Cllr Chris Jarman, the Cabinet member for Strategic Finance, Transformational Change and Corporate Resources, has tabled a motion for next week’s full council meeting, calling for the decision on the Draft Island Planning Strategy (DIPS) to be deferred.
As he raised at the recent Cabinet meeting, Cllr Jarman argues in his motion that the housing targets included in the DIPS are based on estimates from 2014, when 2021 data is now available and shows only a 2,100 rise in the population in the last ten years.
His motion reads:
That, having considered the present Draft Island Planning Strategy, the Leader of the Cabinet be informed that Full Council objects to Cabinet’s submitted recommendations (as per Cabinet decision of 08 September 2022). The objections are as follows:
1) The annual housing number is based on 2014 estimates of the Isle of Wight population and not on actual Isle of Wight population data published by the ONS from the 2021 Census and their resulting demographic projections.
Full Council objects to the use of outdated data and requires:
– the annual housing need to be recalculated using the Isle of Wight population data from the ONS 2021 Census and their resulting demographic projections,
– the above recalculated figures to replace the current figures in the Draft Island Planning Strategy with particular emphasis on the need for housing which is affordable by Islanders to rent, including those on the housing register, with priority of allocation being given to
- completing on extant planning permissions,
- renovating unoccupied properties,
- delivering brownfield sites and,
- removing greenfield allocations
2) Full Council instructs the Leader of the Cabinet to require the Cabinet to reconsider, in the light of the above specified objections, the Draft Island Planning Strategy submitted to the Full Council, and that the specified period for such reconsideration is sixty working days (beginning on the day after the date on which the Leader of the Cabinet receives these instructions on behalf of the Cabinet) within which the Cabinet Leader may
(a) submit a revision of the Draft Island Planning Strategy as amended by the Cabinet (the revised “Draft Island Planning Strategy”), with the Cabinet’s reasons for any amendments made to the Draft Island Planning Strategy, to the Full Council for the Full Council’s consideration; or
(b) inform the Full Council of any disagreement that the Cabinet has with any of the Full Council’s objections and the Cabinet’s reasons for any such disagreement.
