Ventnor Blog

Thanks to Mark for sending through notes from the Town Council Planning meeting held last week. Ed

All council meetings (except where there is a conflict of needs for the stage) will now be held in the back of the Winter Gardens, under the stage, always starting at 6.30 on Mondays.

The new location is somewhat better in terms of accessibility. It is not perfect by any means, but is a distinct step forward. The Town Council seem determined to try their best to accommodate wheelchair users.

Prior to the planning committee meeting, there were two financial items:

The annual risk assessment was approved with the proviso that it be reviewed on a quarterly basis. As Brian Lucas pointed out the acid test of a risk assessment is in the follow up.

The annual precept was agreed for 2008.

The total is £99,500 (about 10% up on 2007/2008)

There was a bit of shuffling with a couple of items; for example allotments spend reduced to £7K and public seats increased to £3K (both are estimates). Interesting that the TC has benefited previously from donated public seats (but cannot predict those each year).

The implication is that the available budget would go a lot further if augmented by a partnership with the community (aka Trinity Road Shelters).

The planning meeting application content is outlined here.

All three applications were approved.

There was some debate over whether to highlight the apparent boundary dispute surrounding the Homelands application, which was not believed to be a material planning consideration, but a civil law problem.

As far as the JWN Motors application (Newport Road) is concerned. There was a general agreement that there should be a 106 style agreement for funding provision from the development to contribute directly to the allotments budget planned in the context of community developments for Upper Ventnor

Susan Scoccia reminded everyone of the upcoming Ventnor centric applications coming before the Planning Committee at Isle of Wight Council on Tuesday 28 January. She was in particular concerned that the Town Council would be represented. Val Taylor said she would if for any reason Brenda Lawson could not be there.

One application in particular will be coming up. An old favourite on the Forum…….Tesco. But please refer to the
Town Council Minutes for 23 July 2007:

Specifically and quoted from those minutes:

….Kevin Burton from Highways who attended the Town Council meeting said he did not know why they attended with nothing more than the PDF map developed by Tesco that is on the Planning site. He said he himself had little more information than that map, but was certain a planned independent survey team would iron out any small problems….

The problem is, according to Jonny Fitzgerald-Bond, that Highways have come back with little to no change to the original traffic plan…

This means Highways have failed to listen to the combined comments of both the Ventnor Business Community (represented at the July meeting by Harry Rees) and the Ventnor Town Council.

Jonny surprised all of us by swearing in a very gentleman like manner with frustration.

He was very concerned that Highways have not done anything, but felt strongly that Tesco should proceed quickly, if only to get rid of the current building.

This is a good example of why it is so important the Town Council is represented at the Planning Committee.

Unexpected