Hey Ventnor/Isle of Wight, did you know that Cheetah Marine have again applied to change their previously granted planning permission for the Ventnor Eastern Esplanade development?
We’ve been a little quiet on the latest planning application by Cheetah Marine. It seemed to be a story that was developing, as documents were gradually released by Cheetah Marine (bit strange not to release them all at once) – indeed the Ventnor Town Council commented that the information that they’ve been provided with for their decision was lacking the correct detail.
Finally it looks like that the information that’s required for the public to understand what’s going on has been delivered. It just takes a while to dig out what is really going on.
Here’s the summary – Their obligation to keep the site for Marine Usage forever has been mysteriously removed from the legal agreement (the S.106) and they want to have the obligation to host the office for the harbour master to also be removed.
These were two items that were central to the granting of the original planning permission.
There are a couple of other bits, but we’ll go into those another time.
Marine use, in perpetuity
One of the saving graces from the granting of the planning to Cheetah back in April 2007 was that facilities for the public (cafe, toilet, shower and harbour master’s office) and that the sites continued use for marine related employment should be in perpetuity, ie forever.
One reason for the ‘in perpetuity’ clause was to ensure that, in the future, the Cheetah building wasn’t converted into flats.
It was a small way to ensure that the bargain basement price that Cheetah can buy freehold land for — a mere £100,000 for the whole site — was balanced by the area’s continued service to the town.
SEEDA history
Having the public facilities (harbour master’s office, cafe, toilet and shower) and Marine-related use weren’t just some random suggestion put forward by Ventnor Mayor Susan Scoccia at the planning meeting. She had them included for good reason – they were part of the requirements insisted on by SEEDA when they granted development money and they formed part of the Eastern Esplanade development brief.
Indeed, as Jonathon Fitzgerald Bond said in the opening paragraphs of his presentation to the Planning Committee (on 24 April 2007) on why Ventnor needed Cheetah Marine to build on the Eastern Esplanade,
“The original condition applied by Seeda when they provided a grant of £1m towards the building of Ventnor Haven, was that it should be the catalyst to provide marine employment and also to help toward the provision of harbour facilities such as a harbour office, shower and toilets, for harbour users.”
What can you do?
The public consultation for the variation of conditions on the planning permission finishes this Friday, 23 May.
At present there are only a handful of comments, probably due to the fact that the omission of ‘marine use only’ is hidden deep within the legal document and is not something most people would go through with a fine tooth comb (we did).
If you are concerned about this leave us a comment and tell others. You can comment on the Planning Website.
