As a Yarmouth school prepares its move down the road to Freshwater, the town council is bidding to save its old building.
The decision was made in 2020 to move Yarmouth Primary School to the former site of All Saints’ Primary School site, after a multi-million-pound rebuild and the amalgamation of the 2 education settings.
It will leave the school’s former building, on Mill Road, empty when the new one is complete and fears of losing the building have led Yarmouth Town Council to try and save it.
To do so, it is in the process of making an application to the Isle of Wight Council to turn it into an asset of community value.
Yarmouth Town Council clerk, Brian Jacobs, said the application is undergoing its final review before submission and covers all buildings and land on the site. Mr Jacobs said it is hoped it will preserve the premises as an educational and community resource for the residents of Yarmouth rather than the site passing into private hands for redevelopment.
He said Yarmouth residents are determined that such a valuable community hub should not be lost.
As a valued community asset, should the building be put up for sale within 5 years of the successful application, the local community would be informed and be given a 6-month moratorium period to see if they could raise the money necessary to purchase it.
The history of Yarmouth Primary School is currently being recorded and former students are contributing their memories.
The school will complete its move to Freshwater in the not-too-distant future according to the Federation of the Church Schools of Shalfleet and Yarmouth governing body.
Pupils are still on the site and operating from the building and temporary classrooms installed to accommodate the larger number of children currently attending the school.
Should certainly be kept for the use of the Yarmouth community.
Likely the site is already earmarked by the Council for building land, to shoe-horn in more breeding hutches to allow more mainland outcasts a home at our expense and in more ways than just monetary terms.
More cars, more crime, more to queue behind at the doctors, dentists and soon the job centre when the real effects of a long lasting recession bite, as, as yet it hasn’t, but watch, for it will.
As with Liz Trusts expected wealth to slowly ‘filter down’ SO too does ‘poverty’ take its time to first kill businesses, which then sack people, which then means they spend less, so more businesses go to the wall, and the downwards spiral speeds up and deepens.
Years of misery to come.
This is a local island for local people. There’s nothing for you here.
Too late Yarmouth Town Council you had so many chances to do something positive.. and you failed The IWC and developers are poised the get in and start the construction of many 2nd homes,
Yarmouth Town has passed away, it’s finished .
We need higher taxes on rental and second homes. Some other counties have enacted higher council tax rates.
Yarmouth won’t have any new families unless we stop the rot
So an ideal opportunity for Yarmouth Town Council to push for it to be converted into affordable housing OR Community Led Housing OR rentable accommodation, ‘cos that’s what some of their incumbents regularly spout about on their other non-elected public platforms.
I agree it should be saved for Yarmouth I heard rumors that it would become a sailing academy
it cant be built on as part of the floodplain
Perhaps those not afraid of a little water, and used to sailing in a dingy will fill any homes built there. An awful lot around and many naive love the thought of destroying the Island forever for some strange reason.
Should never have closed it in the first place, dreadful decision.
The site is actually owned by the church authority, the Portsmouth Diocese. The land was donated by a wealthy local lady in 1854 and a small part by the fore-runner of the Yarmouth Town Council, under strict conditions that it be used for the education of the children of Yarmouth’s working and middle class families.
I wish the YTC good luck, the building deserves to be saved from the inevitable ‘second homes’ building application, which does the local community no good at all.