The Alliance Group has now been in charge of the Isle of Wight Council for six weeks.

As I predicted in my last column for the County Press, the most important work in these first weeks has been to find out what has been going on under the previous administration and to ‘open' the closed doors.

While it may look quiet from the outside, the work has been constant as we have been digging down deep to give us the basis to make major changes and improvements in the coming months.

We are shortly going to be launching a consultation on a new Island Plan, a key aim of which will be to bring housing numbers down to acceptable levels while also ensuring that we build for our own residents and communities.

As part of this process there will be a proper consultation with residents and groups.

We will also be making decisions very soon about the floating bridge.

The current unacceptable situation has gone on far too long and we will take firm and decisive steps to resolve it.

Such ongoing work has to sit alongside issues that arise day by day.

The events in East Cowes last week are something else unacceptable. I have been knocking heads together to put measures in place; including having an emergency plan to prevent the sort of disruption that we have seen affecting local residents and visitors.

In the midst of all this activity I was very pleased to visit one of our amazing local businesses, Rapanui. We sometimes forget what local firms can achieve if they are nurtured and supported.

The Alliance administration is committed to supporting our local businesses, both to help the journey out of the pandemic but also to see more businesses achieving this sort of success.

As part of this we now have a university centre at the Isle of Wight College, which can help drive and support such change.

It’s amazing what you can do when you take the ‘politics' out of local government and just get on with the job!