By Press Release
Last week our hard-pressed council triumphantly announced that just over £2 million has been awarded by the government, to be spent on the road through Arreton towards Lake.
Naturally, they were thrilled, although as always, Bob Seely was quick to claim the credit. If you believe Bob’s many assertions, you’d thing the Island would barely function without his heroic interventions! Actually, if you do believe his outrageous claims, calm yourself, and remember that fictitious ‘Island Deal’ and the £90 million removed from our council budget over recent years – and then remember who voted to reduce funding to councils. Yes, Bob!
Last August, the A3056 in Arreton was the site of terrible flash flooding with mud washing off the fields and devastating the houses opposite. Thankfully, the Island Roads clean-up operation was swift, although the same can’t be said for those poor home-owners, many of whom spent months clearing up, and now live in fear of a similar catastrophe. Nature being what it is these days, that’s entirely likely, so when I heard the news about the £2 million, I was genuinely pleased for them all.
Stupidly I assumed they were planning to put some new drainage in there, to protect the homes at risk. Last Sunday I passed through and visualised a narrow-covered ditch at the kerb edge, with a large capacity gully capable to safely taking any flash floods before releasing the water harmlessly elsewhere. It’s the sort of thing you see in places like Florida, or anywhere else that experiences exceptional rainfall.
As I’ve previously mentioned, I once developed some land, and, as part of the planning approval, built an ‘attenuation tank.’ Imagine a large concrete box of roughly the size of a lorry trailer, constructed underground. When it rains hard, the surface water goes into that giant tank. Even if there’s a deluge serious enough to make Noah plan a new Ark, our tank would easily cope and, over time, the water drains away harmlessly through a small diameter pipe. The scheme was vital for the neighbouring properties, because that surface water eventually finds its way through Ryde to the sea.
Two million pounds is a tidy sum, although digging a neat trench and covering it over with a concrete lid is not particularly technical. In fact, with my previous development experience, I’ll stick my neck out, and say give me the cash, and I’ll get it done. When I heard about the latest £2.1 million grant, it seemed short on detail; they didn’t say specifically what was proposed, so when I read what the plan actually is, I became cross. That urgently-needed drainage scheme I visualised is not happening at all. Instead, every penny is to be spent on “a reduction in speed limits, new variable speed limits, improved signage, bus stops, pedestrian facilities, road markings (surely that’s just paint) and additional street lighting at key junctions”.
Seriously, no new drains! If you were on a sinking boat, would you spend your final moments stopping the leak or fitting new navigation lights?
Who makes such dumb choices? I happen to know that the Island’s most vulnerable adults, people with learning disabilities, are struggling year-on-year due to personal budget cuts. Bluntly, that means there’s less one-to-one care available for them, which results in more isolation. It’s those people, and the Arreton flood victims, I think of when I hear about public money being spent on pointless projects. Both groups of people and dozens more like them are being let down.
When it comes to spending our money, those in charge seem to make the worst possible choices.