10 weeks of traffic disruption begins in Ryde today (Monday) as Island Roads work to repair and strengthen a section of stone wall on Queen’s Road.
The work along a 40-metre section of the retaining wall means that Queen’s Road has been made one-way (heading into the town) at the busiest time of the year. Traffic leaving Ryde will now have to do so via Argyll Street for the duration of the project.
Urgent work is needed following the collapse of a section of the wall that retains the highway. Without repair and strengthening, there is a danger the footway and eventually, the carriageway would be undermined.
Barriers have been around the wall for months.
Island Roads Senior Project Manager, Jason Boulter, has said:
“Given the condition of the wall, which will only get worse, it is important to undertake the repairs and strengthening as soon as possible,
“The work will involve us rebuilding and strengthening the wall below highway level and then rebuilding the visible parapet wall above street level using traditional stone so it maintains the local character.
“We understand this will cause some inconvenience to local people but we do need to undertake his work to ensure Queen’s Road continues to be safe for all users”.
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Residents are still able to access their homes with pedestrian access maintained at all times. The section of wall to be strengthened is on Queen’s Road between its junctions with Binstead Road and Westwood Road.
Clearly all it needed was for several gabion walling cages to be built.
Take out one section of the wall, place in the cage, and fill it with the rocks taken from the wall as it is demolished.
Then do the same for the next section.
NO transportation costs of removing tons of stone away, no slow cementing and pointing a new wall, and a nice safe wall, which is CO2 friendly as no cement, and lizards etc love the walls for homes.
Cheap, easy,, and less disruptive, so of course our council won’t be interested in it.
Enjoy the queues and diversion and increase in c.tax next budget instead.
and this work coudnt be carried out in winter or at very start of season?? well done yet again too island cowboys(roads)
After all this time they decide to do this at the busiest time of the year.Peak holiday period the next 10 weeks with Ryde full of tourists.It beggars belief that this job could not wait till November.Who makes these decisions?Do they sit down and say how can we cause maximum traffic disruption!.
Can’t see how it takes 10 weeks to fix a wall a complete house can be built in 10 weeks
The PLOY is now to way ‘over estimate’ the time frame on a job, then wait for the applause when / if it is done a few days faster.
So WE are funding a private homes wall, must be a top councillors relly
Why are you blaming Island Roads surely this wall is the responsibility off the house owners whose garden this wall is in . It is them that have let this wall fall in to this state
It’s Island Roads that’s doing it, could have been fixed in spring, that’s why people are blaming Island Roads
We are not responsible for the retaining wall it belongs to the council t
It says in the article “a section of the wall that retains the highway”, which indicates it’s owned by whoever owns the road, so the Council, not the individual homeowners.
The wall’s been collapsed for at least a year – July 2021 on Google Street View shows it collapsed. So, a year or more to get around to doing something about it and 10 weeks to do the repair. Not exactly in a hurry, are they?