Last weekend residents in the landlocked properties on Undercliff Drive noticed that white markings had been sprayed onto their properties.
They told OnTheWight they had no idea why the markings had been sprayed onto their properties.
Attempt to find out more
As the residents were concerned about the situation, OnTheWight got in touch with Island Roads to find out more – they could get nothing from those of site.
We asked what the markings were for; why they had been sprayed on residents’ properties; what was contained in the spray (ie, permanent paint or chalk) and whether they’d asked permission of the residents if they could spray on to the resident’s property.
Surprising response
The response we received from Gavin Foster of Foster Robertson, the agency Island Roads now use for their PR, (who also used to answer our questions in pre-PFI days when he worked at the council) was this,
“As part of ongoing survey work at the Undercliff, an industry-standard aerosol spray has recently been used to mark temporary reference points, including a small number on the road-facing side of a garden wall. These temporary markings have already been removed by our contractors.
“Residents in the area were informed general survey work was being carried out although the individual property owner may not have been informed their wall was being temporarily marked in this way.
“If this has caused concern to the resident then we would offer our sincere apologies.”
Here’s where things differ
So this is the where the problem occurs.
- There were at least two properties affected by the spraying.
- It was not contractors who removed the markings. Two of the residents removed the markings, after much scrubbing and cleaning, from their properties over the weekend.
- The markings were certainly not temporary. The residents tell us it took am hours plus for them to scrub them off the walls.
- Telling someone survey work is taking place does not equate to spraying lines over someone’s property.
Who’s feeding the incorrect information?
Given the response from Island Roads (via the former IWC press officer), residents are left wondering why information they know as untrue is being fed to the media.
We’ve asked the Island Roads press representative and two days ago they told us they’d look into it, as yet, we’ve heard nothing.
Black is white
This ‘confusion’ goes even further.
This morning, Island Roads’ engineers tried to convince residents (who themselves scrubbed the markings off their walls at the weekend) that they, the engineers, had in fact cleaned the markings off the walls!
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