Readers of the CP letters to the editor page may have had to look twice this week, if they spotted a letter from ‘The Wall’.
‘The Wall’ was calling for residents of to help protect it from being demolished as part of a proposed development on the site it surrounds in Bellevue Road, Ryde.
We were first made aware of its plight when a thread was started on the VB discussion forum.
Much debate has followed and ‘The Wall’ itself has now joined the VB Forum with the intention of raising the profile of the campaign.
Background
Conservation Area Consent was given back in 2006 to demolish the previous building which had been damaged beyond repair by fire.
Following that, in 2008, Conservation Area Consent and Planning Permission were given to build 3/4 storey building comprising 16 flats including re-construction of the boundary walls.
Developers are now looking to adapt the previous proposals, wanting to build three 4-storey sheltered housing blocks containing an additional 5 flats, making the total of 21.
We imagine that to carry out this work without demolishing the existing boundary wall would be very difficult, hence perhaps the reason they wish to demolish and reconstruct it (with the addition of topping it with wrought iron railings).
There are currently 57 comments lodged on the application on the IW council planning Website. We haven’t had time to read them all, but the many that we clicked on seem to be against the development.
Objections claim that, amongst other things, the proposal does not enhance the conservation area and that it constitutes over-development. Others claim that the plans contain inconsistencies, inaccuracies and incomplete sections. Some are even calling for a preservation order to be placed on the stone boundary wall.
What next?
Perhaps you agree with the objections or perhaps you support the proposals to development, so what can you do?
The cut off for comments to the IWC is tomorrow (9th October) and given the extent of objections it’s highly likely that the application will go to Planning Committee for consideration.
If you want to look at the plans yourself, check them out on the IWC Planning site .
Many thanks to forum member Lulu for sending through the photos below of the wall. Click on the images to see larger versions
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