Campsite Housing Plan With At Least 60 Homes Faces Continued Opposition

A proposed mixed-use development with at least 60 homes and a retail outlet is facing continuing opposition from residents and campaigners.

Over two dozen objections have been filed with the Isle of Wight Council against Stephen Hucklesby’s revised outline plans for Heathfield Farm Campsite next to Freshwater’s Colwell Road.

The proposal’s opponents include the Empowering Islanders county councillors, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Freshwater Parish Council and Freshwater Community Speedwatch.

Mr Hucklesby’s agent, ERMC, say the scheme represents a strong opportunity to deliver quality housing in a sustainable location, with direct links to local infrastructure and services.

A protest against the bid was held outside the campsite on Sunday (February 1).

Concerns include the loss of an award-winning wildlife haven with species such as red squirrels and bats, losing an established tourist asset and pollution and nitrate runoff into the Solent.

The scheme’s critics have also raised issues such as a lack of local services capacity, a ‘severe cumulative highways impact’, pedestrian and road safety and harm to the character of Heathfield Road and the surrounding landscape.

Freshwater North and Yarmouth county councillor Peter Spink has applied for the plans to go before County Hall’s planning committee.

Planning considerations he mentioned in his email to the Isle of Wight Council included the loss of a ‘green lung’ for residents, the urbanising effect of a major development and the impact of its surface water draining to an area with ‘pre-existing issues of drainage, erosion and land instability’.

An ERMC spokesperson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS):

“It will be reassuring for local residents to understand that the consulting ecological team have carefully surveyed, logged and recorded all habitats across the site and provided suitable mitigation measures.

“These include relocating protected habitats within the site itself and seeking to maintain the established biodiversity of wildlife within the site boundaries and across the wider local environment.

“The revised proposals have reduced the scale of development, as recommended by policy, in response to the presence of key ecological features identified.”

They added the development will provide a meaningful contribution to affordable housing within the West Wight, an area ‘poorly supported with new affordable homes for the last decade’.