It’s not just media and the East Cowes town council that Isle of Wight council are staying silent with.
An email from local county councillor, Julia Baker-Smith, has now revealed that even elected councillors are not getting answers to questions about the Floating Bridge.
The whole project secret
Speaking to the Cllr Baker-Smith, OnTheWight has learnt that while the Island Independents were in power at the council, the veil of the council’s secrecy was over the project even then.
She tells us that as soon as it was clear that the money had been secured, Members were told by council officers that ongoing procurement and design details wouldn’t be shared with them as this was ‘operational’, rather that strategic – and therefore not within the councillors’ remit.
Cllr Baker-Smith went on to say,
“Professional officers are employed to carry out these projects, as the elected councillors aren’t engineers. That’s understood and right.
“The problem lies with when a project goes wrong – things need to be clearly communicated, so the public can get to learn how these errors came about and who is to blame. That’s what isn’t happening.”
The letter
Julia’s email below, addressed to the current Leader of the Isle of Wight council, Cllr Dave Stewart, is pretty direct, exposing the level of frustration over this.
She states, “We have paid £3.2m for something that isn’t fit for purpose”; questions “why this has been managed so poorly”; asks “whose heads are rolling” and queries about the financial penalties for those paid to be involved with the project.
Dear Dave,
Further to our conversation earlier this week, I’m seriously concerned about the levels of communication with members in relation to the whole floating bridge situation.
Officers will recall that I, and Cllrs Hillard and Wilcox asked on numerous occasions to be kept informed of progress with regard to procurement, build process and project management and of service matters concerning our residents on both sides of the river, yet, time and again we learned of developments in the first instance via news releases.
Why does the same continue to happen, despite being assured by senior officers we would be kept in the loop?
While my first concern is for the bridge to be in full operation and for the economic damage that has been done to my town there is precious little I can do right now to influence that situation. However the issue of communication and secrecy is one that has been endemic for a long time and needs to be addressed.
We, Councillors, are the connection to the community for the entity that is the Isle of Wight Council. We should be able to communicate fully with our communities and It is also our necks on the chopping block when things go wrong. We should not be put in a situation by officers whereby we can’t answer basic reasonable questions put to us by our residents. Reputationally for the Council this is a disaster, and reputationally the council will not start to improve until such time as the level of openness that we as politicians strive for is shared by the Officers.
I have heard it said by officers that people will forget about it when it’s all up and running. They won’t and nor should they. The businesses of East Cowes won’t forget this as the people behind them struggle to pay their mortgages, lay off staff and some have to close their shops.
People need and deserve answers as to how and why this has been managed so poorly. People need to know whose heads are rolling and where and whether there are financial penalties upon whoever is responsible for the cost of modifications, the cost to the council in loss of revenue and most importantly the cost to residents, businesses and tax payers.
Commercial confidentiality should go out of the window at this point I’m afraid. We have paid £3.2m for something that isn’t fit for purpose. If it is having to be retro fitted with prow extensions (something else I got to hear through the media) then the naval architect that designed it should pay significant financial penalties and the public will want to know that they have been held to account. The reputational damage done to our organisation alone is enough for legal action upon those who are responsible in my view and if the deafening silence is due to some contractual element that protects the designers and manufacturers then quite frankly I don’t think there’s a court in the land that would uphold any claim against us for telling taxpayers what happened to their money.
I have been exceedingly patient throughout this process despite significant and understandable pressure from my residents and my town council but I cannot stand by and take the blame and public floggings in order to protect an organisation that seems to be in lock down to protect itself and in the process is damaging the reputations of everyone involved and most importantly the livelihoods of ordinary people.
Please, I implore you, tell people what has happened and why, answer the questions that have been posed, that is all they ask. Explain the process, explain why officers deem this as an operational issue and therefore don’t seem to think it is the business of councillors despite the huge social and political ramifications. This isn’t going away any time soon.
Kind regards
Julia
Image: tompagenet under CC BY 2.0
