21 Home Binstead Housing Development Turned Down By Planners

A developer’s bid to build 21 houses on land at ‘medium risk’ of flooding off an Isle of Wight village’s main road has been turned down by planners.

County Hall refused Indigo Blew’s outline application for eight two-bedroom houses, nine three-bedroom houses and four four-bedroom houses at the site of the former Hosiden Besson factory in Binstead.

The wider area has been hit by well-documented flooding in recent years.

Proposal 21/02564/OUT also included site access alterations, parking and garaging and related landscaping and drainage works.

Indigo Blew’s agent, Robert Gray Design, said there is a ‘desperate need’ for the ‘derelict brownfield’ site to be ‘developed in a sensible manner to provide much-needed housing to support the under provision of housing on the Island’.

The architectural designer’s October 24 letter to the council said:

“This is not a site, if developed in the manner proposed, that is going to command high sales values but will rather be in reach of younger families starting out on the housing ladder.”

Justifying their decision, planners wrote:

“The application site is at medium risk of surface water flooding and the local area has been subject to flooding in recent years, triggering local flood risk investigations in 2014 and 2022.

“The application has failed to consider whether there are reasonably available sites appropriate for the proposed development in areas at lower risk of flooding.”

County Hall received 19 third party comments either objecting or voicing disquiet.

Concerns raised included the homes’ affordability, impacts on neighbours such as a loss of light and privacy, flooding, water and noise pollution and the visual impact of the development.