A group of campaigners who are fighting to stop the building of more than 400 new homes in Ryde have lodged an appeal against a recent court ruling.
Plans to build much-needed new homes on the outskirts of Appley have been approved by the Isle of Wight Council, twice. However, campaigners have been fighting for more than 5 years to put a stop to the development, to the detriment of those seeking local housing.
A request for a judicial review was submitted to the High Court of London King’s Bench Division last September with approval given by His Honour Judge Jarman earlier this year.
Greenfield IOW Ltd – the company formed to lead the campaign – had its day in court on 1st July when a rolled-up hearing took place at Southampton Combined Courts. Last month Judge Jarman served his judgment after considering all matters – and dismissed the case.
Now, campaigners have taken that decision to the Court of Appeal Civil Division in a bid to stop the development from going ahead as, they say, the judge ‘made mistakes’ and that the ruling was ‘unfair’.
Developers Captiva Homes had planned to crack on with building straight away, with the first homes ready to occupy in 2025. But the lodging of an appeal will delay the progression of the much-needed scheme, therefore delaying the availability of new housing stock at a time of a housing crisis.
A spokesperson for Greenfield IOW has said:
“Whilst we too want closure on this case we have yet to see a judgment which we and our legal team believe makes judicial sense based on the evidence presented at court last July.
Article continues below this advertisement “Accordingly we must pursue this matter with the superior courts until we do see that. When we do we will stop. Not before.”
There is no evidence to support the commonly and badly abused phrase “housing crisis” as it relates to the isle of wight, yes, there a lack of social housing and posibly low cost rentals but that does not constitute a housing crisis, on a well known property search engine there are cureently over 200 properties for sale on the island at 200 thousand or less, 20 properties for rent at less than 800 a month,
If the council are closing schools due to too many available places does this must mean the island population is reducing or at least forecast to reduce?
Equally the ‘housing crisis‘ is more to do with lack of social and low cost rental properties and building these new properties will not resolve that issue as there will only be a 100 or so properties that meet the social housing criteria which in reality will not be truly affordable.
Surely the government should be looking at second home ownership and houses kept off the rental market as it is more profitable to have them as airbnb, especially in tourist area such as the Isle of Wight
They are right to appeal, to destroy this beautiful green field site would be an absolute environmental disaster.
If housing is needed, and for some it perhaps is, there are many shops and deserted hotels in Ryde, Sandown and Newport that could be brought back into use.
The government need to realize the Island is different to the mainland and such blanket dictates are not applicable here and will only do serious damage!!
Totally agree with all of these comments.
I live on phase one of WAP – there are a few ‘affordable homes’ but the majority were sold between £350,000 and £550,000 and a lot of them to people who moved here from the mainland and some are second holiday homes. Most of the houses on the next phase will be of a similar price, this is hardly providing affordable housing.
According to Rightmove, in November 2020 the cheapest house for sale on phase one of WAP was a terraced house for £199,995 – house prices have increased since then so the equivalent house on phase two will probably be £250,000 – so a first time buyer would need to earn around £50,000 a year to get a mortgage at four times their annual wage and have a £50,000 deposit, hardly affordable housing..
But, to be fair, most first time buyers are statistically likely to be couples and so each individual wouldn’t need to be earning £50,000. This obviously depends on who is offering the mortgage and what the multiples of earnings are.
So, the Council are closing schools because of a declining population and yet, on the other hand, they want to allow more houses to be built, many as ‘affordable’ homes for young families?
Where’s the logic?
Also, I’d take issue with the Echo’s Darren Toogood’s statement in the article that these are ‘much-needed new homes’. If we have a declining population and can’t even fill the current schools we have, why are new homes ‘much needed’? It would be a very strange decision to close schools whilst at the same time increasing the number of new homes for young families. Perhaps Darren Toogood needs to be more careful with his choice of words when writing these articles?
Can someone explain what the objection / s are to this much needed housing. It’s not obvious to me why a patch of grass has become so much more important to preserve than using it to provide housing ?. Thank’s
The original objection goes way back to when this land was a working dairy farm (Westridge farm) – the tenant farmer had a three generation contract to farm the land but I think the landowner sold the land to the developer breaking the farmers contract. the farmer left the farm in January 2023 but the objections rumble on for whatever reason.