Yarmouth Town Council called an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday evening at the Yarmouth Institute, where representatives from Island Roads and the Isle of Wight Council faced some aggressive questioning by local residents concerned about the Bouldnor Road closure next week.
Residents from Shalfleet, Wellow, Thorley and Bouldnor were vociferous in their demands for better communications from both the Council and Island Roads, with a representative from Shalfleet Parish Council – which covers Bouldnor – complaining about being ignored by Island Roads and not having received the notifications about the closure as had been promised.
A large number of Yarmouth traders heard the responses from Kieron Blamey, the Project Manager for Island Roads, which prompted Shaun Rayner of The Wheatsheaf Inn in Yarmouth to say on behalf of many of his fellow traders that just the traffic lights were causing them grave concern and that if takings continued to drop then they, like others in the town, would have no option other than laying off staff until the situation improved.
In addition, grave concerns were raised about the emergency service access in and out of Yarmouth during the closure period, with the town’s Fire Service unable to response to the east of Yarmouth to areas such as Bouldnor, Thorley, Wellow and Shalfleet without travelling via Freshwater first, dramatically decreasing the response time.
Access for ambulances and Police was also questioned, as well as lifeboat crews members for Yarmouth RNLI.
Island Roads said at the meeting that they are bound by the demands of Isle of Wight Council to close down operations at the beginning of April and should the work remain unfinished, the traffic lights would return until they could proceed around September.
Thanks to Island Echo reader Colin for his report on the meeting
