Isle of Wight council put draft Island Planning Strategy on hold and decision-making meetings (updated)

Later this week the Isle of Wight council (IWC) cabinet was due to meet and vote on the draft Island Planning Strategy.

However, the IWC have now advised that this meeting and the subsequent extraordinary full council meetings have been cancelled whilst a pause on decision-making is taken.

A spokesperson for the IWC told News OnTheWight,

“Since publication of the Draft Island Planning Strategy, questions have been raised about elements of the draft plan.
“For this reason, Cabinet will be pausing the current process to allow further consideration of the plan to take place.
“The Cabinet meeting scheduled for 14th April and Extraordinary Full Council meeting on 20th April will be cancelled, as this was the only agenda item for consideration at those meetings.”

Next meeting and new Chairperson
The next Full Council meeting takes place on 18th May 2022.

This will be the Annual Meeting where a new Chairperson is elected. In many previous years, usual practice is for the current Vice Chairperson to be elected. This is currently Claire Critchison (Alliance).

Cllr Geoff Brodie (Ind Lab), the current Chairman who could be replaced next month, got in touch after this article was published, writing to another member of staff telling them (not me) to “at least get your facts right”, whilst pointing out that this convention “doesn’t appear to have be that ‘usual’ in recent years”, adding