News Report from Brian Jacobs - Town Clerk

CHOYD, St James Street, Yarmouth, PO41 0NU

Opening hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays 10:30-12:30

Email: ytc1135@gmail.com

Following on from last month’s report regarding the battle to save the former Yarmouth CE School building and land as a community asset. As a result of the first public meeting on the 6th December, attended by over 150 residents, a steering group was formed to coordinate actions, and a further public meeting was held on 20th December, once again attracting similar representation from the Yarmouth community, at which much concern was expressed that the IWC had not been entirely forthcoming with information about the site disposal. Several items of interest came out of that meeting such as:

• The school premises are now registered as an Asset of Community Value, which effectively means that the community has 6 months in which to find a viable alternative for the site to selling it into private ownership.

• The Isle of Wight is charged to seek best value, not necessarily best price.

• Both IW Councillor Spink and Yarmouth Town Council have made applications for non-disclosed information under the Freedom of Information Act, particularly in relation to restrictive covenants which were known to exist on the property, but which no longer appear to be in existence.

• The title to the school premises was transferred to IWC from the Diocese on 31/8/22.

• The mobile classrooms, funded by £20K raised by the Yarmouth community, were originally leased while the new Freshwater School was being built and have now been removed.