard serious look at the actual shape of the Island to come and how the road and other networks should be tailored to match it?
I’ve walked round the Island 57 times over the past 40 years and many times along the paths and foreshore below all of the increasingly frequent and major landslips at Bonchurch.
Predictable landslips
Due to the geology of the Island – and the increasingly rising sea level – they are all entirely predictable and far worse is to come in the not-too-distant future as climate warming accelerates, polar icecaps melt, rainfall increases and sea levels rise even further.
Forward-thinking plan needed
What is obviously needed is a forward-thinking plan, not to counter the resulting erosion and slippage in some pointless King Canute fashion, but one that meets the likely future shape of the Island.
Focus on land likely to remain
Yes, many roads and properties will have to be abandoned, but financial priority can then be given to land and properties that are likely to remain.
Step forward the Island politicians to devise this plan.
Detonate cliffs near St Lawrence Shute
Due to the local geology and landslips that have occurred, I’ve been saying for years, that detonating some of the cliffs near St Lawrence Shute and creating a new road down into Ventnor may become the only logical solution to maintaining an access into the town.
Even this idea has faults
However, as the sea level is thought to have risen about 30mm in the past decade, and the rate appears to be accelerating, much of the town may slip into the sea, so even this idea has faults.
Sadly, it may be that some areas – including low-lying properties on the Island – will have to be abandoned.
