Plans to build 70 houses in Shalfleet were presented to the parish council on Wednesday night — but met with mixed reactions.
The proposed development, comprising of 2, 3 and 4-bed houses, would be built on land behind the recently completed Burt Close.
Presenting the latest phase of development to Shalfleet Parish Council, Simon Jacobs, explained the site had been in his family for nearly 30 years, after his parents bought Shalfleet Manor.
He said:
“We are looking to create a legacy so that longstanding Shalfleet families, their children and grandchildren, can continue to live, work and bring up their families in Shalfleet.”
Talking through the scheme, planning agent Andrew Neale, said the development could see 70 predominantly semi-detached properties, 46 for open market and 24 affordable, built. The affordable houses would be broken down into 16 rented and eight shared-ownership houses.
Isle of Wight Councillor Peter Spink, for Freshwater North and Yarmouth, argued despite what developers said, most houses would not be for the benefit of local people as they would not be able to afford the open market properties. He said:
“If you are going to be selling the vast majority of these houses on the open market, with no control over whether they go to Islanders, it is not really as you said – providing homes for local people. It is providing a small number of the total proportion for local people.”
Mr Jacobs said “it will become clear” that the type of properties they will be building will go to local people as they are not ‘luxury homes’ – potentially costing £200,000 to 300,000, not over half a million.
Councillors were also cautious about whether the houses would actually go to local families. Demand for Burt Close meant that while the properties could have been sold 4 times over, many local families missed out — including members of the Burt family, who the close was named after.
Cllr Steve Cowley said the parish council would welcome a discussion about the way the houses are allocated, due to the unhappiness of the way the Burt Close houses were allocated, which for some made it ‘impossible’.
Mr Jacobs said while the allocation of the first lot of houses ‘was taken out of their hands completely’, having sold the development to Sovereign, there are all sorts of directions they could look at to ensure these houses, particularly the affordable ones, are lived in by locals.
One option put forward was a potential community housing project.
The application is not ‘set in stone’ and the development team said they would take the feedback from the parish council into consideration.
A public meeting is going to be held next month, 22nd June at Shalfleet Village Hall, by the developers with more detailed plans.
With no jobs and employment here plus sky high prices houses, it does feel that us locals are left out. There are lots of islanders desperate for homes here. It’s a real problem and needs to be seriously addressed.
Alas in this day and age all they are interested is the money….
Building a legacy?????
More like a healthy wealthy bank balance !!!!!.
Welcome to the Concrete jungle ….currently known as the Isle of Wight….
Building on greenfields again – the council declared a climate emergency – we need these green fields, so that plant life and trees can extract CO2 from the atmosphere – any building of houses just increases the amount of CO2 In the air and makes this climate emergency worse
the council must say no to all greenfield developments or they lied about their commitment to measures to reduce CO2 and end the climate emergency
once again – no homeless islanders sleeping in shop doorways because these houses haven’t been built – therefore no need.
Just do a poll of “longstanding Shalfleet families”, and see how many would buy or rent there, for themselves, children or grandchildren.
If it gets to 70, that’s a start.
For those of us who went to the meeting years ago, before the new houses were built, it was made clear that this was stage 1 of 3. Eventually the entire field will be covered in houses. This is about money not creating a “legacy”, there is not the demand for this volume of houses for local people. The houses that have just been built are certainly not ring fenced for locals. There are very few jobs in West Wight and the local primary is full and is not accessible on foot.
I am under no illusion that this can be stopped but the road from the new estate should NOT connect to Warlands Lane which could not cope with the extra traffic.
The urbanisation of the Island continues. STOP IT.