Plans for the major regeneration of Newport Harbour will once again head out for consultation.
The consultation seeks to progress the regeneration, which could see a footbridge over the River Medina, a hotel, a multi-storey car park and other big projects in the harbour at the centre of the county town.
The Isle of Wight Council’s cabinet agreed the move on Thursday.
The idea of housing on Seaclose Park, reinstated in the consultation, was called a ‘disgrace’ by Councillor Geoff Brodie, chair of Newport and Carisbrooke Community Council, who said he suspected the community council would be in unanimous opposition to the housing.
Cllr Brodie referenced the public petition carried out by local ward councillor Matt Price at the time of the previous consultation in 2020, which was successful in seeing the Conservative administration remove the Seaclose Park housing from the plan.
Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Cllr Brodie said the area was important to residents as it was an urban area with a limited number of recreation grounds. He also said the council were seemingly ignoring brownfield sites to develop, like Camp Hill, in favour of the greenfield, recreation site.
Councillor Ian Stephens, cabinet member for housing, said Camp Hill was not owned by the council, whereas Seaclose was so they would concentrate on their assets. However, the housing on Seaclose, he said, ‘was not final by any imagination’.
Cabinet member for planning, Councillor Paul Fuller, said they needed to get the affordable housing element right there and would listen to what the residents of Newport told them.
Councillor Julie Jones-Evans, regeneration cabinet member, said one housing option had been ‘pulled back drastically’ and urged people to focus on the entire plan during the consultation, and not ‘one tiny corner’.
Once the outcome of the consultation had been considered, the council could make further changes and approve it as a supplementary planning document, which Cllr Jones-Evans said wouldhelp ‘de-risk’ the project. She said it would give assurance to investors the council was behind the project, so they could start to bring parts forward.
That bridge is pretty pointless, no? Saves people the 5 minute walk down to the Quay
So Geoff Brodie is flapping his gums about the council ignoring brownfield sites in Newport but not a peep when approving a mass housing estate on greenfield in Ryde last year.
just think how many flats or houses you could put on the site of county hall and all the dead wood there can move up to camp hill
So they are going to put it out to consultation again.
Must be because they didn’t get what they wanted first time round.
How many more time will it go out before it comes back how they wanted it in the first place.
This would be either a swing bridge, or s draw bridge I’m guessing , to allow for the flow of traffic up and down the river….
And with a low pitch ramp for bikes…
It would be interesting to see an actual design of the bridge