Rumours have been circulating around Ventnor over the last couple of weeks that plans are afoot to close Newport Road for around five months whilst geo-technical work takes place.
The word on the street was that a contractor working with Island Roads had told residents in a local convenience shop that the road would be closed for 22 weeks and that Island Roads had made the decision to wait until October before starting work, in order to minimise the impact on tourism over the summer.
Concern for residents and businesses
The road is a vital link between Ventnor and its Upper Ventnor twin.
Closing one of the four routes in and out of the town for such a significant period of time has had many residents and businesses very worried about the prospect of the two Ventnors being cut-off, not to mention the day-to-day disruption.
Vital link to school
Since the council’s school reorganisation, the two primary schools that were in Ventnor Town – St Francis & St Boniface – were relocated to the former-middle school site in Upper Ventnor, meaning many of the main town’s pupils make the daily journey to school using this road.
OnTheWight posed questions to Island Roads about the schedule of works for Newport Road, Ventnor back on 21 May. After prompting for a reply, we were told on 23rd May,
“We are still looking into this and will get an answer to you as soon as we can.”
Despite us also @ing them on Twitter near the start of July, we’ve yet to receive an update from Island Roads.
Consultation before closure
We got in touch with the Isle of Wight council to see if they knew more about the plans.
A spokesperson for the IWC told OnTheWight,
“It remains that at this stage there is no prolonged road closure planned for this stretch of road.
“Detailed consultation will be carried out by Island Roads before a scheme is implemented to address the road’s long-term problems.”
Current road closure
The road is currently closed whilst ’emergency’ repairs are made to a fractured sewer by Southern Water.
Island Roads made the decision last week to bring forward and carry out resurfacing work to the road during the closure for the above works.
Image: functoruser under CC BY 2.0
