Isle of Wight – The Garden Isle
The Isle of Wight is the only Island member of the Arc Manche region and is separated from Hampshire by the Solent seaway. It measures 37 km by 21 km and has a surface area of 380 km². Its population is approximately 129,500, with a density of 341 inhabitants per km².
It is predominantly a rural area and apart from the inland administrative centre of Newport, the majority of the population live near the north and south east coasts, mostly in small towns.
Almost 70% of the Island is protected by either UK or European environmental designations. In particular, almost 50% of the Island is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), has 44 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and 45 kilometres of Heritage Coast.
Key sectors
The exceptional quality of the landscape means that the Island has traditionally been a tourist destination and tourism is still a key industry. In addition to the natural beauty of the Island, it also has many historic attractions such as Osborne House, once the home of Queen Victoria and Carisbrooke Castle. Sailing also plays a key part in the history of the Island and Cowes still represents one of the key venues for international yachting.
In addition to the tourism industry, the Island is renowned for high tech manufacturing and while the focus of this has changed in recent years, with a reduced emphasis on the defence industry, other areas such as composites are maintaining the Island’s reputation as a centre of high tech manufacturing.
With its rural character, much of the land is used for agriculture and the Island also has a large and thriving horticulture industry.
Key economic activities: tourism, high tech manufacturing, horticulture
Advantages and distinctive features
Development challenges
- Balancing the desire to protect and enhance the environment of the Island with the need to foster economic growth.
- To reduce disparities in levels of employment and wages relative to the rest of the south east and address the associated concern of social exclusion.
- To encourage investment into the Island; in particular in high tech manufacturing areas such as composites, electronics and marine engineering and in Service sector industries such as leisure and tourism.
- To promote the development of an integrated transport network, which allows for ease of access throughout the Island and reduces the reliance upon motor-vehicle journeys.
- To promote the regeneration of the Island’s seaside towns.
- To address all development challenges with policies that have the ethos of sustainability at their heart.
Transports
Vehicle and passenger ports: Ryde, Fishbourne, Cowes, Yarmouth Train stations: Ryde – Brading – Sandown – Lake - Shanklin Private airports: Sandown, Bembridge
Key figures
Surface area : 380 km2
Coastline : 91.7 km
Population : 129,500 (2001)
Density : 340.8 hab / km2
Active population : 54,285
GDP/capita : 14,409.2 (Purchase Power Standard 1999)
Unemployment rate : 4.7 % (2001)
Repartition of the workforce by sector (1999)(1) :
- primary : 1.5 %
- secondary : 25.2 %
- tertiary : 73.3 %
(1)Hampshire and Isle of Wight
