Northwood House in Cowes was gifted to the people by the Ward family in 1929, after 80 years of neglect by the trustees the house is a wreck.
The people of Cowes have been paying for services they have not received.
The house has always been a bit of a white elephant. What can you do with such a large property that will give the towns people a use for it?
Although it is a large building the set up inside is such that the rooms are too small to be used say as a town hall.
So over the years as Island administration changed from one flavour to the next, the poor old house got relegated to being Council offices, leaving only the gardens for the public to enjoy.
Years of neglect is now showing through what was once a monument to the wealth of the family that owned it.
The buck has finally stopped in the lap of the current Council. With flack flying from all directions they seek to resolve this 80 year old dilemma.
It is not an envious task to have to take on. In a commercial sense they need to rid their-selves of the burden and selling it onto someone who has deep pockets obviously makes sense. But morally they are duty bound to serve the people that the house was gifted to. This means the public must have use of the property. But there lies the same old problem, what can you do with the property that the public needs?
There are proposals on the table to re-develop it either into a hotel or nursing home. Both of these make commercial sense, but what of the people?
Will the Cowes people miss what basically they never had? I dare say the majority of Cowes residents have no idea about the precept they are paying towards the house.
Unfortunately it is the sign of the times, the Island is losing more and more of it's identity, Northwood House is just the next in line to go.
My own proposal would be to offer a cheap lease to a major hotel chain like the Travel Inn, with the provision of them giving the Cowes residents shares in the company.
