Plan To Redevelop Former Totland School Site Criticised As 'Missed Opportunity'

Plans to redevelop a former Isle of Wight school site with 16 ‘high-quality’ new homes have been criticised as overdevelopment and a ‘missed opportunity’.

Totland Parish Council (TPC) has written to County Hall with a series of concerns over a hybrid proposal to replace the former Weston Community Primary School on Weston Road in Totland with a new housing project.

Both an outline application and one for full planning permission have been submitted by SGL Weston and the Isle of Wight Council for the brownfield site which has been vacant since 2015.

TPC’s letter described the scheme as a ‘missed opportunity’ and requested the plans be refused but said it does not object in principle to the site’s redevelopment.

“When assessed as a whole, the proposal represents an overdevelopment of the site that fails to respond positively to its physical constraints, historic significance and sensitive conservation area context, ” a spokesperson said.

“The cumulative impacts identified – including unjustified heritage harm, erosion of conservation area character, highway and parking deficiencies, poor layout and inadequate amenity provision, lack of design certainty, and failure to deliver policy-compliant affordable housing – demonstrate that the scheme exceeds the site’s capacity to accommodate development of this scale and form.

“A reduced-scale, heritage-led approach – removing later unsympathetic additions, retaining and restoring the historic school building, and establishing a layout that addresses the street and provides adequate amenity – would be capable of delivering development that preserves and potentially enhances the character of the area.”

A previously submitted Design and Access Statement from Strategic Green Land (SGL) said a wide range of social, environmental and heritage-led benefits would be delivered by the proposed development.

Advantages it listed include the efficient use of underused brownfield space, preserving and sensitively converting the former school building, contributing to the local housing supply and landscape and biodiversity improvements.

County Hall’s public consultation on proposal 25/01846/FUL ended on February 13 and a decision has been scheduled for April 16.