Ventnor Blog

ON MAY 1st over 38,000 electors on the Island will have the opportunity to vote for members of the four new Parish Councils which the Secretary of State and the Isle of Wight Council have confirmed will be established in the Newport, Northwood, Ryde and Whippingham areas. (more…)

Next Wednesday sees a full council meeting at County Hall. We will be covering this meeting with live reports coming straight from the council chamber.

The biggest issue on the agenda is undoubtedly the schools reforms.
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Hold the press!

The long-awaited statement is in from the council on the question we raised with them. There’s a considerable ‘but’ at the end.

It is as follows … (more…)

During the day on Monday, a decision was made by Cllr Alan Wells that Christ The King College should be established starting 1 Sept 2008. This was carried out BEFORE the public release of the results of the school survey.

The decision was made under delegated powers, that is, there was no public debate about it, or public record of how the decision was made - just that it was made.
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We’ve had the wink on a completely unsubstantiated leak of which of the schools Option the council will be revealing at the ’some time after 6:30′ announcement today.

Our mole tells us that … (more…)

Ask nearly anyone on the Isle of Wight who has been following the proposed mass closures of schools and it’s highly likely that they’ll tell you that they’ve been told that it’s down to the Government withdrawing £7-8 million from the Island, if the apparent surplus of school places isn’t reduced to 10%.
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Not sure if you’d caught up with the changes happening to issuing car parking tickets in the UK, which come into law from 31 March.

You may have heard that one of the changes is that the parking attendants no longer have to put the parking tickets on the windscreen of the car for it to become officially issued.
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Five more Island councils have joined the campaign Ferry Fares Fair? It brings the total to 25.

Andrew Turner MP, who is asking the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to investigate cross-Solent services, said the support could make all the difference. (more…)

Great to see in the CP that the IW Council Cabinet meeting gave full backing to the Eco Island plan.

As Ross Findon reports, not only is it hoped that the Island will benefit from becoming cleaner, but there’s a serious chance for the Island to become a ‘Green playground’ for those researching Green issues and products, leading to the Island to be a Green centre for the UK.

Two relevant up coming events are the Eco Island conference — an mini-Kyoto type event — to be held on 26 March at Cowes Yacht Haven and the Big Green Picnic, which VentnorBlog is a proud supporter of.

Grass roots councils across the Island are adding momentum to the campaign ferry fares fare? Nineteen of the 36 parish and town councils and management committees have now lent their support to the campaign. (more…)

A new petition came to our attention yesterday that may be of interest to some of our readers.

This is not a petition to save any particular school, but rather, to force an inquiry into the way the consultation has been carried out.
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This month’s full council meeting (on Wednesday) looks likely to be one of particular interest to many of our readers.

As you may have previously heard, Cllr Patrick Joyce has put forward a motion for the council to abandon it’s current schools proposals.
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It’s not surprising that it appears that there’s some movement in the council’s position on the proposed schools closures - there’s a meeting next Tuesday at County Hall where those councillors against the school reforms are attempting to stop the changes.

The front page of the CP has an article implying that there’s still time for negotiation in the proposed school closures.
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As you’ll be aware. there’s been some confusion on the Island as to who is asking for the changes to the school system.

Here’s the latest episode. IW Council have written to Lord Adonis, Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Schools and Learners. The letter in full is below.
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Several groups opposed to the proposed schools reforms have created an online petition calling for the council to rethunk their strategy.

Any members of the public who are against the proposals to close at least 23 schools are invited to add their names to the petition. (more…)

Thanks to Standards not Tiers and SaveIOWSchools for pointing out a news piece on the BBC News site.

The thrust of the article is that the government is warning local authorities that “by law, they should not be closing rural schools.”

They report that due to lobbying at a national level to protect small schools (primarily by National Association for Small Schools we assume), the government is currently drafting a letter to send to local councils.

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Following the Alex Dyke phone in on IW radio this afternoon, Cllr Melanie Swan got in touch with VentnorBlog to clarify her position … (more…)

In our conversation with Patrick Joyce yesterday, VentnorBlog learnt a number of interesting points about the proposed changes to schooling on the Island.

He told us that the council is saying that they hope to make one million pounds worth of saving if they close at least 22 of the Island Primary Schools.

The sobering revelation was that with approximate 19-20,000 pupils currently in the Island education system, this £1m would only equate to roughly £50 per pupil.

In the words of Cllr Joyce, that’s “not going to make an iota of difference to the education of that child,” he continued, “that £50 would be used up in administration, but actually improving the academic ability of that child is most unlikely.”

The vote of confidence carried out this afternoon at 4:30 in a private meeting with the ruling conservative councillors voted to support David Pugh.

The actual vote was 27 in support of David Pugh and six against.

The vote was raised following the disquiet after the councils announced plans to close 22 of the Island’s primary schools.

We all know that there’s a lot of bad talk about the council at the moment over their proposals to alter the school structures - well don’t be down on them too much.

Joe Duckworth, Chief Exec of the council, told VentnorBlog that the council will be putting some money behind the scheme to make Ventnor plastic bag free, VentBag, as part of their Eco-Island campaign to help it to flourish.

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Conservative Councillor for Ashey, Vanessa Churchman called the Alex Dyke phone-in to day to publicly state that she does not support any of the proposals put forward by the Council this week to close at least 22 primary schools.

She was joined on the phone-in by Lora Peacey-Wilcox, Conservative Councillor for Cowes Central, who spoke out about her intentions to fight these proposals all the way.

Island MP, Andrew Turner also spoke out this week against the proposals.

This form of open rebellion from Tory Councillors will make the job of pushing these proposal through for significantly harder for David Pugh and Alan Wells.

We’re all sitting on the edge of our seats awaiting the release of the document outlining what the Isle of Wight council feels are the options for the education system on the Island.

The only thing is that we’ve all been expecting it to come out at 6 pm this evening, but as we write this it hasn’t turned up.
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News reaches us this morning that the ten Island Post Offices (detailed below) that were earmarked for closure by the Post Office WILL BE CLOSING.

On hearing the news, our Island MP, Andrew Turner is said to be furious. He spent a great deal of time working with the Rural Community Council and the Chamber of Commerce on a detailed response to their proposals and to date has still not even received a reply from them.
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Good to see that Ventnor’s latest elected councillor, Debby Robinson, has had her photo and contact details added to the Ventnor Town council website.
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Good to hear that the message of the Isle of Wight becoming the Eco Island is spreading far and wide.

Island Chief Exec, Joe Duckworth, has been busy delivering the message around Europe this week.

We hear that not only did a delegation from the French Embassy pop over to the Island near the start of the week to get genned up on how plans are coming together, but major German magazine, Der Spiegel (with a weekly print run of more than one million per week), have been in touch to find out more as well.

All great stuff. Go Joe!