The Isle of Wight Council and its Alliance administration has ‘abandoned Sandown’, a Conservative councillor has claimed.
The local authority plans to move a £33million so-called ‘Disneyland opportunity’ to another location, prompting ‘furious’ Sandown South councillor Ian Ward to say the leading Alliance administration ‘did not care’ about the town, nor its ‘derelict hotels and struggling High Street and seafront.’
At yesterday’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee meeting, leading councillors said the dinosaur park proposal had gone ‘stagnant’ and risked putting a large part of Culver Parade ‘behind a paywall’.
The previous Conservative administration had proposed a dinosaur-themed amusement park working with Dinosaurier-Park International.
Now, Alliance cabinet members will consider an alternative regeneration programme for Culver Parade and a new and different site for the amusement park, which the authority insists it remains committed to.
At the meeting, Councillor Ward said the ‘major, much-needed’ regeneration project would have helped solve Sandown’s problems and he repeatedly asked ‘why’ the Dinosaurier proposal was not being considered further for the town. He said a report ‘hid the benefits’ of the proposal, “failing at the first hurdle” of the administration’s promise to be open and transparent.
Cllr Ward has said:
“The Dinosauria proposal would provide Sandown and the Island with a national, if not international attraction. It would hugely re-invigorate Sandown, the wider Bay Area and increase visitors to the whole Island.
Article continues below this advertisement “The Chairman of the Dinosaur Isle Museum Trust says the proposal would warrant World Heritage Status and potential investors who are interested in opportunities the project will bring to Sandown have already approached the Chairman of the Dinosaur Isle Museum Trust. Yet the Alliance has offered no cogent explanation why it has been abandoned”.
Cabinet member for heritage, Councillor Jonathan Bacon, said it was simply not the case that the investment had been abandoned and described it as opening up the possibility of investment elsewhere. Cllr Bacon said the European investors behind Dinosaurier-Park International were on the point of walking away.
The tender process originally launched in 2018 and was further held up in June this year when a report was not presented to the Isle of Wight Council as expected.
Cllr Bacon said the plans for Sandown were like trying to ‘fit a square peg in a round hole’ and what the investors wanted could not be provided without serious damage to other heritage assets.
Councillor Julie Jones-Evans, cabinet member for regeneration, spoke to try to reassure Cllr Ward about the council’s commitment to Sandown. She said that what was on the table was ‘never going to work’ and a new approach to the Culver Parade regeneration would be more appropriate for the area.
One of the options being presented to councillors is an eco-tourism approach, reflecting the Island’s Biopshere status.
Councillor Richard Quigley said the problems could be discussed further, at every future corporate scrutiny committee meeting, until a solution was found.
Cabinet will formally decide on what happens to Culver Parade and the dinosaur park plan when it meets tomorrow evening Thursday (11th November), at 17:00.
Whatever floats his Boat (or not!) He’s trying, very very trying!
Pot calling the kettle black.
Don’t think any council has cared about Sandown for a long time.
Southampton university has been trying to establish premises here for their pealeotologist department for years. Got refused purchase of Wight City, Jolly’s and Bogeys. We sit pretty high in world heritage sites in the dinosaur world. Go figures.
Hey they probably want to get rid of it and build those portable houses for the council. so the mainland councils can send all their ‘unwanted’ down, so Sandown will be the Benefit town… It is typical though, anything good, if council not getting back pockets stuffed, will just stop the idea or move it elsewhere, so they can pocket more monies…
Jaywick springs to mind!
council leader is from Cowes, watch how the money moves to there. Only Cowes will get investment.
Sandown is finished there is nothing there any more
Imagine coming from the mainland and looking around
what would what you think or see
what a waste of money coming here
Isle of Wight Born and bred
Totally agree. The island has got very little for the islanders all year round. We have lost the ice rink which was used regularly, it’s now just another building rotting away. How wonderful for day visitors who come over on the hovercraft. Surely to keep local money coming in we need to have something to offer families such as an all weather facility. Free facilities too. We should be helping keep island businesses going, and growing new ones. There’s no affordable homes for islanders only Come on Wake up those in those offices. Let’s make us proud to be a great island. For the next generations. let’s make the island amazing for visitors to spend their money and come back again and again.
Our dear Tory Government is packed with sleeze and dodgy dealings. The Isle of Wight Council is not far behind.It seems to be the current trend I’m afraid.
I expect the pinks are included in the next development stage of this area. Watch and learn
Come on, nobody is fooled! The area is earmarked for more timber framed sheds for the “growing population” There is no interest in doing anything other than throwing up houses and destroying the local enviroment.
Sandown has been going rapidly downhill for years. Only a blind man on a galloping horse would try and deny the obvious; the whole town suffers from having more empty dilapidated or burnt out buildings than good ones.