Island Echo always welcomes letters to the editor, which may of course not reflect the views of the publication and its staff.
Letter to the editor – 4th May 2023
“Please strictly consider the building of new homes on the Island, it is a picturesque, quaint and lovely little place.
“I had relatives who lived there during my childhood and often visited at them at Ryde, Ventnor and Newport. It was – and still is – a beautiful seaside location.
Article continues below this advertisement “Please, don’t spoil the Island with the approval to build yet more new homes.
“The Isle of Wight District Council must control, be firm and resist any future applications.
“If not, the Island will be spoilt and will become a concrete jungle.”
Peter Joy
Oxford
Whist I understand that new homes need to be built to keep up with the growing population, it has to be said that these new homes are poor in terms of their build quality and are generally very ugly. I was in Poundbury recently and was very impressed with the area, it’s not that developers can’t build nice looking houses, they choose not to because it is cheaper, and cheaper to build = more profit, to the detriment of the rest of us. Hopefully with the housing targets scrapped the council will stand up to the developers and demand better for the island.
I agree with Joe, the seafronts are being ruined, big ugly hotels or tall blocks of flats, they don’t fit in and look awful. Most of the flats look empty, or for at least half the year and cost a fortune! All the residents that live behind lose their views and live in shade. Money money money!
It is essential large scale developments don’t get approval and the reason is simple. St Mary’s hospital is full, there are not enough GPs, its almost impossible to get an NHS dentist and our small roads are overcrowded and cannot cope now. The Island just cannot take any more people, we just don’t have the necessary facilities to welcome any more
An excellent letter. Visitors come here because of the open spaces , beaches and picturesque vistas.
Tourism is the bedrock of the local economy and the more built up the island gets, the less attractive it will become to visitors in the future.
The Council Planning Committee need to reflect on this before they allow huge housing developments, they need to encourage the repurposing of the numerous empty commercial properties over new builds.
That would be a win win.
This is not rocket science.
They are getting ready for 15 minute cities and 20 minute neighbourhoods
I mean… probably in every town on IOW you could already walk max 15m to a public transport because our towns are super small.
Obviously you can travel further than 15m if you have to or feel like! Even take a car if you have to or feel like but for most option of NOT driving should be available. People shouldn’t be forced into cars.
The point is to make public transport accessible by walking so less people have to rely on car for far journeys, Provide basic services close by so if you cannot or don’t want to drive, you aren’t forced to for your daily activities:
So !next step would be to ensure town has a GP surgery, few shops like a bakery and a deli, a park for recreation, a pub and so on – and you have a 15 minute town done.
Funny thing: if you look into Island Roads documents, Cowes and East Cowes are already described as 15-minute towns.
Since waaaay before pandemic, like 10 years at least.
Even living on the east edge of East Cowes I still have only 7m of walk to town centre, 2m on a bike – everyday activities are within easy walking distance, you only need to take a bus – or a car – if you’re going to a different town… except Cowes, there just walk through McFloatface.
The Isle has not got the infrastructure to have more houses built, not enough doctors, hardly any National Health Dentists, bad roads, too many people here already. Build houses for the young people of the Isle.
That is what happens when you don’t have a democracy. Sad but the same people crying about all the houses are the same who support the royal family, that same family that props up and enables our broken political system. Need to change the system if you want responsible developments.
NO, need to stop and send back unwanted flotsam. Save billions more than the decent Royal family costs, and less rape, knife, gun and drug crime, and far less future clones being born to end up even worse. Fact.
Alas our council don’t listen to anyone !!!!!!
Too busy arguing with each other, and trying to pretend they are better than the others….
And of course the more house’s the more council tax to waste, and top up pension pot’s…
The concrete jungle jigsaw is on it’s way!!!!!!
Sadly the nightmare of over developments are becoming reality. Our infrastructure and services cannot cope.
Doctors and dentists are overwhelmed.
Drainage, water , electricity and gas services under strain.
But the council seems content in padding out their coffers with more houses =more Council Tax.
Island life as we all knew is slowly being destroyed.
You think the council are going to listen. , think again. They don’t care . Money money , money that’s all they are concerned about not the welfare of the island or ots residents.
Sorry to say Peter. This council will take no notice of you or anyone one else. This is how the roll.
I am a fourth generation islander, in my lifetime the amount of greenfield land that has been concreted and tarmacadamed over in almost every town on the island is colossal, far more than the average person living here realises, many beautiful pastureland and beautiful copses have been destroyed and built on. Only developers benefit within, not islanders. Newport and the surrounding infrastructure gets gridlocked every day, it never used to, but for every property built 2 more vehicles are added to the roads. There lies the problem, thousands of properties built but no new highways, the existing roads cannot be widened as properties are built either side, we will reach a state where total gridlock will happen every day, it’s already started
Well myself and many others totally agree with you Peter. The island is becoming over populated and building should be very strictly controlled. I have noticed in the last 10 – 15 years just how much more traffic is on the island roads. Sadly, Councillors and builders do not care for preserving the uniqueness and beauty of this island. It’s all about profit. Our hospital is currently so overwhelmed, 45 patients waiting to be admitted from being taken in by ambulance. This is totally unacceptable and it’s about time the powers that be in County Hall wake up and realise what they are doing to this beautiful island, the infrastructure and the residents that live here. Our lives are being compromised because all services are so stretched!
A man from Oxford hasn’t noticed that huge residential estates are actually going up all over the country? How odd.
New housing is urgently needed to provide homes for our ever growing population and this fact is true for this Island as well as the mainland.
There should be no reason for new housing to be disruptive or retract from the beauty of this island it just requires careful thoughtful design. Unfortunately it seems all planning authorities seem to think that obstructing new housing development rather than engaging in good design is the best way to resolve housing issues
– this has resulted in the current severe lack of affordable housing and, often, has resulted in poor quality design and housing provision due to the need to use various tacticts to force approval through legal processes such as appeals which result in sometimes desastrous results
Concreate Jungle….Look at Pan estate now.
Its just red brick everywhere, overbuilt, small cramped houses, barley any gardens, no green spaces, no trees, everyone looking into their neighbours houses.
What the hell were they thinking.
There should have been half the amount built, with proper space surrounding them, trees, green areas, parking and some privacy.
Typical IOW planning.
Sadly it’s the name of the game for developers these days, and some
estates have the potential to breed crime. If they can’t build outwards will they build upwards? Tower blocks on the island could be on the horizon.
West Acre, Gunville, Wellow to name three that Cllr Brodie has recently given his thumbs up for. He of course knows better than most ‘cos he said so last week.
Unfortunately our IW Council turn a deaf ear to the views, opinions and protests of our Island residents.
The only way to force this Council to take notice is to get behind and support the Crowd Justice “Save Westridge Farm” Campaign.
The council will then be forced to act upon a Judicial Review, once the application is signed off.
Bigger than just being a nimby, we need to end immigration as whilst many do not come here, they are forcing people to leave areas where they now feel out of place, and these people escape to areas like the Island where thankfully so far few have chosen to enrich us all.