Community Insight

www.islandroads.com

News update from Island Roads

November 2013

It’s been a particularly busy month for us dealing with the recent high winds, stormy conditions, heavy rainfall andpreparing for the winter gritting season. Our team has worked hard to keep the Island safe and moving during the 99mph winds recorded and during the clear up operation in the following period to return the Island back to normal.In undertaking our daily duties since 1 April, we’ve now successfully dealt with over 90 highway emergencies, we’ve fixedover 5,000 defects, carried out over 14,000 safety inspections and kept 21,195km of roads swept and clean. We’ve also been cleansing all the drainage systems which has been fundamental in removing surface water from the highway. Alongside this, we’re progressing well with our investment works and have installed over 3000 new LED streetlights, undertaken over 7,000m2 of footway work, resurfaced over 60,000 m2 of road - the equivalent of surfacing the road from Newport to Freshwater and back!Work has commenced on two of the major geotechnical schemes at the Undercliff and Bouldnor which will see lasting solutions being implemented at some of the most unstable sections of highway on the Island.We hope you continue to find this newsletter helpful and once again, we would be grateful if you could share it with your members.

Paul Herbert, Island Roads Service Director

Photos: Left (from left) District Responders Pete De Mouilpied, Sean Wyse, Christian Zanti and Scott Williams making an unusual delivery

to the zoo after the recent storm. They handed over four tonnes of fallen trees they were clearing throughout Sunday night and Monday to

zoo residents!

Right: Donna Wharton (left) and Lorna Parris who helped to manage the call centre throughout the busy weekend.

As a team, we undertook a great deal of preparation in the days prior to the storm to ensure we were ready for the worst. On the Saturday and Sunday before, we were out delivering sandbags, clearing gullies and removing leaves from drains ready for the rainfall. When St Jude arrived, the team worked hard to keep the highway network safe and clear. • Over 2,000 sandbags were distributed throughout the weekend• Around 200 calls were received by our hub between midnight Sunday and midday Monday • Trees were cleared at 70 sites across the Island from Sunday evening and through Monday.• Additional resources were brought in to the call centre day and night Saturday, through to Monday evening to manage

the ‘crisis centre’ • From 5am on Monday more than 60 Island Roads staff including traffic management, street cleansing and maintenance

teams were deployed to assist the clean-up operation.• They were joined by supply chain partner Groundsell whose teams worked around the clock to keep the highways clear.

Responding to St. Jude Storm

FeedbackHere are a selection of the compliments we recieved after the recent stormy weather conditions:

“As Leader of the IWC, may I offer sincere thanks to all of those within Island Roads who contributed to the successful operations undertaken, along with other services such as Ambulance and Fire Rescue in such trying conditions. It takes perfect planning and good cohesive professionalism allied with teamwork to successfully tackle the undoubted demands on the services.” - Cllr Stephens

“Well done to all concerned in keeping the Island ‘open’ for business during these conditions. Every member of staff is very much valued.” – Cllr Peacey Wilcox

“I called after midnight for sandbags in Quarry View Road, Binstead. It was really helpful that someone came and delivered them so quickly.”- Member of the public

“Good work Island Roads on the excellent updates and hard work through the storm!” - Member of the public

“Amazing job being done throughout the night by this team to keep the roads clear! Worst weather since 1987, without doubt.” - Member of the public

“Impressed at Island Roads staying on it and keeping all the roads clear, well done to all of you.” - Member of the public

“What an impressive display of coordinated road clearing from the folks at Island Roads. Credit where credit is due. Jolly well done!” - Member of the public

Geotechnical schemes underway

Major schemes to strengthen the road at two of the Island’s most unstable stretches of highway have now started. The projects at Bouldnor Road in Yarmouth and the Undercliff at Niton are the first of a programme of major geotechnical schemes to maintain the road network being undertaken by Island Roads. At Bouldnor Road – the main approach into Yarmouth – the work will involve strengthening a 700-metre section of the highway between the Viewpoint Car Park and Yarmouth Green. 750 steel sheet piles will be driven up to 16 metres into the ground, a process called ‘soil nailing’ will also be used to stabilise the highway at the Yarmouth end of the scheme. At the Undercliff, where the underlying clay foundations have caused frequent and historic issues of movement, geotechnical work will be undertaken at three sections. In the vicinity of Undercliff Caravan Park and a property called Woodlands, the highway will be anchored by 25-metre steel cables driven through the clay strata into a more substantial layer of rock.At a section above Hunts Road, more than 100 ten-metre concrete piles will be drilled into the ground to strengthen the highwayBoth schemes – which will also see the treated sections resurfaced and re-profiled to improve their cambers – are expected to take six months to complete and have been programmed to avoid the main holiday season where possible.

Above: From left Becky Jepson (Graduate Engineer), Will Orr (Graduate

Engineer), Maddie Clewett (Geotechnical Engineer) and Kieron Blamey

(Geotechnical Project Manager)

FeedbackHere are a few more of the compliments we’ve received over the last month:

“We supported Island Roads and the IW Council today in Cowes to sort illegally parked vehicles. Partnership problem solving = swift results.” - IW Roads Policing Unit

“Many thanks for all your help with Isle of Pink this year. It is really important to us to promote the initiative and it is great that you allowed us to do this by decorating the trees. I hope you can continue to support us next year.” - Breast Cancer Campaign

“Thank you for all your support at the Sweetcorn Fayre at Arreton Barns and for the loan of the VMS signs. Your help and support is very much appreciated.” - Earl Mountbatten Hospice

“Many thanks for being so quick at fixing the lamp outside my gate in Maderia Vale. It’s been a real pain not having it as it helps me reverse into the drive - without it I can’t. I don’t know why, it must be a ‘woman thing!’ Anyway I’m a happy bunny now! Many thanks.” - Member of the public

“We now have our house name displayed with the postman using it with no problems. Thank you Lorraine for your help with this process. It’s been a real pleasure. Thanks for doing a great job and keeping us informed every step of the way. Sadly, we seem to expect poor service these days, so it’s a real treat when someone goes out of their way to do a really good job.” - Member of the public

“The improvements you did to the road level outside our property have had the desired effect and surface water now runs past our property when it rains. So thank you to Matt and Gary for their persistence.”- Member of the public

As part of Island Roads’ corporate social responsibility, the street cleansing team worked hard to ensure the war memorials in Ryde, Newport, Cowes, Totland, Ventnor, Sandown, Shanklin and Lake were clean and tidy. A member of our staff visited each of the memorials in the week leading up to Remembrance Sunday to clean any moss or mess from the memorial and its surrounding area. They revisited early on the morning of the service to give it a check over and final tidy up. While we recognise that this is not part of our contractural work, we’re happy to donate our staff time to this type of activity as it is of great value to the local community.

Councillors visit surfacing schemes

Remembrance Sunday

Cllr Jon Gilbey, (pictured right) Portfolio Holder for Resources and Cllr Richard Priest, Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services have been out visiting a number of surfacing schemes in their areas. They visited our overnight surfacing team in Landguard Road and Sandown Road, Shanklin and our daytime team in Grange Road, Shanklin.Cllr Gilbey said: “ I was highly impressed by the enthusiasm of the teams on site. Their attitude and assistance to the public was first class and the quality of the finished surface was very good. It has helped me to understand the stages in which the surfacing works are undertaken and I can now provide more information to my residents.”

Above: Site supervisor Ray Corcoran (left) shows Cllr Gilbey how some of the state of the art surfacing equipment works.

We’re ready for the winterOur new modern depot at Stag Lane is being constructed on the brownfield site of the former Isle of Wight Council highways maintenance depot and will be the home to six brand new gritters lorries, three back up gritters as well as the Island’s road salt supply which under the new Highway’s PFI contract will be well in excess of the volume required for use in an average winter.Around 50 staff will be based at the new depot which will be an all-year-round facility as besides being the base for the winter maintenance operation, it will also be home to Island Roads’ gully emptying and street cleansing teams. New equipment at the depot will also enable water collected during gully cleansing to be recycled.The six new gritters are fitted with the latest ‘pre-wet’ technology which sprays the salt immediately with brine solution prior to it being spread on the carriageway. This technology ensures salt sticks to the highway and gets to work on the road surface straight away. It also means there is less ‘dust’ to find its way onto other vehicles and roadside verges.The vehicles are also fitted with satellite tracking so their whereabouts can be plotted and also displayed via Island Roads’ website so residents can chart the progress of salting in their areas. These salting routes under the PFI Highways Maintenance contract have been decided as part of the contract with the Isle of Wight Council. Under the new contract an additional 15% in road length will be treated than previously undertaken.The new winter maintenance depot will play a key part in Island Roads’ operation to manage the highway network, the range of integrated activities that are based there illustrates the wide scope of services included in the PFI contract. Both the new building and the new equipment such as the winter fleet that will be based there – with a value of over £1 million - demonstrating the massive level of investment and government grant the 25-year programme is bringing to the Island. This is a first class new facility built on brownfield land and centrally located just off a main road which is ideal. At the end of the contract, the depot will be handed back to the council so it provides the Island with a future asset as well as a current one.

We ran a competition for local primary school pupils to name our six new gritters. The enjoyable task of shortlisting the hundreds of entries was carried out by staff from across the teams (pictured above). Once the graphics are in place on the gritters, we will announce the winners and take these out to the schools for the pupils to see. Keep an eye out for these names when you see the gritters!

Coming soon...We continue to take our mobile visitor centre out across the Island to keep residents and businesses informed of our proposed works. This will be at the following locations in the coming months:Moa Place Car Park, Freshwater

29 November

11:00 – 13:00

St James Square, Newport

6 December

11:00 – 13:00

If you would like us to bring this to a particular event or location in your area, please get in touch. Photo above: Cllr Eccles in the mobile visitor centre learning more about the Geotechnical scheme at Bouldnor Road, Yarmouth.

Mobile visitor centre