After 7 years in the making and costing the Isle of Wight Council £660,000, the authority’s ‘planning bible’ has been delayed once again – and there are now fears it could run out of time. The draft Island Planning Strategy (DIPS) was back before members on Wednesday, where cabinet member Councillor Paul Fuller was seeking approval to send it out for one last public consultation before it would go to the government’s Planning Inspectorate for consideration. However, there were still some concerns, with Councillor Peter Spink calling for it to be returned to cabinet for them to reconsider various issues. The issues include decisions around potential development sites allocated in the plan, ‘windfall sites’ and how local need is identified. After a short break, Cllr Fuller agreed to Cllr Spink’s amendments, with 23 councillors in favour of the move, 9 against and 3 abstentions. While he accepted the change, Cllr Fuller warned if they were going to delay the DIPS further than the ‘very short period’ he could afford, the council was ‘in danger of running out of time’. He said the plan had been ‘dithered and delayed’ and the longer the council leaves it, the more the data ‘starts to collapse’. The DIPS — among other things — would set the Island’s housing targets, try for more affordable housing discounts and update planning policies. Following Wednesday’s vote, the DIPS will now return no later than the end of April to full council, either with the relevant changes made or an explanation from cabinet as to why not. Councillor Julie Jones-Evans called the situation ‘a game of whack-a-mole’ with more issues arising despite trying to move on with the plan. She said the council could not afford to run out of time and start over again, and that the move was ‘really poor’ and not showing a responsible attitude. Councillor Debbie Andre said the plan had been delayed long enough.
FEARS RAISED THAT £660,000 SPENT ON COUNCIL’S ‘PLANNING BIBLE’ MAY GO TO WASTE
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Well you can be sure of one thing the council are good at one thing and one thing only, wasting our f’ing money. This was never going to work, it was just started as a way to stop council tax paying people moaning about loss of green space, like this would of made any difference anyway, there is always some loophole built in.
With an endless, in the true sense of the word amount of flotsam arriving daily, then no paperwork will prevent ever more of our countryside being lost to builders.
Whilst each new home will not directly house such dingy content, the occupants are often indigenous people who, feel now that places they had lived or their life or for years are changed beyond recognition by such arrivals, so they move to places like here with far less (so far), making it seem more attractive to them, but it still ruins our countryside, infrastructure and wildlife.
So the channel problem effects us all and not just in financial costs and cutbacks to our own people either.
I had you over the the lefty for an alternative wrong take on such:
Flotsam? Not sure we have a litter problem on beaches, let alone being put in houses, although I must say some people’s furnishings could well be described as dingy. Not sure anyone’s life has been even slightly altered by old bottles washed up on the beach? Does ruin the environment though so I’ll give you that one. If on the other hand this was yet another one of your very badly worded, broken English attacks on people coming to the island which you seem to bitterly resent even though most of them contribute far more than you ever did, you’ve failed yet again. It’s still dog-whistle hate speech.
In their own admission “the longer the council leaves it, the more the data ‘starts to collapse’.”
So if the data does not stack up in the fullness of time then surely what is contained is of no use and should be scrapped…
If I read it right 23 in favour,9 against 3 abstaining surely a majority vote carries it through? Also who was paid £660,000? Thought it would of been done in house. Just get it done for the benefit of the people,not developers.
Not getting things done in time? £660,000 going to waste? Surely not with the iwcc. I find that very hard to believe.
Councillor Spink has expertise… in wasting time and spending council money.
Who signs off on those eye-watering sums and how the fiddly feck is that justified?? I’d quite like to see the breakdown, fully expecting it to be similar to the £200k paid to that one bloke (called suddenly a ‘consultant’ for NHS services) who ended up telling them exactly what we’d all been saying for years. And even then they didn’t go with the proposals.
We don’t need a new “BIBLE”just stick to the old one the island was once a green and pleasant land
None of this Council lot would get employed on the
Mainland, you need brains, on the island they employ
retards.
I am fed up with their handling of our money,
what with the this, the Floating Bridge fiasco, and the Interchange.
Sack the lot of them and start again.