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Isle of Wight plans negative tourist tax

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We really want visitors to come,' says Carrie van Park, who works for the Isle of Wight tourist board. 'A tourist tax will just discourage visits. But we realised that a negative tourist tax would do the opposite.'


The negative tax is provisionally set at three pounds per night. Economists have estimated that this could increase overnight visits to the island by between one thousand and one hundred thousand over the tourist season.


'Visitors already have to pay for the ferry to get here,' says Carrie, 'and that is a financial disincentive. Our negative tourist tax will help to offset that. It will apply to all overnight stays, except where visitors sleep on the beach or in their cars.


We welcome all kinds of visitors to our beautiful island, but we draw the line at the cheapskate, low life scum who come because they mistakenly think that they can get a duty free allowance and live off cheap beer for a week, and then save money by not paying for a campsite. That really gives us the needles. There, I've won a tenner. My colleagues bet me I wouldn't say that.'




Ventnor man buys Oldham Athletic, WH Smith and Gregg Wallace

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A BBC investigation has found that a Ventnor man was tricked into buying a football club, a high street retailer and a discredited celebrity by an unscrupulous estate agent.


He expected to use his life savings as a deposit on a two bed roomed former council house in Ventnor, but got more than he bargained for.


Colin Stale, 57, says that he was taken advantage of.  ‘The estate agent was keen to sell me the house.  And a mortgage.  And home insurance.  And a full survey.  And rentcharge indemnity insurance.  And a timeshare in Nigeria.  And Chancel Repair Insurance.  And a leasehold staircase in Grenfell Tower.  He was very persuasive.


‘At the completion stage I signed all the papers like the estate agent said.  It was only later that I discovered that I’d bought Oldham Athletic on hire-purchase, four branches of WH Smith, and a twelve percent interest in Gregg Wallace.  It also turned out that I’d signed a non-disclosure agreement and that I’d admitted to kidnapping and eating Shergar.


‘That estate agent is a cheeky wotsit.  He contacted me later and asked if I had any money left over to buy Waterloo Bridge and a collection of Jeffrey Epstein memorabilia. I was tempted, but I said no. The payments on Oldham Athletic are using up most of my pension already.’


The estate agent is not giving any interviews, but has provided a written statement saying that all his business dealings are regulated by the Imaginary Finance Council and the Financial Standards Board of Narnia, and that it was caveat emptor, it wasn’t him, and he wasn’t there.  He did say that, if we were interested, he could offer a really nice one-time-only deal on a two-up, two-down slightly used nuclear power station in Cumbria – a fixer-upper, apparently.



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