Around 1,800 Islanders took the opportunity to have their say on the Isle of Wight’s planning blueprint recently.
The draft Island Planning Strategy sets out the proposed approach towards housing, employment, transport, commercial and leisure land use on the Isle of Wight in the future.
During a 12-week consultation, the Isle of Wight Council received 3,736 comments — of these, around 1,400 related to housing, either the overall housing number or the proposed allocation sites.
Councillor Barry Abraham, the council’s Cabinet member responsible for planning and housing, said:
“It is clear there are strong feelings around how we plan for housing on the Island.
“We will need to think carefully how we balance this within the context of national planning policy and relevant legislation.”
The Island Planning Strategy, created in 2018, will replace the ‘Core Strategy’ which has been in place since 2012. The document reflects the needs of Island people, particularly housing and draws from a whole range of evidence from bodies such the Office for National Statistics.
The consultation responses will now help officers finalise a plan that complies with national requirements and reflects, as far as it possibly can, the views of the Island’s communities.
There will be further opportunities for people to comment on the draft strategy later in the process.
Councillor Abraham added:
“We must make sure the plan is current and relevant to the short and long-term future and reflects the needs of people living on the Island.
“It’s important because the plan will be the starting point for assessing the merits of individual planning applications.
“The council will be undertaking further work to understand what the real level of need is, and some of the practical difficulties building new housing that is impacting on rates of delivery.
“In particular, there is further work taking place to ensure we plan for the right housing in the right places on the Island.”
‘Within the context of national planning policy and relevant legislation’ This not right for the Island. Isn’t this what our MP is trying to get us away from, as a special case.
When an island councillor says that they will take into consideration the feelings of the islanders when they can it means they will take no notice so they can sell off as much council land as they can for short term profit. without caring about the inferstructure and the social problems with that amount of building,listen to your MP and get the government to reduce the allocation.
more BS – relevant to the islanders needs they say.
What the Island needs is a reduction in the number of houses being built, an increase in the number of trees planted,which results in a reduction in the increased congestion on the roads/pollution and advising the individuals who reside in london that the national planning strategy is not going to be implemented on the island and that is that – it doesn’t apply and is not fit for purpose.
The only reason these hand wringers in the council want to build more houses, is that it generates more council tax revenue, either locally
or from central government in the form of benefit payments, which they can then award theirselves larger pay packets, with the new found
revenue streams.
Councillors aren’t fooling anyone with their lies.
Before any more large developments are considered, wouldn’t it be advisable to put the road infrastructure in place first? If they consulted every motorist on the island, almost all would be yelling at them “COPPINS BRIDGE!!” And we also all know that there needs to be another road crossing over the River Medina. It would be absolute chaos if this is not looked at first. IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! But there again, we are dealing with men in grey suits that don’t live on the island making decisions purely base on profit and how much money their greedy snouts can cream off into their own pockets….lust call me Mr Cynical….