Outgoing leader of the Isle of Wight Council, Dave Stewart, has used his last council report to list the achievements of the Conservative-led administration in the past year.
Following the polls earlier this month, Mr Stewart lost his seat on the council to Green candidate, Claire Critchison, by 240 votes.
With this shock result, the Island Conservatives lost the leader of their party — who has since been temporarily replaced by Cllr Steve Hastings — and the majority of the Isle of Wight Council, leaving the authority in a state of no overall control with no leader.
Mr Stewart was the leader of the council for four years, taking over from recently re-elected Cllr Jonathan Bacon who stood down in 2017.
At every full council meeting, the leader uses their report to update fellow councillors and the public on what they have done or what has been achieved since their last meeting.
Ahead of the first full council meeting since the elections next week, Mr Stewart provided his last report full of the ‘Conservatives achievements’ with praise for council officers, staff and all those involved in the Covid response on the Island.
The achievements listed by Mr Stewart in 2020/21 included investments in:
- Venture Quays
- Branstone Farm for affordable homes and a rural business centre
- Investment to secure the last leg of the Tour of Britain cycle race in September 2022
- Permanent provisions for the homeless
- Island Line
- St Mary’s Junction
- Prison estate infrastructure
- Yarmouth Primary’s newly built school in Freshwater
Mr Stewart also said financial stability, through five lawful and balanced budgets, was one of the achievements.
The greatest achievement of the Conservative-led administration, however, Mr Stewart said, was the support provided to and within the community during the pandemic.
Finishing his report, Mr Stewart said:
“I wish all new councillors well and hope to see the Island go from strength to strength building on the solid foundation the Conservative Led Administration has provided.”
Decisions about who will lead the Isle of Wight Council, who forms the cabinet and if a party will take a majority are all set to be made at the meeting next Wednesday 26th May.
Biggest acheievement…wasting our hard earned council taxes on floating bridge money pit
A proud man id say
The lasting damage is receiving payment from other mainland councils to house their over-spill.
Not only has such a policy destroyed much of our green field sites, but has added greatly to crime, overcrowding on roads, and much anti social behaviour here.
For THAT this creep will never be forgiven by real Island people.
Greedy, arrogant and wrong.
If only karma was true, sadly not, and he will live a lovely life away from the ills he has created for the rest of us.
It just shows how deluded and up himself this man is. Please dont come back.
Postage stamp would have been to big to list their “achievements” and no page big enough to list failures and how large the invoice is for “brown envelopes”
Why do they never list their failings when they leave or apologise for being the worst leader after
Bacon and Pugh
Must of been all of 24.5 seconds then. Loser.
Best thing you ever did was lose ,goodBye , everyone else is to pick up your damage
How much input did he actually have in the above short list?
I assume it was either very little or none at all, and yet we will have to wait and see if any of them actually work for the benefit of us islanders.
As someone has already pointed out, they never list their failures and the biggest one is FB6.
Lets hope he never stands for election in any capacity.
Worse than useless ! Good get rid of !
Not much achieved in 12 months really
Stephen, I expect his bank account would say ‘he’ did.
I expect as his family enjoy the finer things in life from a great salary and large pension and they will think he is wonderful.
I expect other top councillors and contacts who ‘made good’ by knowing him will think of him as wonderful as they too cash in by knowing and ‘helping’ him in his position of trust.
Yet all those lives such people ruin, by greed and mistakes see it very differently, but such people as him care nothing for us or the Island, to them, just a place to exploit to the max, and they do.
it is a shame he couldn’t his abject failures as well, he and the other village idiot ward have caused chaos and wasted a fortune on the non floating bridge and the latest fiasco of St georges way.
his wonderful acquisition of the prison estate infrastructure will be a millstone round the ratepayers necks for decades to come.
At least we are rid of him and can only hope all the non tory councillors will pull together to prevent tory rule by stealth.
Not to mention the 5.9% increase in council tax
“Branstone Farm for affordable homes and a rural business centre” was awarded in 2019, that’s when the funding was secured. He had nothing to do with it apart from rubber stamping it. I can’t post link here but on the council’s website they state who was involved to get this started. He’s not named anywhere, taking credit for others work. Also only just started demolition.