The chair of the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust, Brian Hinton, shares this appeal to residents. OnTheWight contacted Cllr Medland earlier in the week to ask for his response, but at time of publishing had not heard back. Ed
Draconian proposals have been published to restrict parking in the area centering around Freshwater Bay village, rendering the area bordered by Orchards Store, the Thatched Church and Dimbola Museum and Galleries, a parking no go area, 24 hours a day.
Despite frantic efforts before Christmas to find out more exact details – the verbiage in the public announcement published in the County Press (15th December) is at times contradictory – a visit to County Hall revealed little more, and there seems to be a similar dearth on the official iWight Website.
We have been given the Christmas and New Year to gather responses and opposition, with County Hall not reopening until 2nd January, and a closing date ten days later.
Killing off visitor parking
This plan, which in effect would kill off visitor parking to the village, congregations at the local church, the probably closure of the popular local wine bar and potentially the local Orchards stores, let alone any evening events at Dimbola, beyond our own limited off road parking.
There has been general agreement, and discussion about restriction in Afton Road, but this seems to have been added for unclear, even sinister reasons, and has not been the subject of any prior debate at Freshwater Parish Council, on which I serve, or I believe the Freshwater Bay Residents Association.
“Cooked up in secret”
The whole thing seems to have been cooked up in secret by the local ward councillor John Medland, who neither owns a car or lives in the area concerned, and he told me is the result of private lobbying of him by a small group of residents, all of whom he then admitted, lived in large houses, with private drives.
This ties in with comments to me by a few new and wealthy incomers, that they do not want cars, buses or coaches blocking “their view” down to the Bay, and indeed that they do not want local businesses or even tourists, just a private village – in effect – for their benefit.
Public meetings
Freshwater Parish council will be discussing this as a matter of extreme urgency, to make a unified response to County. Many local residents have approached or emailed me over Christmas expressing their deep concern.
We all accept limited parking on a small part of Gate Lane, as under current regulations, which have worked extremely well.
There has never been to my knowledge any problems of blocking the traffic flow – the only pinch point is further up the road, past Orchards Store, where the road narrows past Farringford.
Disastrous effect on village
The result of these absurd plans would be to kill off the village as a place to visit, buy a cup of coffee, groceries, worship, or pop into a museum of international repute.
The (very) few side roads left unaffected (including the traffic pinch point that is occasionally Victoria Road) would be a war zone, and various private unmade up roads would need to employ their own private clampers, and these will be magnets for traffic displaced from the main village.
Conduct proper survey
I call upon Councillor Medland to take a proper survey of a wide range of locals and customers before so carelessly endorsing the views of a very small minority, who have had the arrogance not to try to argue their case publicly, but to work behind the scenes and give everyone else an extremely limited time scale to, in effect, save the village as a living space, not just a kind of gated enclave for those not engaged in village life
Object now
Please place your objections over The Isle of Wight Council (Various Streets, Freshwater) (Traffic Regulation) Order NO 1 2017, and address your concerns to Bill Murphy (Head of Contract Management (Traffic Manager) St Christopher House, 42 Daish Way, Newport, IOW PO30 5XJ, to arrive at the very latest by noon, 12th January 2018.
I have formally asked for an extension to this ludicrously short time scale for discussion and protest, and will be holding an open meeting at Dimbola in early January.
Meeting at Dimbola
Dimbola Museum and Galleries are hosting an open public meeting at 4pm on Tuesday 2nd January to call for proper consultation to take place immediately.
Please come along to make your views heard and to hear what the Residents Association and representatives of local businesses have to say.
The meeting will be chaired by Michael Robinson, Volunteer at Dimbola to enable all those who want to call for proper local democracy to have their say.
Image: clearlyambiguous under CC BY 2.0
