I am a 63 year old resident of Ryde and a local councillor and I feel my Town is faced with the next 20 years just being a building site for housing which residents cannot sustain or no one can afford. Ryde is on the verge to being overwhelmed and overdeveloped. If we continue Ryde will grow in population by 25% in next 10 years without the infrastructure to support it. Our historic Ryde, Our beautiful Town, will be just ruined. This is all happening whilst the community is at its weakest due to realities of Covid and I call on the UK Government, Our MP, and IW Council to put the voice of the people first not the pockets of the developers and landowners. 

Ryde is the largest residential Town of the Isle of Wight and is currently faced with over 1300 new homes with out-line or full planning application and a further 600 with planning applications pending. These applications have been submitted during Covid and Lockdowns, so the residents and the community cannot fully participate in the planning consultation process. One application on viable farmland, the last working farm in Ryde's boundary, the tenant farmers are having to face the tragedy of Covid alongside living in limbo of whether they will have a future, job or home. 

These Planning applications by landowners and developers are on greenfield sites although Ryde has a deficit of green land. It is the South and East of the Town where many residents live in flats without gardens and soon there will be even less green space for our children and grandchildren. Large parts of Isle of Wight are protected areas but Ryde is not and very vulnerable to land owners cashing in their land. One acre of agricultural land is worth about £80,000 but after planning permission granted will be worth £2.4Million per acre. None of these developments provided social housing or have housing associations fully involved. The affordability is 80% of a value which local wages can sustain and mean purchasing not 100% rental. Ryde is faced with loosing food security and a beautiful environment against unaffordable housing it does not need. 

There is not the roads to sustain the increase in traffic and no integration with a Master plan for the Town, It is utter madness but how much residents object whilst isolated in their homes, the developers and landowners just carry on. 

This petition is calling on the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to intervene compassionately and listen to the plight of this community and call a moratorium and stop this overdevelopment. It calls our MP and IW Council to stand by Ryde residents and simply STOP this housing chaos.