From Richard Hollis, Cowes:

I respond to the letter from Cllr Karl Love (CP, 01-03-19) in order to point out at least some of its inaccuracies.

Cllr Love has clearly not been following the activities of our elected MP, Bob Seely, who he accuses, quite wrongly, of only now objecting to the requirement of central government that we build annually large numbers of new houses on the Island. 

When he was IW councillor for Brighstone, Bob Seely vigorously opposed large-scale developments in his ward in order to protect our rural environment. In his election manifesto he publicly opposed the demands of central government to build large numbers of houses on the Island.

In his maiden speech to the House of Commons in July 2017, Mr Seely stressed how special our Island was and the need to protect it. In November that year, he met the then housing minister to firmly put the case that the government’s targets for new build houses on the Island was unsustainable and that while he recognised the need for affordable housing, what the Island needed was small-scale development. He repeated this in June 2018, arguing the proposal we should build 640 houses a year was wholly unrealistic.

All of the above statements by Bob Seely are a matter of public record if Cllr Love would care to do his homework.

Following the spurious attempt in his letter to discredit the Island’s MP, Cllr Love then attacks the Island administration suggesting the IW Council wished to build more housing to gain more revenue. He must surely realise that servicing the needs of an extra 1,200 to 2,400 more residents per annum, (many of them probably in retirement since we have limited employment opportunities) would only add to a growing demand for resources which the additional revenue would nowhere near meet?

I do suggest in future Cllr Love do his research before putting into print such ill-researched assertions, especially as he has recently announced his own ambitious political aspirations. I trust he will apologise to Bob Seely.