Cllr Michael Lilley shares this latest news. Ed
Councillor Michael Lilley and leading Ryde East Campaigner, Jenny Wade, are calling all Ryde and Isle of Wight residents to object to the proposed Island Plan Strategy by 25th February as Ryde will not have any Greenfields left in its boundary.
Wade: Flawed Island Plan
Jenny states:
“If we don’t register our objections by 25th February 2019 this paper will be adopted and we will all have to live with the fact this flawed Island Plan will govern how we live for the next 15 years.
“Can we really afford to be so complacent? This draft Island Strategic Development Plan is, in my opinion, not fit for purpose and needs to be reworked from an island perspective.
“Where is the section dedicated to our totally outdated and now inadequate Island road network? ”
Looming deadline
On 25th February the Isle of Wight Council (IWC) closes its consultation for the revised Island Plan Strategy.
The Island branch of the Campaign for Rural England (CPRE) is campaigning strongly against the proposed strategy.
Conservative Cllr Matt Price, Vice-Chair of IW Council Planning Committee has broken ranks and is protesting about proposed housing in Fairlee.
Lilley: There will be no green fields left in Ryde
Independent Green Councillor, Michael Lilley’s Ryde East Ward (Appley, Elmfield and Pennyfeathers), has over already 1,200 new homes with full and outline planning permission
Cllr Lilley states:
“Ryde within this proposed plan will have no greenfield countryside left within its boundary. Westridge Farm will disappear with 550 houses built on it. Ryde Bowmen will have nowhere for archery and historic dormice habitat in Ryde will be gone forever.
“Put simply, there will be no dormice and green fields in Ryde left!”
He went on to say,
“My Ryde East ward once the beautiful historic village of Elmfield surrounded by green fields will be just a massive housing estate.
“We have derelict houses rotting on Marlborough Road waiting for a new road junction to be built for 900 houses on Pennyfeathers, roads with potholes, and houses planned on Westridge Farm with no proper access with roads that are so thin they are just dirt tracks.
“A tenant farming family is steadily destroyed as they see field by field sold by the landowner – who lives on the mainland – for housing.
“In reality with Brexit, there is going to be no private big house building investment on Island for years. Investors withdrew from Puckpool recently. We are just going to be a dreamland of waiting to build sites in limbo for years. We have to wake up now!”
Wade: “Need Council prepared to stand up to central government”
Ryde resident, Jenny Wade, says:
“To a growing number of people it seems the current Council is determined the Isle of Wight will soon be an offshore appendage fully integrated into Hampshire.
“The new build house numbers (almost 10,000 over 15 years) in no way truthfully reflects what is actually needed for the Island, but if we are lumped in with Southampton and Portsmouth they then of course make perfect sense.
“We need a Council that is prepared to stand up to central government and fight for the right to be treated as a special case; allowed to set our own realistic figures.”
Wade: “It only makes sense to blinkered politicians”
Jenny went on to say,
“We are a County in our own right. Yes, we are surrounded by water and totally reliant on the ferries to transport us and goods to and from the mainland, but we like it that way.
“It’s part of what makes us unique. Burying us under thousands of new build homes, most of which won’t be of the right type and will be far too costly for local people to afford, only makes sense to blinkered politicians.”
Act not Plan – Have your views heard
Cllr Lilley calls:
“The Island does not just need a viable plan, but needs an Act of Parliament that recognises it is an Island and has power over its own destination.
“The plan of building new 10,000 plus homes is not viable and utter madness. We need homes for Islanders, we need descent roads, we need a real environmental policy that is fit for an Island in the 21st Century.
“This proposed plan just kowtows to the mainland and makes Islanders just poor subservients to the rest of England. We need to rise up and demand for legislation so we control our own housing, environmental and economic needs. Get your views heard and put comments via the Website.”
Image: Ettore Balocchi under CC BY 2.0
