By Louise Hill - BBC LDR
An Isle of Wight couple will not be allowed to continue to live in their holiday home.
Since 2018, the pair have been in breach of planning conditions by living full-time in a property they developed as a holiday unit in 2017, but which has only been let “on a handful of occasions” since then.
In 2021, a request to turn the holiday home into a permanent residence was refused by County Hall. In 2023, a six-month enforcement order, following an appeal to the government’s Planning Inspectorate was served, and the couple told again to leave.
Instead, they asked for the holiday home restrictions to be lifted for three years to give them more time to find somewhere to live.
The two-bedroomed bungalow and 12 acres of land is on the market, for £800,000, a sum that the council says appears to be an “unreasonable price and likely to deter potential purchasers.”
Now, the IW Council has ruled the house’s owners’ “personal circumstances are not relevant” and “do not justify the temporary loss of holiday accommodation.”
Council officers said temporarily removing the rules around how the holiday home is used would materially undermine the authority’s planning policy to support high-quality tourism accommodation.
The latest decision could also be appealed to the Planning Inspectorate.
Press Release