By Isle of Wight Observer
So many people wanted to attend a meeting, organised by Cllr Nick Stuart to discuss the future of the Military Road, that not all of them could squeeze into the hall.
More than 150 people attended the meeting in Brook, to hear about three potential options on the future of the iconic road, and were invited to give their opinion on their favoured outcome. At a recent council meeting, the Isle of Wight Council’s director of community services, Colin Rowland, said the road could be “washed away by the sea” in anything between two and 10 years.
The first option was to be to do nothing to save the road, which is suffering from both coastal erosion and land slippage, and ‘let nature take it’s course’. Cllr Stuart said that was a perfectly reasonable position to take, although it was not a view he shared.
The second option is to undertake some work to save the road at sites 14 and 15, the stretch between Brook and Hanover Point, considered to be the most vulnerable parts of the road, particularly for drainage issues. The cost for this was estimated to be around £5 million.
The third option is to re-route the road up to 660ft (200 metres) away from the cliff edge, at a potential estimated cost of £26 million, which Cllr Stuart said he thought would actually cost around £30 million. He told the meeting that the extensive bore-piling, which protects the Afton Down section of the road, is in place under a legal agreement with the National Trust until 2053, the expected life of the road, although it could fail beforehand, particularly because of the impacts of climate change.
Cllr Stuart also explained why a proposal to save the road, which went before the IW Council planning committee last year, was turned down on environmental grounds and in line with national planning policies.
Lisa Buck, organiser of the ‘Save The Military Road IOW’ Facebook page, and Linda Sullivan, part of a group campaigning to have the Undercliff Drive at Niton reopened, were also present and pledged to work together with Cllr Stuart and others to find a way to keep the Military Road open.
The environmental challenges were acknowledged by Cllr Stuart, but he said that they were not a reason not to try to keep the road open.
A board set up for those who attended the meeting to mark their preference for the future of the road showed six people supporting the first option, 28 the second and 67 the third option. A number of those present did not express a preference, while some people chose more than one preferred outcome.
Cllr Stuart said that he will now be exploring all possible funding options to carry out the work.
There is another meeting, organised by Cllr Stuart this Sunday at 4pm in the Wilberforce Hall, in Brighstone, and, next Sunday, he will be walking the Military Road, meeting at Chale at 9am and setting off to Freshwater Bay. He will use the walk to highlight his campaign and raise funds for Mountbatten. You can donate to support his efforts at iow.life/miliroadfundraiser.
Isle of Wight Observer