At a meeting of Isle of Wight council last night (5 October 2022) councillors voted by 18 votes to 16 not to approve the draft Island planning strategy.

After this vote the council’s meeting reached its constitutional time limit of three hours, without any other decision taken on the proposals leaving the strategy in limbo.

I voted against approval at this time.

The proposals for Camp Hill and other prison land, along with sites on Noke Common and Horsebridge Hill, would mean a housing target of 1,025, with a development boundary still very close to Parkhurst Forest.

In April this year I made clear to the council’s planning chiefs, and since then, that my view was that:

• the boundary needed to be drawn to give greater protection to the forest and the fields it borders
• to reduce the numbers significantly below 1,000 to reduce the pressure such development would have on infrastructure, especially the road network with even greater numbers coming onto Forest Road and Horsebridge Hill

I am keen to see a planning strategy adopted and am very willing to discuss proposals with councillors of all parties to find an acceptable proposal.

We have a housing crisis on the Island. There are many families on the council’s register waiting for suitable housing to become available. But house prices are out of reach for many families, and there has been a big fall in housing to rent in the private sector. For most of my childhood I lived in a council house and I would like to see the government give back the power that councils used to have to build council houses.

In the meantime, I realise that we will have to rely on private developers to build affordable housing, and that a new Island Plan is needed to ensure enough of this is built in developments.