After plans were refused last year, Mr and Mrs Conkleton are back before the Isle of Wight Council hoping to turn the old Lloyds TSB branch on Sandown High Street into a family home – but this time retaining space on the ground floor for a commercial unit.
As previously reported by Island Echo, the news follows the concerns of officers and the planning committee in June 2022 that turning the whole building into a home would remove a shop in a prime location. Officers had said it would be an ‘undesirable change’ and break from Council policy as it looks to preserve commercial properties.
While the planning committee refused the application, it was suggested the scheme be brought back with part of the retail unit retained so it would help lower business rates but also add to the Island’s housing stock. There would be residential facilities proposed behind and above the shop.
The change of use of the building started in April last year but has not yet been finished as it undergoes repair and renovation works.
You can view the plans, 23/00690/FUL, on the Council’s website. Comments can be submitted until 30th May.
Does it really matter, there are many empty retail units along Sandown High Street
many of them are actually part of the derelict old Hotels.
Sandown is finished IT,S OVER
High street banking when was the last time any readers went into a bank please comment if you have been in a high street bank in the last 3 months
turning this building into residential usage is the best use of the building
Yet the council clearly have no interests in the shopping centres what with extortionate parking charges and business rates for shops it’s never going to be a shop again is it
So what sort of commercial unit are the council thinking of, another cafe’ or a betting shop, or a visitors gift shop? all of which other businesses have failed because of the greed of the council charging so much money for council tax AND rates, that the shops don’t even make as an income in the first place. How many empty shops are there in every town because of this?
If this is such a “prime location”, why are there so many empty shops surrounding the area? If the building is smart it can only enhance the area. Open your eyes Sandown Council and get all the empty, scruffy units filled and stop the high street becoming a ghost town.
If you turn shops into residential you’ll be taking away the possibility of it ever going back to a shop or bank
THIS COUNCIL ARE A TOTAL JOKE Council policy as it looks to preserve commercial properties.
LOOK HOW MANY COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES THAT ARE EMPTY IN SANDOWN RUN DOWN HIGH STREET
G.F
But, in reality, why would anyone open a shop in Sandown?
Surely the first thing you’d want for a shop is customers, or potential customers at least, and they simply don’t exist in Sandown as it is now.
Yes, people pull up in cars and pop into Sainsbury or the CooP, but there’s hardly hoards of people flocking down the High Street, even in the summer.
Maybe, and it’s a long shot, they should consider making the High Street a pedestrian area? Let cafés, if some could be enticed to open there, set up tables outside so people might actually want to go there and stay awhile. Maybe, just maybe, that would benefit other shops etc in the High Street by way of extra people. Failing that, surely homes are better than empty shops?