WHY DOES SANDOWN NEED A MANIFESTO?

1. MAKE A PLACE FOR PEOPLE

1.

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 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 deprivation, and boosted economic opportunity.

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?’

2. UNLEASH NEW STRENGTH

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.

2.

We believe that the natural world, creative industry, and lifelong learning are Sandown’s 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 capitalise on these distinctive strengths.

3. ENRICH OUR ENVIRONMENT

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.

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.

Unify For A Common Good

4.

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.