THE IRIS MANIFESTO

O T S E F I N A M A

FO

N W O D N A S R S I R I E H T O T S E F I N MA

Design & Illustration by @clairesp8design

MAKE A PLACE . FOR PEOPLE

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WHY DOES SANDOWN NEED A MANIFESTO?

1.

Commit, above all else, to secure the wellbeing of the town’s own people, building an active and engaged citizenry for the future. The essential question at every town meeting must be, ‘How will this decision improve the health and welfare of those who live and work here?’

Sandown is much more than just a town for tourists; This does not mean that we disregard the visitor economy, quite the reverse, we generate the enduring tourism appeal that comes

UNLEASH NEW . STRENGTH

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from a place that truly believes in itself, and which puts the wellbeing and welfare of its own

community first.

Sandown has the acumen, imagination, and determination, in its businesses, students and civic society, to grow its own future. There must be a new people-centred approach, demanding direct community benefit and tangible common good from public procurement, investment, development, and the management of public assets.

Sandown must now fully commit to prioritising real and lasting ’levelling up’ where it is most needed: life chances for young people, improved mental health and wellbeing, reduced inequality and income

Invest in the town’s true spirit of place, its coastal community, natural world, earth science and lifelong learning environment. Build on what is already here, sustain the value of the past while constructing new, different, and ambitious expectations for the future.

deprivation, and boosted economic opportunity.

2.

We believe that the natural world, creative industry, and lifelong learning are Sandown’s

ENRICH OUR . ENVIRONMENT

3 4.

essential raw materials; these are the antidote to the past and the foundations of the future.

Sandown’s special combination of urban and wild, built, and natural, was an inspiration to

the Island’s successful bid for UNESCO World Biosphere status in 2019.

This extraordinary global accolade brings together the protection of high value cultural and biological diversity in new ways to support the lives of the people who live and work here.

Sandown is enveloped by land managed for wildlife, overlapping with sites of prehistoric, cultural and heritage importance, all embedded in the everyday life of a coastal community. Sandown can and must

Forge a new partnership between civic, voluntary and business organizations to protect and enhance the town’s free and common spaces. The vitality of Sandown’s public land and buildings is its heartbeat.

capitalise on these distinctive strengths.

3.

Sandown’s exceptional public estate is the key to its revival; Sandown contains a square kilometre of seafront, play area, parks, gardens, and public greenspace, as well as 85 public assets including 30 buildings, modern and historic. Too much of this rich diversity

of resource is anonymous, underused, forgotten or depleted through disposals to private interests.

There is great potential in this wealth of public capital, but it requires a progressive, imaginative local politics and a shared vision for radical change to be realised. A new partnership between public, private, community and social enterprise, is now needed, in which the public estate enriches the quality of Sandown’s physical and social environment, building new cultural and economic value.

4.

Bring together the three neighbourhoods of The Bay as one coherent and resilient place that can successfully adapt to the challenges of future politics, economy, and climate, and fulfil its true potential, to be one of the most vibrant coastal communities in England.

The future of Sandown is inextricably linked to that of The Bay as a whole; The Bay is, a single functioning district for transport, schools, health services, destination marketing, coastal defence, climate resilience, and local plan policy, yet its everyday administration is

split between three local councils with no significant cross-working or joint initiative.

This fundamentally weakens each of the three constituent localities, generating meaningless competition, limiting the impact of the £¾M collected and spent every year through precept, and leaching away the capacity of the Bay to be more than the sum of its parts.

The newly elected local councils must make every effort to proactively bring together the three administrations, using the establishment of the area NHS hub in the town in 2020, the shared Eastern Bay Vision in 2018 and the foundations built by The Bay Coastal Community Team since 2015 as platforms for effective collaboration and the delivery of positive change.

IRIS -

Inspiring Revival In Sandown

THE MANIFESTO IN ACTION CAN BRING ABOUT CHANGE people

UNIFY FOR A COMMON GOOD land area) and thereby room to instigate and manage change, and it hosts one of the three Island ‘locality hubs’ for public health services bringing a concentration of NHS employment. There is a busy network of volunteers, clubs and associations and a rapidly growing engagement with social media, there is a major free annual science and arts festival (Hullabaloo) a calendar of community activities (Discovery Bay) and a spring and summer programme of free live music shows (The Campfire Sessions). Sandown, with Lake and Shanklin, is part of The Bay Area urban district, and the largest conurbation on the Island. Annual visitor numbers can reach half a million and The Bay remains the capital of the Island’s tourism bedspace. The raw materials for positive change are already here.

But there is a local momentum building, to push ahead

Sandown is a town, a parish and a community in discontent,

with small-scale, imaginative change, focussed on priority

permeating its public and private conversations, its outlook

public spaces. These activities have in common, a culture

and its governance. Its High Street and seafront have

of collaboration and shared learning. Each initiative

been blighted by ruined hotels and indifferent landlords,

finds a way to use local content, features of significance,

and the fate of its public places is increasingly controlled

landmarks and locally distinctive information, to attract

Work with the NHS and IW Public Health teams to boost ‘wellbeing’ investment in the town and grow community health services from the High Street to the health hub at The Heights, Los Altos, Ferncliff, and Battery Gardens.

by commercial interests. It has no business association,

funding, secure public assets, create opportunities for

and its council has, in recent times, been unable to

people to participate, learn more and add to the store of

meet the challenges that the town faces. Sandown has

social and cultural capital available to the next initiative.

Work with social housing providers to deliver sites for small-scale and in-fill affordable residential development and conversion including the vacant Sandham Middle site for affordable key worker housing.

amongst of

the

income

highest

levels

deprivation,

and

lowest life expectancies of any

Work with Isle of Wight Council to release affordable small-scale workspace within the East Yar and College Close industrial estates to support incubators and start-ups.

community on the Island. These

Invest in the proactive promotion of the town to ensure that public services, community facilities, local decisionmaking, business investment opportunities and reasons to visit are accessible to all.

powerlessness, neglect and loss

strength

are the consequences of the of hope that have grown here in the last two decades.

Expand and extend the cultural offer already provided through venues and events such as Discovery Bay, Hullabaloo, Boojum, Campfire Sessions and The Christmas Garden, to grow Sandown’s capacity to deliver a quality experience of the natural world and creative arts (a key area for this is Culver Parade).

Sandown was an unplanned Victorian affordable

Use the town’s close working collaboration with south coast universities to establish a campus based on Biosphere principles and The Imagination Refinery proposed originally for Sandham Middle and Browns.

environment

This

holidays

Sandown will have to rediscover itself, perhaps even re-imagine itself, but it is still young enough to do so.

central

purpose

has

with the natural world and an exploration of artistic expression run throughout and are perfectly represented by the town’s most famous guests, Charles Darwin and Lewis Carroll. The beauty of this approach is that it creates a place that is filled with curiosity and experience sought out by visitors; tourism

is

not

abandoned,

it

becomes the successful by-product of a place that looks after its own community first.

This

remained the primary focus of

the

basis

regeneration,

is

made

for

cultural

from

the

development planning ever since, despite fundamental

materials that already constitute Sandown, an essential

shifts in domestic tourism and coastal resort lifecycles,

antidote to the too-prevalent attitude that the town

and the inability of tourism alone to support and sustain

can only be saved by selling itself to the richest mainland

a living, resilient place. There is now a critical dislocation

buyer because ‘the right sort of people’ for success

between the needs of the community and a reliance solely

aren’t here.

on the visitor economy, a problem clearly visible in the

Work with the Isle of Wight Council to create a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) for the regeneration of the town centre, adopted through the Island Plan process.

debates around the future of Browns and Culver Parade,

Sandown will have to rediscover itself, perhaps even

and in a High Street being slowly destroyed by the very

reimagine itself, but it is still young enough to do so.

hotels that created it 150 years ago.

The next chapter will be an evolution, a new expression of Sandown’s capacity to be a living, working place,

Look for #IrisManifesto

Initiate a robust programme of compulsory purchase focussed on the cluster of dormant and derelict sites blighting Culver Parade, Esplanade and High Street.

Make improved life chances for young people a single integrating priority across The Bay, working with youth services, resilience projects, local venues, schools, YMCA, sports clubs, and social media platforms to build new activity, support, and opportunity.

seaside

The twin themes of an encounter

resorts of the mid-19th century.

Work with the high school to explore the potential for wider community, business and learning impacts through the redevelopment of its public estate, surrounding public land and the unused Sandham Middle site.

Bring together the Eastern Bay Vision report, with the Bays in the Biosphere lottery bid, Down The Line with the Community Rail Partnership and the legacy of the Welcome Back and Levelling Up investment across the whole of The Bay area, to map out external funding opportunities and prepare for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

created

amongst the affluent nearby

Lobby for public asset transfer from Isle of Wight Council, including town car parks, and use these to release new opportunities for social enterprise, community action, local regeneration, and investment.

Create a Bay-wide regeneration panel between the three local councils, inviting civic organizations, landlords, funders, and businesses across the district to join a task force for change.

settlement,

to serve the demand for more

Increase opportunities for anyone to participate in community environmental and cultural projects, maximising the local impact of volunteering (as exemplified by Green Towns).

unity

it contains a huge public estate (almost a quarter of its

And yet Sandown has arguably the best combination of

profoundly influenced by what has gone before but

traditional seaside and wild coast anywhere in England;

unrestrained in where it might go next.

Make your own Iris Pledge!