Last week Steve Goodman sent a letter to the County Press in response to an article in which Cllr Ed Giles condemned those who were behind the ‘Pots of Gold’ Campaign. Steve’s letter didn’t make it onto the CP letter page. Ed
Following the start of the “Pots of Gold” campaign, it’s good to see that our council are now having to respond to the legitimate concerns of informed islanders. (Well, up to a point… the leader and deputy walked out of their PFI roads meeting with councillors on March 25th when awkward questions were asked).
At least we have discovered what it takes to get a response; as was pointed out to the leader by his IOW Radio interviewer on April 4th, they’ve no right to be indignant about the need for such action because they had chosen to ignore islander’s previous arguments and protests concerning our council’s approach to cuts and spending.
Yaverland tree débâcle
I am reminded of their response to the Yaverland residents whose tree was destroyed, without penalty, by the council contractors who were paid to look after it.
For two years the council did nothing, other than to tell them that replacement was not possible, so the residents recently bought and planted another.
It seems that council policy is to happily spend our money on contractors allowed to cause harm with impunity, and to ignore reasonable complaint from taxpayers.
Leap into the unknown
Now they would like us to accept that their proposed 25 year leap into the unknown with a huge amount of our money is in our best interests, despite their own apparent lack of understanding or agreement.
For example, as Mike Starke pointed out, the council said in their March 24th statement that “the PFI service provider will take on the statutory role of the highway authority”, but when that was put to the consultant PFI director he said “this is simply not the case. The council will remain the highway authority”.
And that’s the tip of the iceberg; the long history of guesses at costs and benefits and the continued moving of goalposts has made looking at our council’s attempts to get a PFI road deal done a bit like watching Edward Scissorhands trying to make balloon animals.
Alternatives for further information and debate
In addition to the CP coverage, the VentnorBlog website is a good source of information and discussion on this potentially life-changing island topic.
Perhaps Cllr. Giles, on behalf of our (officially rated as providing minimum service only) council, would care to explain how the temporary presence of paint in a pothole could result in a prosecution for damage when they condone tree destruction by their contractors.
It might also be interesting to know how such painting could be dangerous to road users when their contractors pothole paint is not. And should we expect an answer from them as the highway authority, or wait for a contracted private company to reply (and presumably bill us for doing so?).
Steve Goodman, Newport
Image: Amanda BH Slater under CC BY 2.0
