This report is from the PFI meeting held in Ventnor on Monday. The next PFI roadshow takes place tonight (Wednesday) at Cowes Enterprise College at 6pm. Island Roads staff will be available from 5pm to answer questions.
Around 50 residents went along to the Highways PFI meeting on Monday night at Ventnor Botanic Garden to learn more about how the Highways PFI will work and the plans for roads in the South – that has been labelled as District 5.
Attending from the Isle of Wight council were Cabinet member Cllr Eddie Giles, PFI project director, Jay Jayasundara and project manager for Island Roads, Mark Griffin who all gave presentations, along with Malcolm Smith (Highways) who was on hand to answer any questions during the Q&A session.
820km of roads being upgraded
Out of the 820km of roads that will be upgraded over the Island and maintained over the next 25 years by the service contract with Vinci Ringway Meridiam, 98km fall within District 5.
It’s not just the resurfacing of the roads. It was explained that the service contract included all ‘assets’ from fence to fence, ie, roads, footways, pavements, street cleansing, roadside grass-cutting, gully clearing, bins, streetlamps, signage, CCTV etc.
Major roadworks for seven years
Residents were told the first seven years of the contract would see the bulk of the work taking place, when all roads would be brought up to standard from “the worst in the country to the best in the country”. A phrase repeated many times during the two hour session.
It was said that we can expect to see 10-15 times more work being done to the roads from 1st April 2013 for the next seven years, Jay Jayasundara explaining that much of this work would take place in the evenings in an attempt to avoid disruption for business, school, commuter or holiday-maker traffic.
Geo-technical failures
The contractors would not be responsible for widening or extending roads. This would still remain the responsibility of the council and any geo-techical failures not already covered in the contract “would be dealt with accordingly and appropriately by the IWC at that time.”
It was explained there were 18 major geo-technical schemes included in the contract, all of which had been identified through a comprehensive risk assessment of the roads network.
Four ‘red’ zone in the Undercliff
Four specific sites in the Undercliff had been identified as ‘red’ zones and residents were told that Island Roads have developed ‘the suitable solutions’ to deal with these.
Work on the four sites in the Undercliff is due to start in Dec 2014. Several residents expressed concerns over the roads failing before work started. They were told by Ringway directors that they’d be continually assessing the situation.
Number of street signs to be reviewed
It’s not surprising for Islander to hear that there are a lot of road signs on the Island, but whether any of us actually knew there were a whopping 16,875 of them(!), is uncertain.
All current signage has been logged in a survey of assets that the PFI contractor will be responsible for and Ringway advised that they’d be consulting with town and parish councils, businesses, attractions etc to determine the relevance and quality of signage, with a view to reducing them.
“The train is leaving”
PFI project Director, Jay Jayasundara, ran a short quiz for residents, reading out how many miles of road there were on the Island, signs, trees etc and asking residents to guess how many were within District 5.
He joked that he could let residents have the list for pub quizzes for a small fee, which prompted a comment from the audience that residents had already paid.
He finished his presentation by saying, “the train is leaving and those who want to jump on it, can.” and then passed over to a director of Ringway Infrastructure (and Island Roads) Nick Goddard and Paul Herbert, who will oversee the Island Roads project on the Island.
Ringway’s presentation
Nick and Paul ran through their presentation, clarifying the work they’d be carrying out in the area.
They confirmed that a technical survey had been carried out by the PFI team on all roads to determine the current state of each of them. The survey directs how far a road will be stripped back before the surface being treated.
Employment of staff
It was confirmed that TUPE negotiations were taking place between Island Roads and the council. 100 of the 170 staff would be moving over from the council. This was made up of 65 highways staff and the other 35 coming from the company that currently sub-contracts street cleaning, verge-cutting, etc service to the council.
There would be seventeen places for graduates within the organisation, along with funding for four local apprenticeships.
Local involvement
Nick added that all staff would be granted two days per annum to spend time contributing to local projects. A practice often seen exercised by large corporate companies as part of their social responsibility.
He suggest that this might consist of something like staff helping to finish a community garden project, but he was keen to hear other ideas from residents as to what staff could get involved with.
Residents would also be invited to become what was referred to as ‘Lay Assessors’ for Island Roads.
Nick explained he was looking for residents to volunteer to keep an eye out on the roads/road works, feeding back to Island Roads about how their teams were “operating on the network”.
Public Q&A: Financial viability model
Chale resident (and OnTheWight contributor), Mike Starke, kicked off the question and answer session, addressing the financial viability model of Meridiam Infrastructure (the investors).
He questioned how the required profit margin could be achieved in relation to highways PFI and pointing out that Meridiam had only been in existence for five years and based on Luxembourg, asked whether the council should be “associated with such a company”.
He was told that Meridiam had been involved with previous PFI projects in the UK and that had also worked with Vinci.
Jay Jayasundara replied that £120m needs spent up front in the first years of the project and that it was perfectly understandable that the project having a funding partner like Meridiam. He added that this had been spoken about from day one of the PFI proposal.
More questions were posed by Mr Starke, but speaking to him afterwards, he said he felt that they hadn’t been fully answered.
Drainage
Concerns over drainage and how the problem would be tackled were raised by several residents during the event and answered by Jay Jayasundara, who pointed out that 150 drainage blackspots had been pinpointed.
He added that there are 18 areas of geo-technical challenge where drains would be reconstructed completely.
No answers of the asphalt options
Steve Goodman asked whether the proposed asphalt plant at Medina Wharf was “strategically important” to their project, as their partner company Eurovia had stated in their planning application.
He also asked where Ringway would source their Asphalt from if the asphalt plant planning application was not approved.
It was stated that there was no direct link between the PFI contract and the planning application for an asphalt plant on the Island.
Nick Goddard for Ringway answered that their asphalt “will come from a number of options,” when pushed as to what they were he added, “I’m not going into those.”
Protect the public realm
Ward councillor Susan Scoccia asked that the relevant bodies, such as the town council, business association, etc be consulted on any changes made to the public realm.
Mr Goddard replied that following the survey of all assets, the intention was to improve the public realm, to remove unwanted signage etc., and that they would liaise with all stakeholders.
A question over street parking and parking restrictions was raised, and it was confirmed that this area was still be within the remit of the Isle of Wight council. Maintaining the payment machines in the car parks would be done by Island Roads.
Bridleways remain the responsibility of the council
One lady expressed concern for the bridleway between Niton to Whitwell, asking whether anything would be done to improve it. Malcolm Smith (IWC Highways Dept) replied that improvements would be made to the road, but that bridleways would continue to be the responsibility of the Isle of Wight council.
Another gentleman asked whether all the geo-technical surveys (by High-Point Rendel) that had been carried out in the run-up to the Undercliff saga would be used by the PFI team.
He was told that all surveys carried out by the council would be passed in electronic form to the PFI contractor, Ringway.
Big Brother?
Another resident asked about CCTV.
It was confirmed that a new control centre was being built in Daish Way Newport where all current CCTV on the Island would be monitored from. Asked whether residents will be living under a Big Brother watching all of their moves, it was stated that the current CCTV coverage would be maintained. There was also mentioned that later, changes to CCTV “may take place”.
Image: © IslandRoads
