Isle of Wight MP Bob Seely is calling on the Government to give the Island’s landscape greater protection against inappropriate housing that does not meet the needs of Islanders.
Last month Mr Seely set out his own housing plans for the Island which included proposals to ban greenfield development in all but exceptional circumstance and to extend the Island’s protected landscape making it easier for the IW Council to reject schemes that damage the Island’s natural beauty.
Pushing forward with his plans, Mr Seely has now written to Environment Secretary, George Eustice, asking for Government action to support these aims. He wants the Island to be considered in plans announced recently by the Prime Minister to designate and protect an additional 4,000 sq km of land across the country.
Mr Seely said he wants to be part of the Prime Minister’s 30 by 30 campaign which commits the government to protect 30% of the UK land by 2030 – an additional 4% on current designations.
He said:
“I want the government to work with us to see how the Island could extend its protected landscape to ensure we have sustainable development in line with the Island’s UNESCO Biosphere status and to protect the natural beauty of our landscape.
“I have set out to the government my vision to create the UK’s first ‘Island park’ with unique protection status laying somewhere between that of an AONB and a National Park, with planning authority retained by the Isle of Wight Council.
“We absolutely need housing and sensible, sustainable regeneration, but we need to build according to the needs of Islanders and in a way that is sympathetic to our landscape.
Article continues below this advertisement “We need to protect the natural beauty of our Island for future generations. We do this by stopping government plans which would result in our landscape being concreted over for unnecessary housing and by securing additional protections on our landscape.
“I am leading a group of MPs who are supportive of my vision to see houses built in the right places where they are needed, not in rural areas like the Isle of Wight.”
Don’t bring the refugees over here and you won’t have to build so many houses
Dead right Munch, they have outbreed their continent, then outbreed our Capital, now moving into every town and village to do the same.
We must keep these people out at all costs for they don’t just ‘coincidently’ ruin EVERY place around the Western world which they choose to inflict themselves en masse.
What worries me is they come over hear with just the clothes on their backs. So what elderly peoples houses are they going to break into to get clothes food and money putting people at risk
They take from our taxes to support themselves then usually steal from the very people whose country they infest.
Keep such OUT, or refuse to pay any council tax if that wet limp lettuce of an MP allows such to come here.
IF they are IN, Bob is OUT.
Stop it with the fear Mongering, how is this all the refugees fault, the greedy housing developers are the problem
Sorry bob you can’t build the houses on water ,so it will have to be the land .
You can’t have it both ways
If done creatively and in sympathy with the surroundings, new housing can actually enhance the landscape… yes it can, -surprisingly..
– Where intensive agriculture has decimated the countryside, by removing hedgerows and trees to create vast prairies, devoid of wildlife; (ie.Wellow) – there is where a small new village would be beneficial..
The worst thing is plonking a standard housing estate into the countryside; for developers only care for costs and profit.
Or instead, why not sell individual plots to members of the public ? Then you would get a much more interesting result and help more people to realise their dream; instead of enriching just one or two developers. Unfortunately, councillors seem to just take the easiest course and accept the ‘benefits’…
Agree to some extent with that you say. BUT we do not have the infrastructure to cope with the present population let alone any increase. GP surgeries are completely overloaded as is the hospital, the amount of traffic will soon clog the poorly maintained roads, and just about every public facility has been reduced to almost non-existence.
That’s true JHVF, but central government have ordered local councils to permit the building of more homes – there is no choice in the matter…as there is a nationwide housing shortage.
The main question is where and how:
All I am saying is, rather than cramming more housing into already pressured brownfield sites, it would be more considerate to build new compact villages where there currently are vast tracts of intensively farmed land.. virtually devoid of wildlife.
If it was done in an aesthetically pleasing way, with trees and greens, it would be attractive and be an improvement on what was before – and watch the wildlife increase!
The island DOES NOT WANT ALL THE REFUGEES FROM AROUND THE WORLD OR THE OVERSPILLS FROM THE MAINLAND. We would like to keep the beautiful countryside, the scenery that makes the island so pretty. Fight for this please Bob because I’m sure everyone on the island feels the same as me?
Why shouldn’t we take the refugees?
Looks like you had better take them in to your home Jim Bob. No room? Can’t afford too? May not get on with others in your home? Not your responsibility?
Ditto, ditto, ditto and ditto for the UK and most sensible people who have ‘seen’ what happens when naive allow such, but, never in their own home.
WHY? Hopefully IF you were invited into someone else’s country, as your own was unable to provide the life you wished, then you would behave impeccably IF another land took you and your loved ones in, and gave you EVERY right, and often more in that land things your own land could NEVER provide you.
Many of these don’t, and just see us a weak, gutless, and to be used and abused.
The welcome mat has worn out, and now more and more are correctly seeing that WE have a RIGHT to have a safe country in which to bring up our families which then excludes many of these unpleasant beings.
Are you perhaps a little retarded?
It’s your precious Liebour party that shouldn’t have started an illegal war in the middle-east in 2003. No need for hard-working British people to suffer unemployment and strife for that demagogue Tony Blair’s stupidity.
All this rubbish arriving isn’t escaping war, they ‘use’ that as an excuse, for IF it were true they would not have to ‘come this far’.
They come to better their lot in life BUT at our expense. Fact.
And for a start stop having too many children – two maximum, and lower taxes on couples with one or none.
Why bother bob, you have done nothing that actually benefits the island.
You just keeping on making grandiose statements, and i have not seen anything come of them.
Bob needs to address the huge building in Ryde, for which he has said nothing to prevent such.
People like him seem to just agree with whatever the Party say, being weak, gutless, and just happy to take their payment, as tbh so do most people now.
Yet as an MP, he should put the love of the Island first, and not have the ‘fear’ of rocking the boat.
But perhaps like it seems with Pritti Patel, maybe someone whose family have not lived here for many generations, may not have any deep, real love for the place, not having any real roots, and so would rather not ‘get into trouble’ for something he doesn’t really have any real love for.
IF, that is the case, then best he goes next time around and stops pretending otherwise and wasting our time and vote.
Weak, ineffective yes men are two a penny, likely even more in inflationary times as now.
What would be a good start is to CANCEL all the planned building works that are being planned in RYDE
THESE WORKS ARE NOT NEEDED!
the island has a finite amount of space and it must be preserved and protected to ensure that the creatures, birds and insects that call those areas their homes, have their right to existence observed. We need to ensure that as much greenland and trees are planted to allow for as much natural CO2 extraction from the atmosphere and that oxygen generation, that we need to breathe is adequately catered for with the additional trees and greenery.
there aren’t great swathes of islanders living on the streets because their aren’t any homes available – so we do not need to build anything. We simply say to people from other places – we are full – sorry no vacancies.
this island has biosphere status, is an area of outstanding natural beauty, is called the garden isle and has many areas of special scientific interest – all this will be gone and we will suffer further degradation of our air quality, more pollution, more rubbish and more concrete, if the environmental terrorists, known as housebuilders and some councillors are left unchecked.
no more building -preserve and protect the island
the council said there was a climate emergency – well – we need more natural co2 extraction and more oxygen generation – you need trees for that.
council cannot build houses and say they are protecting the island – they are at odds with their own statement.
Bob you need to keep us all informed every step of the way. Not just when its time to vote. Don’t keep us in the dark until the last minute.
Well make a start by stopping development at Landscape Lane.