A parish councillor has vented frustration about the ‘ridiculous’ number of road closures on the Isle of Wight, telling a public meeting there on one day last month, there were a total of 37.
At a meeting held at Whitwell Village Hall recently, Councillor Brin Martin told Niton and Whitwell parishioners of a journey from his Niton home to Ventnor on 20th April, mentioning 5 closures and ‘no exits’ from a roundabout.
The representative said he was ‘pretty cheesed off’ at this point and submitted a Freedom of Information request to County Hall, asking how many road closures there were on 20th April.
Other questions included how many were planned and manned, the number of staff working on them and the volume of temporary traffic lights in operation.
He told attendees:
“There were 30 road closures planned in operation on Monday 20, there were six unplanned ones and one of them was unoperated.
“The remarkable thing is – they couldn’t tell me how many staff they had working – either Isle of Wight Council or Island Roads. They said they don’t hold that information.
“I’ve written back to them, said I’m not going to pursue this anymore…flogging a dead horse but how the hell can you not know who’s working on your road – you have to pay them, don’t you?
Article continues below this advertisement “It is frustrating and I know we need to bear with it but it’s just ridiculous, the number of closures on the Island.”
Earlier in the meeting, Green Party county councillor for Chale, Niton and Shorwell Claire Critchison said she had received a lot of comments from people about the volume of roadworks.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS):
“I understand people’s frustration with the numerous roadworks.
“When key routes are closed it affects daily lives and I know many are anxious about how much time and fuel they need to get around.
“The last few weeks have seen almost everywhere on the Island affected.
“We do need the infrastructure upgrades but coupled with a backlog due to the wet weather and a need to get as much done before the summer season it has created road chaos.
“Many of the large projects in the south of the Island have thankfully been completed but there will be further short closures for carriageway and ditching works.”
Councillor Martin is not the only person annoyed… Councillor Julie Jones-Evans has had her say, with Visit Isle of Wight CEO Dominic Wray expressing his frustration. The manager of The Needles Landmark Attraction has also had a say, as previously reported by Island Echo.
Island Roads has been approached for comment.
What the island really needs are 20mph Roads
ENFORCED of course, not just a few 20mph signs or slow
letters written on the ground PEOPLE PAY NO ATTENTION
TO THOSE – WE NEED DECENT SPEED CAMERAS!
“HEAVY FINES WILL PUT A STOP TO SPEEDING AND MAKE OUR
ROADS SAFE FOR EVERYONE TO USE”
Where are the LTN’S on the island? I haven’t seen any.
The Island have a fleet of electric buses, but that is all they have done
so far re the green agenda.
Where are the cycle lanes etc etc
NET ZERO by 2030 is a dream, unless things change rapidly
the sland won’t reach NET ZERO by 2130
Enough is Enough I am off to the beach
Lol
No one cares about anyone else any more…
Rich politicians don’t care about the general public (they just like to pretend they’ll make things better, & divert the focus of the electorate onto irrelevant minor issues (e.g. immigration), so they get elected, & then can make more money for them & their sponsors.)
And Island Roads, just don’t give a f**k about the inconvenience they cause to island residents..
At the end of the day, if you vote for politicians (or their parties), who are funded by, and favour, billionaires,.. it’s obvious that it’s the billionaires that will benefit the most (at the expense of the masses).
& if you voted for a government that came up with the (money-making for private enterprise) PFI concept,.. and a council that used a PFI contract to shuck-off responsibility for roads maintenance, & in doing so, ceded all control over road closures,… you get the chaos we’re currently stuck with…
Net Zero has become a historical ideal…
I used to think that saving the planet from human induced climate catastrophe, was the right thing to do, .. but with the shift of politics to favour the popularist, divisive, greed based policies of Trump and similar minded politicians (e.g. farage) the chances of actually achieving anything meaningful have all but evaporated….
That’s just the way it is now…
So, we might as well just all go for the cheapest / easiest option (to make our lives as manageable as possible), & to hell with the long-term consequences,…
I feel for our grandchildren (and less so, children), as they are the ones who are going to have to live in the world we destroyed (or at least failed to protect)…
I feel for our grandchildren too. I don’t know where the jobs
of the future will be for them.
Keep walking.
Strange isn’t it? You’d start to think that there must be something occurring soon…
SO MANY Councillors, SUDDENLY taking an interest in, and ‘demanding answers’ regarding the continual disruption that, oh yes, they’re called the Electorate, have been complaining about for ages.
Nothing to do with 7th May, of course!!!
Politicians are no different, they only come awake
election time.
When they do close the roads, the signage does not help. “Road Ahead Closed”, where?, how far down the road is it actually blocked, you might still be able to get where you want to be.A little more info would stop a lot of frustration. Also they don’t make the most of closures, Fairlee Road and the Racecourse is still diabolical in places and that new “exit” is an accident waiting to happen.
Island Roads can get f*cked. Everything they do is shit.