25 parish, town and community council representatives met officers from the Isle of Wight Council last month to find out more about the Council’s plans to address the Island’s current shortage of affordable accommodation, especially rented housing.
The meeting was organised by the Isle of Wight Association of Local Councils (IWALC) and chaired by Councillor Anne Bamford, IWALC’s deputy chair. It focused on 4 specific aspects of the problem: 2nd homes and holiday homes, empty buildings, enforcement, and the Council’s new housing company.
James Brewer, the Council’s Planning Team Leader (Policy and Delivery), explained that both planning and legal means are required to address the concerns about 2nd homes and holiday homes. Since the problems are local rather than Island-wide, neighbourhood plans are usually the best planning tool. On the legal front, the Council is awaiting proposed government legislation that will regulate holiday homes and allow local councils to increase council tax on 2nd homes.
Discussion focused on the problems of defining such properties and the loopholes that owners could use to avoid paying increased tax.
On the subject of empty buildings, Dawn Lang, the Council’s recently appointed Strategic Manager for Housing, reported that there are currently 922 known empty residential properties on the Island. The Council tries to work with the owners to bring them back into productive use, but if this fails, more drastic measures can be taken.
Members expressed frustration at the Council’s apparent reluctance to use more drastic measures, especially with larger empty buildings. Councillor Mick Lyons was particularly concerned about the large empty buildings in Ryde. This led on to the discussion on enforcement.
Ollie Boulter, the Council’s Strategic Manager for Planning and Infrastructure Delivery, introduced the Council’s proposed new Enforcement Strategy. He explained that, because enforcement is not a statutory function and their resources are limited, they are proposing that the Council focus on major enforcement cases and inviting local councils to contribute to the cost of dealing with other cases in their areas.
Members expressed concern about local councils’ capacity to contribute to the costs. Commenting after the meeting, Councillor Diana Conyers, IWALC’s Chair, said:
“We appreciate the Council’s current resource constraints, but there are limits to the number of IW Council functions we can take over”.
Speaking about the Council’s Housing Company, Dawn Lang explained that, although a company had been registered in 2019, under the previous administration, it is not yet operational. The Council’s legal team are currently working on the details, including the company’s relationship to the Council, its functions and a business plan. In the meantime, the Council is using other means to increase housing stock and support homeless residents.
Members emphasised the need for the company to focus on social housing. Councillor Brenda Hobbs said:
“We don’t want another commercial housing company. What we need is social housing for our residents”.
ok why do I work hard 14 hour days. I tell you why so I can have a holiday home on the island. Some people on the island don’t work 1 hour a week but they want what I have. Please don’t make me pay more for having a place to rest. After I have been paying tax for your benefits,
So you’re one of the few second house owners on the Island who doesn’t take advantage of the Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR) – by “making it available for furnished let for 140 nights per annum – and thus pays zero local taxation? Thank you for letting us live in your playground.
You’re welcome sorry for the late reply. I have been working silly hours to pay my taxes. Anyway have a great weekend.
Okay, and why should you have a holiday home when locals here can’t get a house because there are barely any houses available?
There are over 2000 holiday homes over here which lay uninhabited for most of the year. If you have the option to have a second home then that’s great for you, but I believe you should pay more if it is having an impact on the locals who live here all year round.
There’s a very good chance that most of the holiday homes on the island are unaffordable and would never be bought by the peasants looking for “affordable” housing, I work in plenty of holiday homes and most of them are £300 grand plus, so it’s not like there stealing homes from under achievers is it,
Agree why don’t they ask the poor WHY when contraception is free do they keep having children when they themselves can’t afford to house themselves let along ‘more’ charity kept beings?
The honest answer would never be said which is ‘We are living well off the rest of society BECAUSE we have children’ and so we are too thick to ‘not’ expect the same to continue for everything we breed.’
Good on ya mate, too many lazy jealous people on this island that don’t have an ounce of graft in them, work harder, earn more, work on up the ladder, they all want everything given to them!
Get a grip some people can work really hard pay their rent but can’t afford to get a deposit to buy a house it’s just the way it is now unfortunately they’re working hard you don’t always get on the property Ladder
The freeloaders over here could NEVER afford ANY ‘affordable home’ no matter if it were £500.
They shell out kid, first, and expect some idiot to then ‘sell’ them an new home for cheap, despite them not putting themselves out at all.
Try both working for five years, go without, save for a deposit, but NO, they want it all ways.
Tough, give them nothing but a single bed sit with cot in a corner. Better than they deserve.
If they are too poor to private rent or buy a home, what the hell do they think their sprogs will do when they all need a roof? Thick scroungers most of them, greedy, selfish and happy so long as ‘others’ fund their life choices.
The affordable housing built in Bembridge was used by at least one person (an ex Policeman) to flout the criteria.
What happened and perhaps still does when buying affordable homes is they are say 30% lower than their assumed ‘market value’, with in this case the proviso being that when sold, they get 30% less than the then current market value and this had to be sold to an Island person.
But, the small print allowed after a set time of being on the market the ability to, if not sold, sell it on to a mainland buyer.
So the property was put up for sale at such a price that few islanders could afford it, the guy waited the ‘cut off period to elapse and then sold it on to a mainland family.
So there are flaws with this.
Imagine how many The Royal York could house…
Imagine when it is full, just how quickly the ‘impoverished’ tenants will soon all have children and then ‘need’ double the size building to house all their kids.
The poor are the problem, for anyone with gumption would not bring more poor into a world where they are struggling, so they don’t care for their kids, just know they can gain a roof paid for by the state as soon as they have a child, so the problem goes on getting worse with each birth.
Exactly
I do wish Old Billy boy and plain Jane whatsherface Kate would stop popping sprongs. There ain’t no scroungers like the Royals
I pay my taxes but I don’t want to pay for their offspring!
The Royal family have a perfect right to be paid by the Country they RIGHTFULLY own.
As their ancestors conquered Britain then they own all the land. So paying them a civil list instead of charging EVERYONE rent means we are getting off lightly.
Did you not take history or perhaps if young only were taught about the slave trade?
The simple answer is that the council are doing very little as the rules and regulations from central government prevent it. Plus the general incompetence of the councillors and the council. Don’t expect any change anytime soon.
Does anyone actually believe that any extra money raised from second home owners, empty properties or Airbnb’s will actually be spent on housing the homeless?
They’ve just admitted that Councils Housing Company isn’t a working department.
Second homer’s and holiday tenants are not a guaranteed source of unlimited funding and it’s far more likely that any extra revenue will become part of the Council’s general fund, spent on anything but housing, until they’ve made it so unpleasant for them that they will have driven any source of extra income away.
I trust the Shalfleet Parish Council Chairman was in attendance to remind them all about his plan to solve the second / holiday home crisis in Wellow.
Still you can all take comfort that the great unwashed will be able to cycle by and peer across the mud to see if anyone has stumped up the £1.8m he needs to kick start it.