A former butcher’s shop turned pottery studio in Niton could be coming to the end of its retail life.
The shop on Niton High Street has most recently housed Tregear Pottery but with the lease of the shop ending in the summer, the property may be headed for residential use.
Plans have been submitted to the Isle of Wight Council, by Mrs J. Phillips, who is taking care of the shop, to convert it into a three-bed bungalow. Before the pottery workshop, a butcher and food companies had occupied the site.
However, according to planning agent, Phil Salmon, the demand for the premises as a business site and retail unit had been extremely limited.
The site was on the market for three years, between September 2006, when Forrest Butchers left the site, and December 2009. No takers came forward to occupy the site until The Real Island Food Company who only stayed for two years.
In planning documents, Mr Salmon said:
“While Niton accommodates a number of community facilities and shops, it also generates housing need for which the Island Plan Core Strategy also recognises the village has an opportunity to accommodate new housing development.”
With the impact of Covid on the retail market, Mr Salmon also said there was currently no demand for retail floor space while market predictions indicate further collapse.
To accommodate the change of use to a residential property, the workshop and outbuilding would be demolished to provide space for an extension and private garden space.
It is said the building’s impact would enhance the street scene, reflecting a sustainable change of use and design for the site within the heart of an existing rural service centre.
To view the plans, 21/00937/FUL, you can visit the council’s planning register. Comments will be accepted until June 14.
And when built will be sold as a holiday home occupied for a few weeks a year or to mainland retirees as no locals will be able to afford it.
What the piece forgets to mention is that The Real Island Found Company, which only stayed for two years, due to lack of demand was in fact owned and run by the very people who own the building. Not ‘taking care’ of it.
This planning application should be refused and contested every step of the way. There is no shortage housing in Niton. There is too much second home ownership, holiday letting and subletting. This is grubby, grabby opportunism intending to cash in on the very profitable holiday home market. People of Niton, oppose this.
Why cite historic lack of demand for such retail.property?
Tregear Pottery has been in there for 10+ years maybe? Why pull the plug on the business now? I sense a premptive ‘gold rush’ on the half of the owners hoping long term travel restrictions will accelerate and bolster pretty little holiday home prices. No young Niton resident who currently lives and works on the Island would be able to afford it.
Opportunism at large!