This in from Andrew Turner’s office, in their own words. Ed
MP Andrew Turner and Cllr. Jonathan Bacon, the Cabinet Member for Planning and Regulatory issues in the Isle of Wight Council, last week met Nick Boles MP, the Minister responsible for planning and development.
The meeting was arranged following a debate last year in which the Island’s MP told the Minister he was concerned that the Island plan was not as flexible as it should be, saying,
“I am not convinced that changes to the core strategy document can be made as quickly and easily as was envisaged when the plans were brought in.”
Cllr. Bacon said after the meeting :
“This was a useful opportunity to discuss a range of issues. One important point is that despite having a local plan in place (the Island Plan) the Council’s planning decisions have been overturned on a number of occasions by a planning inspector in respect of issues related to subjective judgment as to what is appropriate locally. This should not happen.
“The Minister was interested to hear of our experiences and asked us to provide him with some examples. If he sees evidence that things are not working as they should be he has undertaken to look at amending new planning guidelines that are due to be released shortly to allow local views to prevail.
“I hope that our meeting and the subsequent correspondence will provide a really positive outcome, namely that local decisions, properly made, will not be overturned by an inspector with no local knowledge.”
Mr Turner added:
“I think the current target in the Island Plan of 520 houses every year is too high. We discussed whether the target could be reduced, and I must say that the Minister was not overly-impressed with that idea – although he accepts it is a local decision. He did though suggest a way in which larger developments, such as Pennyfeathers could be prevented – by putting a limit on the size of new developments. I’m pleased to say that Cllr. Bacon is going to look at whether that could be implemented. I am also going to do some more work to see what evidence would be needed to reduce the housing numbers. I thought it was a very useful meeting.”
Image: © Nick Boyles MP
