As we are approaching half-way through the term of the Alliance Group’s time in office at County Hall, News OnTheWight approached each of the Cabinet members offering an opportunity to highlight the work of their portfolio and their hopes for the coming year.
We began with Isle of Wight council leader, Lora Peacey-Wilcox, followed by Cllr Jonathan Bacon.
Up next is Cllr Julie Jones-Evans, whose portfolio covers Levelling Up, Regeneration, Business Development and Tourism. In her own words. Ed
Almost all of us are facing financial struggles right now, as the cost of living continues to bite and we can’t yet see brighter days ahead. In the IWC Cabinet, finance is the main focus of our discussions too, without our fair funding settlement “The Island Deal” we are facing difficult decisions.
However, in my role as lead for Regeneration, Business Development, Tourism and Leisure Services, I have positive projects to work on, that can give us all some good news and ways to improve our situation.
Cultural Regeneration
A big focus this year has been on Cultural Regeneration, building upon our Corporate Plan aims, our Priority Place status from Arts Council England in September 2021 and involvement in Southampton 2025 bid to become UK City of Culture.
Working with The Island Collection we held our first Cultural Conference at Hullabaloo which was a huge success and launched the consultation for a new Cultural Strategy for the whole Island – this will come before the IWC for adoption as a policy document in May.
The Island as a film location
This new focus had also meant we were all ears when the project of the film studio came forward. After a few months of looking at our different sites and working out the details, Kingston Marine Park is to become the home of Medina Studios – bringing jobs, skills, supply chain benefits and of course making use of our diverse and often stunning Island locations.
We’ve already seen the benefits that films bring, for instance An Action Hero (Bollywood) shot last January brought in £600,000 into the Island (off season) and we welcome film tourists every year as they visit locations such as Osborne House (Victoria and Abdul).
I went to see An Action Hero in Newport a couple of weeks ago and the Island just looks breathtaking – congratulations to all who were involved in making it happen. Having the studio means more productions and opportunities.
A long game
Regeneration is a long game and rarely is it one big investment that turns the fortunes of an area. It’s a slow burn and understanding a place and its needs is critical in knowing what interventions are required.
This approach gathers information from various sources about a place and on the Island we have used a Shaping Better Places method – developed here – in Newport, Ryde and Cowes/Northwood, working alongside the local councils and businesses to create a picture of each area, directly from the people who live, work and visit there.
This approach has been invaluable in developing and refining the Newport Harbour Masterplan.
Shared Prosperity Fund
With our Shared Prosperity Fund allocation (£1.1m over three years-revenue) we will be able to continue this work across the Island.
The next area is The Bay, working with Sandown, Lake and Shanklin councils and project officers have just been appointed.
Sandown was also chosen to have specialist help from the government’s High Street Task Force.
I’m still working on getting Sandown Town Hall back into public use, there’s a project there waiting to happen, its just the challenge of the capital funds for the building that needs to be overcome.
Encouraging the “Purple Pound”
Shared Prosperity Fund will also be used to encourage what is known as the “Purple Pound” improving accessibility in Tourism, services and other job areas alongside further support for business, skills – especially in retrofitting homes to make them more energy efficient.
Shopfront Design Guides
Newport and Ryde’s High Street Heritage Action Zones are continuing and seeing the publication of the Shopfront Design Guide was a particularly proud moment. It’s now a supplementary planning document giving our planners policy backup to protect and improve our historic town centres.
The ‘hard’ interventions such as improved public areas will be happening in 2023/24 alongside delivery of improvements to individual properties via the grant scheme. Inflation and other price rises mean that we are constantly refining the projects to fit into the funding allocations – the bids were written in 2019.
New co-working space
Building 41, our new co-working, office and event space in Northwood – funded by the last of the available European funding – has had a soft opening this autumn and will fully open in February, a fabulous space where businesses can grow and connect.
Branstone Farm is another key project nearing completion, Vectis Housing have their first residents in the new homes and soon the brewery and businesses units will be occupied.
Levelling up funding boost
Many of the projects Regeneration deliver are grant funded, such as the big Levelling Up project at East Cowes. This project is progressing really well with planning applications in and more to follow.
Understanding your places is vital to putting in grant applications, it gives you the vital data and consultation responses to shape successful applications.
Success of the Wight Gift Card
I’m also really proud of the success of the Wight Gift Card, a suggestion I took to the Economic Development Board during lockdown and sponsored by WightFibre, designed to increase spend in local businesses and strengthen the economy.
This year £945,000 has been spent in the 130 businesses registered with the scheme – all but one locally owned.
I’d like to give a shout out to all the team at 1Leisure for their continued dedication to supporting people in their health and well-being journeys. We are lucky to have such professional staff and excellent facilities across the three sites.
Tour of Britain
The Tour of Britain was shaping up to be the event of the year (not counting the fantastic community response to the Platinum Jubilee) and the huge effort by the IWC team, (including lots of volunteers across the council and Visit Isle of Wight) was outstanding (all on top of business as usual) – you can only imagine how the team felt when it was cancelled due to the death of our Queen – but we are negotiating on hosting a stage in the future so we can still get that huge benefit for the Island, that hosting major events brings.
Regeneration needed more than ever
I believe Regeneration is needed more than ever, we are in very unsettling economic times and continuing to work on growth projects across the Island will increase our resilience to weather these storms.
Thanks go to all members of the team that are making this happen.
