Isle of Wight: Plans to revamp East Cowes wharf

Kingston Wharf is owned by Cowes Harbour Commission (CHC)

Plans to regenerate a former aggregate wharf have been given the go-ahead.

Kingston Wharf in East Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, is set to become a boat-storage facility with wash-down capacity.

The site is also expected to have new mooring pontoons, 11 workshops and a 100-tonne boat crane.

The Isle of Wight Council, which approved the plans, said the proposals would bring the site back into active use.

However, this would not block the potential to turn the area back into a wharf at a later date, the authority added.

Former Cowes harbourmaster Stuart McIntosh previously said the plans would develop Kingston Wharf into a modern marine industrial park

Former tenants Isle of Wight Aggregates and Isle of Wight Fuels have left the site over the past few years. The area was subsequently marketed as an aggregate wharf but no operator was secured.

The latest plans for the area sparked concerns by the council's environmental health officer about potential contamination of the site due to its former uses - which included engineering, gas works and fuel distribution.

But conditions have been added to the planning permission to ensure any contamination risks would be assessed and the site would be safe and suitable for its intended use, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.