The Isle of Wight’s countryside could be at increased risk of poor-quality greenfield development unless urgent protections are introduced in upcoming devolution plans, CPRE Isle of Wight has warned.
In its official response to the Government’s consultation on a new Mayoral Combined County Authority (MCCA) for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, the charity urges ministers to grant the Island ‘exceptional status’ to protect its planning independence.
Under current proposals, a regional mayor could hold sweeping powers over housing targets and strategic planning. CPRE argues this could lead to housing numbers being dictated from the mainland – with little regard for the Island’s environmental or infrastructure limitations.
CPRE has consistently highlighted the Island’s exceptional circumstances. In 2019, it commissioned groundbreaking expert analysis from independent demographers, showing that government population forecasts for the Island were flawed. This helped win important bespoke protections for the Island under the previous Conservative Government’s Planning framework.
Ian Wellby, Treasurer of CPRE Isle of Wight, has said:
“We’ve long argued that the Isle of Wight deserves a distinct planning approach.
“This devolution deal must not become a backdoor to mainland driven development that threatens our landscapes, wildlife, and communities and fails to reflect true local need.
“For Isle of Wight at least, so called “devolution” in fact represents a centralization of our existing strategic planning powers and our ability to decide how many homes we build on the Island. We cannot give any power away to a Mayor representing a largely mainland constituency to make these decision with Government at the expense of the Island.”
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The Labour Government don’t care how unique or beautiful our land is.
They want to cover the countryside with houses and solar panels.
All industrial buildings and new build houses should have solar panels – not covering green fields which we need for growing food. Short sighted.
The new agenda does not include growing food.
Very well said.
The CPRE is emphatically not a landowners charity. Its 40,000 membership is drawn from people from all walks of life. Nor are they against all forms of development. A trip to their website or Google would be informative for you.
“Agricultural land cannot be built on” well I never knew that! You obviously haven’t got a clue. The only reason for the enormous amount of new houses the present government want built, is to house their newly arriving voters. This little island will not be overlooked by them, once they notice our lovely green fields.
Spot on Mr Wellby, but we have a council leadership that doesn’t care about that… Clare Critcheson, represents Niton, Whitwell, Chale, has raised concerns about the countryside, might be best to start lobbying her? She is a strong supporter of devolution but I am not sure if she has considered that devolution will mean we will lose control over planning on the IOW
I am for devolution it’s got to be better than what
we currently have
We have speeding motorists all over the island.
Rubbish / litter on many island roads thrown from
numpty motorists.
Bring on devolution and put the island on the
Map.
When is the”isle of Wight”not the”isle of Wight” very soon if we’re not very careful