Restrict second home ownership, remove housing sites in Bembridge and Freshwater and renew emphasis on brownfield, not greenfield development – these are some of the changes the Isle of Wight Council’s scrutiny body would like made to the Island’s planning blueprint.
The draft Island Planning Strategy is coming before councillors for approval later this month, a year after it was first tabled. The plan, once approved, will include policies developers have to abide by and earmark priority housing sites.
The current strategy the Isle of Wight Council uses is out of date and means the authority is penalised by the ’tilted balance’, which favours development unless there is something majorly wrong.
Some final changes to the planning strategy have been suggested by the corporate scrutiny committee, however. It believes the cabinet should adopt them before the new strategy goes to full council for approval.
These include:
- Ensuring sustainable development is on brownfield sites in areas where it is most needed by increasing the number of houses expected to be built in Newport, at Camp Hill, Newport Harbour and a new site, Newport Riverside, which is publicly owned land incorporating County Hall, the police station and the currently empty area at the bottom of Pyle Street
- Protecting the environment by only developing greenfields if it is absolutely necessary — removing housing sites in Bembridge and Freshwater as the scrutiny committee argues there is no local need
- Restricting second home and short-term let ownership of new build properties
It is understood that should the amendments be refused, Conservative councillors at County Hall would vote against the Island Planning Strategy, potentially blocking its adoption and delaying the process longer.
The need to adopt the planning strategy has been highlighted by multiple councillors as well as the Local Government Association (LGA) in a recent peer review. The LGA said the authority needed to urgently finalise and adopt the strategy because without one it was possible developments could happen that are ‘deemed not in the public interest and outside the needs of local people’.
However, reacting to the comments, Councillor Joe Robertson, Conservative group leader, said he rejected the suggestions councillors should back any plan for the sake of having one, especially now the amendments have created something ‘wholly more beneficial’ to Islanders on the housing waiting list and for the environment.
Cllr Robertson said he was pleased with what the cross-party corporate scrutiny committee has presented which provides a “greener plan and with more genuinely affordable housing opportunities for Islanders who need them most.” He said:
“I am confident the CSC will back the amendments and I cannot see any good reason for cabinet to reject them.
“If cabient does, I will be making the argument to all councillors that full council should reject a poorer plan when a better draft exists. If the matter has to be returned to cabinet to look again then so be it.”
Second home owners are vital to the island’s economy, ask any tradesman that. The big underlying issue as highlighted by the SLEP’s IIIP Report is the net inward migration of retirees from the mainland causing a demographic imbalance and artificially inflating house prices beyond the means of young locals. This is a serious matter that so far that appears to have been beyond the interest and understanding of both the IWC and MP
Please explain why second-home owners provide more “trade” than resident occupiers? But you’re right about the cause of local price inflation, not to mention the demise of education, youth- and employment- opportunity.
But you give the clue to the problem when you use “understanding” and “MP” in the same sentence.
Simple, because mainland wages are well above local wages giving second home owners more spending money
No there not vital to the islands economy that’s a rich point off view we managed quite well before, we need affordable homes that are live in for are families not 6 bedroom house for 2 people like there are in some select areas with there private sign’s everywhere. Second homes and island agents cashing in on this,have over escalated prices
We’ll agree to differ on that
You are well off. I have nothing against second home owners but the problem is the council repeatedly refusing to allow new builds. It’s ridiculous and backwardss
I wasn’t aware of that!
Trying to understand your logic here, Tim. How can house prices be ‘artificially inflated’ beyond the means of young people by retirees from the mainland causing a ‘demographic imbalance’? Is there a desirable demographic balance, and, if so, how would you make it so? Should we aim to and perhaps socially manipulate the situation to have the same demographs as Newport and Ryde in Brighstone or Newtown? How would that work? Are you saying that if non-retirees came from the mainland that would not inflate house prices ‘artificially’? And is the income from second home owners more or more profitable than from retirees? Hmmm.
Yes stop 2nd home owners coming here spending money and sustaining the local tourist economy as those properties are desperately needed to house new citizens pouring into Britain at the rate of 1.2 million a year – make no mistake, this will not benefit local islanders but it most certainly will benefit tens of thousands of new dinghy visitors who will no longer have to be put up in 4 star hotels
Stop the ability of benefit spongers, which includes asylum seekers from moving here at our expense – that is the big issue that needs addressing
stopping second home ownership is the next one, as they are a blight on society and have a negative effect on the local economy.
a house with someone in all year round, will spend at least £20 to £40 a week on food – which is potentially £2080 annually into the local economy. If that house is owned by someone as a second home and they only use it for only a couple of months a year, then that would reduce the amount of money spent by that house on food a year to around £320 – you can easily see the negative impact on the local economy here.
airbnb should be next –
if all benefit sponging, taxpayer funded moves to the island were stopped, second home ownership prevented and those that still own them, had council tax uplifted significantly and all airbnb stopped, then there would be plenty of homes for islanders and no need to wreck the environment by building more crappy houses.
Except that second homers, Air B&B etc spend more money while they’re here. More of them eat out, go for a drink in a pub, visit places of interest, not to mention splashing out on local produce in independant shops. Supermarket shopping goes straight into to big company coffers although they provide jobs. If you buy a property in the IOW it will likely need a refurb. Local builders, plumbers, decorators, fitters etc all get more work than they can deal with. I know it might seem unfair that the second homers can afford it but that’s life. They can, so let them spend while they’re here. Let them put money into local pockets. We need more social housing that’s a fact. The councils everywhere are under stress to provide the impossible as they’re cash strapped
Yet Bembridge will be immune from ruination, now that couldn’t possibly be because the main developers of the mass ruination live there, could it?
Masons have huge influence not understood by most
What many fail to grasp is the fact why so many people come here to retire.
Many will, thanks to Political correctness, quietly tell you it’s because they no longer felt at ease, and they feel the ‘outsider’s in their home towns now.
Hence the island suffers more than other areas from indirect and increasing direct ill effects from the influx to the UK
Imagine a thousand arrivals daily and once pregnant a new Penny Feather estate would be needed each day The cost has broken our society that your children will have a very difficult and different lifestyle that you knew.
not just the island is subject to this population movement, devon, cornwall, suffolk, norfolk, all have people moving to them as they get away from places where community and safety are being destroyed by what is happening in their areas.
Allow 2nd homes but charge a minimum of 200% council tax, the same should apply to properties which are unoccupied for extended periods of time, the effects of out of control 2nd home buying can be seen clearly in the west country and areas of wales where villages just die in the winter, shops close as there ae few customers
Greenfield developments shouldn’t take place, that has always been bizarre and is even more crazy now with the climate emergency.
We need to up our standards (looking at you housebuilders, water companies and so on), not bring it down just to make things cheaper.
..and also make AirBnB almost financially unviable on our Island via Council Tax banding. So many often empty properties between late October and mid April, that would provide valuable housing stock for IOW families. A win-win revenue raising opportunity that the IWC must not miss. The financialisation of shelter, along with education is a cancer on a healthy society.
The only strategic element put forward is to focus on brownfield which is a no brainer.
Isolating Bembridge and Freshwater as no go areas is a political move not a strategic one. There are other villages on the Island with similar credentials. And pushing all development into towns puts excessive pressure on infrastructure and lowers quality of life in those towns. Not a good move.
And if you only ban second home owners from buying new property, they just buy up all second hand property and drive prices up. An ineffective strategy on its own. A much more sophisticated strategy is needed re: non-local purchasing.
How?
Are purchasers of private properties to be investigated to ensure that it’s not a second home.
Then forbid landlords from selling their rental properties at all, price cap private rents below the actually running costs of rental properties and oblige all Air BnB landlords to change them into non profitable permanent rental accommodation?
New builds are no good for the people who desperately need but can’t afford them and there is no incentive whatsoever to buy one as a rental property.
We need fewer pointless words and some serious thought on how to make more homes, not just built, but available to those locals in need.
So the supposedly-impartial Scrutiny Committee is openly insisting on Conservative group policies being imposed on Planning. Well, who’d have guessed?
Maybe there wouldn’t be a ‘housing crisis’ if we didn’t keep taking in undesirables from other Councils on the mainland. It simply doesn’t make sense – on the one hand the IW Council is telling us we need more homes because there’s a shortage and yet it willingly brings people here that other Councils offload.
Personally, I’d much rather see pensioners moving here when they retire than the drug-dealing, knife wielding lowlifes that the Council is currently so keen to offer homes to.
2nd homes are increasing prices so let us stop them for a few years and allow young island people get a home. I am no against building on a green site IF there are no Brown Sites available but build on Brown Sites First.
Do the police get called to second homes regularity for disturbances, fights, weed growing, drug dealing, assaults etc?
Seems to me the island is actually far too focused on social housing and the younger demographic…
Complex issue that will not be resolved by a few statements about what he or she or I think is a good idea. Only national legislation can ban second homes. Building affordable homes, who is going to do this when they can build homes at a profit, and what clasifies as affordable, someone who has worked all their lives may well be able to afford X price, those that have made it their careerrto avoid work at all costs and living on perpeual benefits will only be afford minus X. The only statement that actually will gather any universal support is the building on the numerous brownfill sites which would meet the islands needs for years to come.
lets not forget that there is a significant proportion of Islanders that own second + homes here to fund their income. Many of these are let out as Airbnb or holiday lets seasonaly rather than permanant rentals as this is more financially beneficial to them. This contributes to the shortage in the rental market for young Islanders who cannot afford to buy their own homes.
Also why is nothing done about all these existing empty derilect buildings that you see and have been that way for years? The council should move to put pressure on the owners and develop these existing sites first rather than looking at new green belt land to decimate.
There appears to be this push for what in theory is the perfect answer, “brown field development only” but please could someone explain where are all these brown field sites, the Councils own figures show that there are potentially is enough brown field land for less than 2000 homes and other reports show as low as 1200, and thats only if it is developed. They have produced a plan that is about 25% lower than what’s needed and that still states about 7500, so where do they magic up the extra about 6000 brown field plots from.
We all understand no one wants green field development but at some point in time all development was green field, its a necessity whether we like it or not.
This whole thing about 2nd home owners is just an attempt at distracting away from the real issue, this latest draft is put together by officers in name but in reality its certain councillors own private agendas. Officers are being forced to produce this, we need officers who will stand up to certain East and West Wight members and do what’s right for the Islanders with genuine housing needs.
Maybe these councillors should give up thier own 2nd homes, sell their £2m home and take their selfish agenda’s back to the mainland where they came from.
The only answer to control these councillors is to place the planning department into special measures, we need to lobby Secretary of State for this to happen, then finally we may get back the planning department the island needs and deserves and not a toy for wealthy Councillor who have not even lived on the island for that long
I think your reply was meant for Bembridge Barney.
I was just making the point that a proportion of second home owners are actually Islanders, making part of the problem “home grown”.
Regarding existing derelect buildings, just drive around Ryde and Sandown. Unless you close your eyes, you can’t miss them.
Don’t restrict it ban it you can only live in one house at a time we still can’t believe the world is changing
If so, why do MPs have 2 Homes
1 rule for them and 1 rule for us.
If people can afford a 2nd home good luck to them.
As a second home owner I can totally see your point of view. I thought the island was a fantastic holiday destination. Having bought a place a few years ago and spent a considerable amount renovating it with local trades, business and retail stores and staying every other month I now see the error of my ways. I will no longer spend huge amounts when I’m there buying in local stores and eating out and shopping locally. I’ll quite possibly put it on the market now and move my money and £20,000+ annual spending back to a location that really welcomes investment from the second home market and you can ship in all the benefits claimants you like!
OK, goodbye!