Isle of Wight housebuilders have welcomed the next steps a crucial planning strategy is taking, but have criticised councillors who say the Island does not need more housing.
Bosses at Captiva Homes, one of the Island’s biggest developers and behind Ryde’s West Acre Park, say there is no shortage of housing demand but the Island has not been building enough houses for a very long time.
The Isle of Wight Council has drafted a planning strategy, which is set to be sent for approval shortly, to help address the Island’s housing need by reducing housing targets and setting standards developers have to adhere to.
Captiva’s chief executive Iain Delaney said it was a great step forward but there was no doubt the Island needs a coherent plan in place to help housing delivery and lift government-imposed sanctions. The new plan, he said, would not be perfect but it was a step that was required, especially with the under-delivery of houses on the Island, which has stretched into the thousands of houses in the last 10 years.
Mr Delaney said:
“We see time and time again the council’s challenge is the delivery of affordable housing for Islanders but there is not a clear path on how to do that.
“It does not take an economics degree to see that if we don’t build enough, prices will go up further.”
The housing squeeze has got tighter, Mr Delaney said, as the Island saw among the highest increases in house prices last year but also a significant reduction in rental stock.
Mr Delaney added:
“It is beyond dispute the Island housing crisis exists with 2,500 families on the housing register waiting for accommodation but there is still no tangible plan for how the council will deliver homes.”
Mr Delaney said with Barratt Homes projects coming to an end, and no more lined up, there was nothing to fill the gap, he also added that they don’t shy away from delivering affordable housing and want to continue to grow the affordable stock on the Island but also “make the open market housing we deliver as affordable and appropriate to deal with the housing need as possible”.
James Pink, Captiva’s director, said:
“It pains me when you listen to some councillors, trying to take housing out of villages, we need young families to contribute to our communities.
“I love this Island, I would do anything for it, but we are not going to build on every green field and this is what people don’t understand – we are growing, we cannot draw up the drawbridge.”
It’s like Cadbury saying we don’t eat enough chocolate.
Captiva’s argument is pretty hollow given that around half of people on the housing register are looking for one-bed flats. So if Captiva really care why aren’t they building multiple blocks of flats on brownfield?
Yet they have ensured through imo liaising with the right people that their home village of Bembridge will not have any of it’s green field sites built upon
The naïve and gullible may consider that mere coincidence The wise see though rhetoric of caring for families as purely caring for their wealth. They imo have shown a disregard for any areas of the Island that is never going to ruin their own environment but only add to their creature comforts.
A funny handshake goes a long way
This island is run by funny handshakes and brown envelopes.
And not forgetting the rolled up trouser legs.
Get rid of some of these second homes and holiday homes and you’ll have at least half off the housing list . Start charging affordable rents in line with island wages , stop building luxury homes that draws in a certain “etiquette ” or mainlanders , we need to start concentrating on the needs of people living here.
Why would any parent want to raise their child in an area where schools have the lowest standards in the country. Where there is no prospect of skilled work and you can’t even find a dentist.
The only thing that drives developers is MONEY!
No we don’t, and the houses you build, young families on this Island will never afford your homes… why not build practical homes and flats ?? Oh I know why… because then you would not make as much profit !!! Ignorant company…
The NIMBY’s, turning the island into an old peoples home since 1970. There is a shortage of emergency staff because they can’t find a place to live here. Red funnel are already cancelling sailings for this very reason. But as long as your house prices go up eh? Guess you like seing the homeless drunk on the streets. Well done NIMBY lot.
The point you are missing is that the likes of Captiva are building the wrong kind of homes (large executive homes and retirement bungalows) for the wrong people (incoming retirees, 2nd homers and holiday let investors) in the wrong placed (farmland).
We need flats, and starter homes for young families built on brownfield sites.
Simple, should just make greenfield sites illegal to build on or just refuse all permission, we’ve got countless brownfield sites, abandoned hotels, etc, why don’t captiva build houses there if they’re so bothered about needing more overners to move in.
Il go with jarman, 70 houses a year is all we need.
We also need to get an island economy that pays more than minimum wage. That’s the real issue, as our cost of living is inflated by ‘import costs’ no wonder most folk find it difficult to make ends meet.
Jarman himself is part of whst is by far the biggest problem here which he and most of you seem to want to avoid, maybe because you are in this bracket. For decades too many retirees moving to the island to retire, using up all of our housing for younger Islanders, using up all of our NHS services and worse than ever they then get themselves elected and try and kill off the need for any young Islanders with whatever false claims they can. When will you all realise that’s why we need so many homes, if you all went back to where you came from the prices would drop, there would be enough homes for Islanders and we would get back the running of our island, retirees from the mainland far out number 2nd homes and Airbnb’s owners many times over but yiu never want to mention that, hypocits who dont want to face the truth
What defines an “Islander.”? I retired here but I was born here so I have gone back to where I came from. Some of these younger “Islanders” need to get off their backsides and go look for work, they have no god given right to expect affordable housing. There should be more emphasis in providing employment NOT housing if younger people want to stay here.
Mr Delaney should be asked how all these people are to be cared for in terms of Doctors, Dentists and other much needed infrastructure operatives
Captiva has been blowing hot and cold ever since the publication of the draft IPS. Westridge Farm will definately be the subject of a juducial review should the IWCC planning committee ever sign off the 106 agreement. Captiva appears to be very afraid of a judicial review, which may overturn the original planning consent. Captiva would be back to square then….No wonder they’re up in arms!!
Then actually build for “young families”, Delaney.
If you built 80% of your homes for those young families instead of building 80% for incoming retirees, 2nd homers and holiday home investors then you might have a point.
Retirees have been the problem for this Island for decades, please stop trying to put the blame for everything at any other door they can, retirees bring a multi layered problem to our island, buy our homes, use our stretched services, complain about everything, stop any progress as they don’t want the reason they came here to change, stop all dressing it up as something else and admit it
How does the proposed development in Wellow by Councillor Cowley of Shalfleet fit in to your housing ethos?
Not a single affordable home for the desperate locals. Just an estate of full market value homes and an opportunity afforded by our good planning department to make him a pile of money. Now we hear that Shalfleet ‘puppet’ Council are asking for other local landowners to submit land for community led housing???? So please help me understand this Joe or maybe it should be me standing to be the next Mayor of Simpleton.
I agree, why give a permission in the middle of nowhere with nothing that is either affordable to rent or affordable for first time buyers, that’s not only the planners fault it’s the Councillors as well. My argument is that affordable homes are needed across the island to differing degrees, whether they be a so called village or a town, they all have need, the problem is that at present in these villages the size of individual developments that are being brought for in these villages are often less than 10 and so there is not fixed requirement for anything to be affordable. So long as you have Jarman pedalling his “don’t build anywhere in my area” agenda then the plan will not get adopted and tj8s situation will continue indefinitely
I agree. Us oldies should be put down, ideally by lethal flu injection, so as to leave the way free for the younger generation to thrive on their drink and drug-crazed, otherwise worthess lives, characterised by stabbings and driving their cars and motor bikes into walls, roundabouts, and other unsuspecting vehicles. And they won’t need housing in the strict sense – just a few extra prison cells.
Just going back to wherever you came from will suffice.
Then our own children and grandchildren will have access to affordable housing and our parents and grandparents will have access to decent healthcare that isn’t swamped by the tidal wave of you “immigrant” (because that is what you are) oldies.
Is that what you was like as a young person because my experience is that there are a lot of genuine hard working ambitious youngsters on this Island but there opportunities are constantly being stifled by the likes if Jarman and his cronies in “Sustain my house value” in Freshwater, you could apply the same point to pensioners, are they all here just to take from our economy and give little back, I’m sure its not true so you should tar all youngsters with the same brush,
If Captiva and their ilk had any credibility they would bring forward schemes to help regenerate the Island’s towns. Any young family faced with living in either one of the Island’s ghost towns or in a villages full of houses and no useful economy will just move away. Captiva continue to peddle straw man arguments about building affordable homes in villages. It is a fallacy based on no real need. Developing Greenfield for second home owners and retirees is a no brainer for the likes of Captiva and co. It has nothing to do with caring for the Island.
They aren’t so much strawman arguments as complete untruths.
They mostly build for mainlanders.
If persons only owned 1 property there would be no need to keep building and ruining the planet.
Same with vehicles.
Persons can only drive 1 at a time, so why own more than 1.
It will all change soon when the Re-Set takes place.
Builders are so greedy, they would build in someones front garden if they could.
This conversation would not even be happening if it weren’t for Westminster and Whitehall issuing 1.2 million visas a year to new arrivals – that’s nearly 10 times the whole population of this island every year needing to be given homes and virtually all new housing in the last few decades goes to accommodate them or the people pushed out of their local areas to make room for them (which is why we see so many folk now trying to move here). Stop squabbling over the red herrings of 2nd home owners and British people retiring and focus on the real problem of 300,00 – 500,000 new homes being needed every year to house people never born here. If this were dramatically reduced then we wouldn’t need to concrete over every inch of the country
Rubbish.
For starters you are confusing visas with asylum. They are not the same.
The bottom line is that the main factor driving the housing shortage on the Isle of Wight is people moving here to retire.
They are no different to the immigrants they often claim to be escaping. They move to another area, completely change the character of that area and put excessive pressure on that area’s resources.
Our elderly have a right to be here. Big difference
House prices will always be unaffordable for the majority of our youngsters as long as we keep letting so many migrants into our crowded country. They all will need somewhere to live as they get their settled status making demand even more manic.