The Isle of Wight Council’s new director for community services has admitted roadworks management is ‘unacceptable’, while new council leader Councillor Jonathan Bacon has branded the Island Roads contract ‘a bad contract’.
The pair made their comments during a wide-ranging discussion on the Island’s road network at Friday’s State of the Island Travel and Tourism Debate, hosted by Island Echo and the IW Observer.
Simon Moon, Strategic Director of Community Services at the Isle of Wight Council, faced tough questions on the state of the roads and the disruption caused by roadworks and closures across the Island.
Although Mr Moon has only been in post for a matter of weeks, he accepted that the management of roadworks has fallen short of expectations.
He told the audience:
“The issue of managing roadworks is unacceptable. They have not been managed effectively. It should not take 2 hours and 20 minutes to travel from Ryde Esplanade to Newport bus station by bus, something I experienced recently.”
Mr Moon also defended the overall condition of the Island’s highways, saying:
“We are one of the leading authorities in road condition – one of the top 5 in the country. We have fewer potholes than many authorities on the mainland – that’s a fact.”
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The Leader of the Isle of Wight Council, Councillor Jonathan Bacon, acknowledged failings in the way roadworks have been planned and communicated.
He said:
“There is some good stuff, but you can’t see it for all the bad stuff. There are some things that should have been done that haven’t been done. There has been poor forward planning, and communication hasn’t been up to scratch. We’ve all been down a road to find out that you can’t.”
Asked whether Island Roads was complying with the terms of its contract, Mr Bacon delivered a blunt assessment.
He said:
“They comply in word if not in spirit.
“I was the only surviving member of the council who voted against the contract.
“In my view, the contract has not served us well over the years. The ability to claw back control has not been within the capacity of the Council. It’s a bad contract, and the opportunities to reset it have been missed.”
Mr Moon later promised improvements, telling those present:
“This has been a chance to listen to people’s concerns. I’m not accepting the current situation. It will not continue in future. We need to change behaviours and take responsibility for public service duty. We shall do a better job.”
The comments were met with a round of applause from members of the audience.
Earlier in the debate, Dominic Wray, Chief Executive of Visit Isle of Wight, criticised the impact roadworks have had on local businesses.
Mr Wray said:
“Island Roads doesn’t meet the needs of businesses. There has been a failure of communication and planning with lots of disruption and road closures at the same time.”
A show of hands from the audience later suggested that the majority of those present did not believe Island Roads was currently doing a good enough job.
Both Isle of Wight MPs also raised concerns.
Isle of Wight West MP Richard Quigley said there needed to be much better engagement between Island Roads, residents and businesses.
Meanwhile, Isle of Wight East MP Joe Robertson said there were too many organisations involved in managing the highways network and suggested communication between them was lacking.
Red Funnel Chief Executive Fran Collins agreed with Mr Moon’s assessment of the overall condition of the roads, saying potholes were often worse on the mainland side of the Solent.
Concluding the discussion, chairman Marc Morgan-Huws reflected the frustrations expressed throughout the debate, saying:
“Something needs to change. It needs to change dramatically and pretty quickly too.”
However, it was Mr Bacon’s assessment of the Island Roads agreement that perhaps summed up the strength of feeling on the issue.
“It’s a bad contract, and the opportunities to reset it have been missed.”
Island Roads was the worst ever thing that happened to the
Island.
We must have a different way of defining potholes over here or perhaps they class badly patched ones as fixed/non-existent, because my daily bus trip to Ryde feels more like a fairground ride.
I remember when they first popped up and had promises of resurfacing all the roads on the island, it seemed to begin but soon ended.
The work they do in my opinion is the worst ever on the island.
Scrappy work, insufficient repairs, poor quality repairs most of these repairs are rubbish patch jobs that don’t last.
If I’d done this kind of bad work my business would have shut down years ago and rightly so.
The roads have gotten so poor since IR got involved and probably so far gone that to actually repair them properly would be so expensive it can’t be done.
They should have been got rid of many years ago. The roads have never been in such a state if they have been I don’t remember it.
Promises not kept, poor work on jobs they have done, poor road conditions still waiting to be done, poor road conditions on roads they have done and they get paid for this
Most not touched the ones they did fucked after 2 years..
So many roads in Seaview are like Rollercoasters and
Island Toads have not done them, they choose the
easy roads to tackle.
Useless B’stards
Let’s face it, any PFI contract, especially a 25 year one, is a bad contract.
Words are cheap but sound great to those who think you can change anything but you know as do Joe public the contract they have means it would bankrupt an already “financially embarrassed Council “to get out of at least start your new term as short as it will be by being honest Islanders deserve that!
So basically a lot of hot air that will change absolutely nothing then.
Millions spunked away for shit repairs shit standards.
I seem to recall that it was a former Council Employee in the then Highways Department who was responsible for drawing up the original contract, who was then later, after having departed the Council, was brought back and paid a considerable of (Council Tax Payers) money as a ‘Consultant’ to renegotiate and find financial savings in the contract that THEY had been responsible for drawing up in the first place. You do not need to be Einstein to work out that it was a bad contract to begin with!
this is what happens when people are tasked with doing jobs that they have no comprehension of what is required!
Sounds about right, the Council do employ cowboys
Yee-haw
The roads are in a disgusting condition under Island Roads, over 90% of the “potholes” are in fact the result of badly back filled road works and the worst offenders are Wightfibre.
Island roads had a great opportunity to resurface Binstead road in their last closure but all they did was patch it, The same applies to Queens Road, George St is a disgrace with the tarmac scabbing off the underlying concrete at both the top and bottom of the road and Island roads have no plans to remedy the situation, their contract was a badly thought out and totally unmanaged disaster from day one.
Mountjoy, Dempsey’s and Crown Park done a better job
at a much cheaper price.
Quigerley out now . The olde chocolate teapot what a waste of time and space for the islands representative in parliament.
Wightfibre don’t dig up roads, they contract that part out, get the facts right, jeeeeeeez.
But they are still responsible as I assume that the people doing the digging are sub-contract
All Wightcibre are good at is posting trash through
letter boxes.
If persons want an internet provider they would contact
their preferred provider.
Cold calling is not what people want.
The PFI contract still has eleven years to run. Surely the way forward is not to go on about the bad contract since that is a done deal but rather to focus on managing the contract better to ensure effective and efficient compliance by Island Roads.
For future contracts, it is essential that the terms and conditions are scrutinised by a business man.
Councillors tend to be not very good when comes to scrutinising T’s & C’s.
do away with island roads OWN inspectors and just have council inspectors ONLY, make sure the communication with ALL utilities also if there are bad sections of highway with in the area that is being worked on GET IT DONE saves time, money & hassle, and to do the highways that need the work NOT the small back roads roads that are not used that much but very easy for IR so they can tick a box