A former Isle of Wight primary school building will be put up for sale in the coming days, but a community effort has unveiled its bid to save it for the town.
The Isle of Wight Council has agreed to market the former Yarmouth CE Primary School on Mill Lane as it is now ‘surplus to educational requirements’.
A Yarmouth Town Council (YTC) school site working party is pulling together a bid to keep the building in community use.
Councillor Steve Cowley, a member of the working party, said it is making good progress towards reclaiming the site and is looking to provide a number of uses the town and Isle of Wight Council are looking for. He said that includes affordable housing; a site for a new Scout hut; an exhibition/educational museum; and a new facility for traditional boat building, which will train apprentices.
In a report, the Isle of Wight Council said it has not committed to any action yet but will consider all bids it receives by the end of the marketing period, which will be a minimum of 4 months.
Pupils moved out of the school building earlier this year after it relocated to the former Freshwater All Saints school site. The council closed the Freshwater school in 2020 to cut the number of surplus pupils places in the West Wight.
The authority used £4.9 million in government funding, along with £575,375 from its own budget, to refurbish the school. As part of the government funding, the Department for Education (DfE) required money from the sale of the Yarmouth school building go toward the refurbishment costs.
The council would retain the first £400,000 made from the sale but the rest would go to the DfE. The authority said it invested money into the new school on the basis it would be reimbursed by selling the Yarmouth site.
The funding agreement is legally binding, the authority said, so it was obliged to sell the building. The site cannot be leased, sold or used for any non-education use without first obtaining consent to do so from the Secretary of State and must achieve ‘best consideration’ for the property. To do so, the Isle of Wight Council will start a 6-week public consultation.
YTC has successfully made the site an Asset of Community Value, which would allow a community group six months to see if they can raise the money to purchase the building if their bid is accepted.
How many flats and shoeboxes will they be able to cram on that site? And if it goes to social housing then Whitehall will have ready made accommodation for a few hundred of their vip dinghy guests who will all go straight to the top of any social housing list (as they do everywhere else – no family connections you see)
Cowley you are truly delusional .. this sale has second homes written all over it .. stop fooling the public with the YTC has plans .. it has nothing .. this was always going to happen that Yarmouth loses out .. the DfE loan has to be paid back .. end of ..
“The council would retain the first £400,000 made from the sale but the rest would go to the DfE.”
This has got highest bidder written all over it.
Yarmouth is commanding high prices these days. I’ll let some of my yachty friends know. I’m sure I’d be able to get it at a discount for them. They’d love a custom built second home here next to the river. I can see a ‘closed session ‘ coming up at the club with my friends in the council.
Nice little profit to be made there. Thanks for ti tip-off, old chap.
Do you think one house or two will return the largest profit. I’m thinking I could keep one for myself.
Well SJ, I was thinking more of keeping it rather than selling. Once the yacht’s are parked up, there won’t be a huge amount of land for a second house. Better off just building a private slip way. That’d increase the price nicely.