On Air Now Nick Osborne 10:00am - 3:00pm Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire Schedule

Plans To Turn Former Wellow Dairy Farm Into Housing

A green light looks set to be given to the partial conversion of a former dairy farm in Wellow.

The development of Lee Farm, on Wellow’s Main Road, into 16 homes, would also provide a chunk of land towards the much-talked-about cycle path from Newport to the West Wight — known as the Greenway.

Planning officers have recommended the plan be approved, subject to a legal agreement and 19 various conditions.

While no statutory bodies objected, 36 residents railed against the plans, as well as the Island’s MP Bob Seely.

Mr Seely highlighted the lack of affordable properties on the site, saying it was of no benefit to the West Wight and its young people while also ‘concreting over the countryside’.

According to council policy, housing developments on the Island of ten or more houses, should either provide properties as affordable or financially contribute to affordable housing schemes elsewhere.

However, officers say there is a unique set of circumstances that relate to this application, as it is able to provide a large section of the Greenway, while also delivering rural housing using brownfield land.

The land will be given to the council to use in the Greenway and construction costs of the 1.75km part of the route will also be met by the landowner.

The affordable housing contribution, therefore, officers say, has been worked out at £27,120.

The current appearance of the site includes a complex of existing large bans, officers say are in a state of disrepair.

Officers acknowledge the development would result in a greater amount of built form in the area but it would remain contained in the existing belt of hedgerows and trees that surround the site.

Although the development land is partially made up of farmland, the site, which sits on the edge of Wellow and Thorley, is technically brownfield after an appeal was upheld by the Planning Inspectorate.

More from Isle of Wight News