A much-loved Isle of Wight seaside attraction looks set to reopen this Summer but questions remain about what will happen in the long-term.
The future of Browns Golf Course on Culver Parade, Sandown has been up in the air for months after its previous managers left earlier this year. Now, it can be revealed the Isle of Wight Council has accepted a new tenant for the business.
The authority hopes they will take over in time for the school summer holidays.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting last night (Tuesday), Cllr Julie Jones-Evans, the economy, regeneration, culture and leisure lead, said work has started in the front part of the building — allowing the café to open for takeaways and people to play golf once again.
She said:
“Unfortunately, the state of the building is that many tens, going into the hundreds of thousands of pounds, is needed to repair it, which we don’t have. We have taken a pragmatic approach to have the front open, it will look alive again with the beautiful front of the building.”
Browns has been a popular attraction in Sandown since it opened nearly 100 years ago, in 1932, but with regeneration plans for the wider Culver Parade and Yaverland in the making for some years, there had been doubts about its future.
After the meeting, Cllr Jones-Evans said the new managers are happy to run Browns for now until a solution can be found for the rest of the area.
She said:
“There is so much going on, some bigger opportunities, we didn’t want to spend the money, which we don’t have, to do the back of the building, when there could be a longer-term solution.”
Previous managers, Kate and Geoff Scandrett, took on the attraction in 2021 but handed back the keys in April after they turned down a 5-year lease option.
A ‘Yaverland Plan’ is currently being drafted, following stakeholder engagement consultations in the past few weeks, which would set out the potential future of the seaside frontage.
Great news, this should never have closed down.
Bring back the boating Lake too.
… & the old old cafe/arcade next to it
I remember the old cafe and arcade, great Doughnuts.
One expects a ‘mystery fire’ will take hold, and burn down any building that could be a problem for future captiva planning, and that ‘burnt out’ building will then be left for a few years to be vandalised and become such an eyesore, that the Council and their close developer pals then know that the public will be eventually ‘all too willing’ to see the eyesore removed and new profitable apartments fill the area.
That is how they ‘play the game’
Watch and see
Does it take cash?
Or else I’m not going. Lol
I’m sure they can’t afford not to!
Places I no longer visit due to them not accepting cash
Ventnor Botanical Gardens
Pearl Centre
Shanklin Chine
Wightlink Ferry onboard Cafes
Their loss is my gain, to be honest all are overpriced.
So true.
Entrance fees are extortionate and food prices at these establishments are
extortionate for what you get.
all part of the digital big brother it’s comeing …
The met have already been caught secretely using facial recogniton software in vans to test it out on crowds of people shopping in London.
Very dangerous to a free society.
We will soon be living like the people are in China.
That the reason the country have rolled out Gigabit, it is all
about control.
Would NOT have been necessary if we had not allowed so much unvetted ‘enrichment’ here.
It is NOT coincidence that such is deemed necessary first in areas of high newcomers areas.
When real Londoners filled the City, then such would not have been needed.
See the problem
Who would go to pearl neckless anyway??..like they farm them there pearls off the island..
The future isn’t uncertain. The future will be a certain developer who will be close to the council will be tickled Pink when planning permission is granted to develop the whole site.
Give it a few short years.