Re: Letter from Island Roads,
published in On The Wight on Friday 14th
February.
Island Roads' lengthy
self-justification is astonishing. It didn't need two hundred and
eighty words from Island Roads to tell us the Bouldnor Road works are
important. We all know it's important.
What we want to know is why the details
of the closure were sprung on us with no time for proper consultation
and planning to mitigate the closure, leaving Yarmouth businesses
cut-off from their customers, ambulances and other emergency services
cut-off from Yarmouth, Freshwater and Totland, bus-users cut-off from
transport, and an unknown amount of traffic running through Wellow
and Thorley due to lack of planning, consultation and diversion
notices. Those were the substantive questions put by members of the
public, Yarmouth Town Council and Shalfleet Parish Council to Island
Roads but instead of a helpful response and desire to work with the
community we got a letter of excuses, some of which are not in
accordance with the facts.
- At the Public Meeting Island Roads stated that they had not discussed ambulance access with the Health Authority as to how ambulances would be able to pass. Now they say they did consult the HA (but see below).
- Regarding the buses, Island Roads announced the closure in On The Wight on Thursday 6th February for a major closure commencing on 17th February. One week for consultation and planning is not sufficient time.
- When Island Roads were asked by the meeting about the Yarmouth bridge and whether they had considered the issues, they did not reply. Mayor Steve Cowley was quite right when he wrote “The issue of re-routing when Yarmouth Bridge is closed had not been considered”. Island Roads now say that “appropriate action will be taken”. Appropriate?
- In their defence of their behaviour, Island Roads write that they have spent “a considerable time during the meeting” and had a “mobile visitor centre” in Yarmouth on Tuesday morning. That may be, but the mobile centre was there in torrential rain and gale force winds – not their fault but this was all sprung on the community with just a week's notice! They say that they dropped seven hundred leaflets – presumably they did but we didn't see any in Wellow, and many hands went up at the meeting from those who hadn't seen a leaflet. Many people in this community either don't have Internet access or struggle to do much more than basic emails, etc.
Finally, I would like to come back to
the point about ambulance access, since it was the point I raised at
the meeting. Ambulances are required to achieve proscribed response
times. It is not permitted for a road maintenance firm to
negotiate with “the NHS” (which is what Island Roads say they
have done) about response times. Here is the chapter and verse
from: http://tinyurl.com/nucx7co
______________________________________________________________________
Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and
Oxfordshire Health Overview and Scrutiny Joint Review Group
South Central Ambulance Service:
Review of Rural Performance:
The standards for responding to calls
are set out in a national contract that is not open to
negotiation. All Ambulance Trusts across England are expected
to deliver the following national standards
Category ‘A’
Life threatening emergency. An
emergency response should reach the patient within 8 minutes on 75%
of all occasions and a transport capable response should arrive
within 19 minutes of it being requested for 95% of all occasions;
Category ‘B’
Serious but not immediately life
threatening. An appropriate response should reach the patient within
19 minutes on 95% of all occasions;
Island Roads are proposing that the one
mile section being closed will have access by combination-lock
padlocks at both ends. The ambulance will have to stop at the entry,
unlock the padlock, pass into the roadworks section, re-lock the
padlock, drive one mile, unlock the second padlock, drive through and
re-lock the second padlock. How is any vehicle going to include that
on the way, say, to Yarmouth (let alone Freshwater or Totland) in 8
minutes? This scheme will guarantee that not a single ambulance from
St Mary's can possibly reach Yarmouth within the proscribed 8 minutes
when the roadworks are unmanned.
I believe this might be illegal, but it
is certainly unacceptable. Even non-medics understand that some
emergencies are time-critical. Minutes count, hence 8 minutes,
“non-negotiable”.
At the time of writing I have heard
from Councillors and I know that a great deal of effort has been put
into trying to sort this out before Monday. It sounds as though we
have been left with insufficient time; the work is essential and to
postpone it, other than for safety reasons, might further delay the work and increase the
cost to the community, essentially the entire West Wight.
Cllr Stuart Hutchinson, West Wight Ward
Councillor, said yesterday, “Mayor Steve Cowley's hastily-added
addition item to the Yarmouth TC agenda was I think a first class
'emergency' response and really raised the profile. Without it I
don't think we would be getting even the information that is
trickling through now.”
Our thanks should go to our local
Councillors for doing their (mostly unpaid) jobs representing our
interests and no thanks go to Island Roads for doing their
(handsomely-paid) job representing nothing but their own interests.
David Walter
Wellow
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