A £7million bid is being made to reinstate East Cowes as a focus for the marine industry on the Island.
The Isle of Wight Council is looking for a slice of the £4.8billion Levelling Up Fund, created by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak.
The announcement was made at last night’s (Wednesday) Isle of Wight Council cabinet meeting by the new leader, Councillor Lora Peacey-Wilcox.
While the fund is open to every authority in the UK, Mr Sunak said it is intended to support investment in places where it can make the biggest difference to everyday life, including ex-industrial areas, deprived towns and coastal communities.
The fund has been designed to regenerate town centres, high streets, upgrade local transport and invest in cultural and heritage assets.
New cabinet member for regeneration and business development, Cllr Julie Jones-Evans, laid out the proposals, which will hopefully attract more visitors, jobs and training to the East Cowes area.
Having bought buildings and land at Venture Quays last year, the council is looking to bring more workspace online in the Columbine Building to create more jobs and provide improved marine side infrastructure.
A wide range of refit work is also proposed for the historic barrack building, which was used in filming BritBox drama The Beast Must Die.
Along the Esplanade, a public realm project is proposed, which Cllr Jones-Evans said could include a dramatic new harbour viewing platform. She said:
“Our proposal will help level up East Cowes and make it a major gateway for the rest of the Island, wider Solent region and UK economy.”
Despite the Isle of Wight being ranked as the 80th most deprived local authority area in England (out of 317) by the 2019 Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Indices of Deprivation — ranking 44th for employment and 65th for income deprivation — the Island has been given a category 2 priority status. Category 1 represents the highest level of identified need with preference given to bids by the government from higher priority areas.
The prospectus for the Levelling Up Fund said bids from category 2 or 3 local authorities will still be considered for funding on their merits of deliverability, value for money and strategic fit, and ‘could still be successful if they are of exceptionally high quality’.
A letter with the bid is going to the Government tomorrow (Friday) and Councillor Peacey-Wilcox said the authority was teaming up with MP, Bob Seely, in trying to get the money.
Spend it on a tunnel…
Spend some on clearing the long standing landslip at Old Castle Point so that we can all access the full length of the parade as it was intended when first built. Then install land movement retaining structures that don’t include the design errors that existed in the original ones where the horizontal retainers were fitted on the seaward side of the uprights rather than where they should have been. ie. on the landward side of them.
I really don’t want to look at that photo anymore please IE.
More pie in the sky regarding spending money in East Cowes. How many times have we been told about regeneration schemes? Did Kingstone happen? – no. Did the seafront development happen? – no. Have Red Funnel built a new terminal? – no. Has the floating bridge been sorted? – no. Has the landslip been cleared? – no. Basically when it comes to East Cowes, nothing ever gets done.