NOW that the applause has died down on the decision to refuse a 36-home development at Plemont, it could be time to reflect, once again, on the future of the site.
Undoubtedly this is a victory (even if not a decisive one) for those who would have the land returned to its natural state. It is also a decision which has the businessmen and architects behind the scheme spitting now that their plans have been completely rejected.
Although both these feet are firmly planted in the ‘knock it all down and return it to nature’ camp, it is hard not to have some sympathy with those who want to build homes on it. It is difficult to see what could be worse than the mess that the headland has been allowed to become.
The refusal is, in a way, not actually a decision at all in that it leaves the site as it is - derelict and unsightly. The only saving grace of the current decay is that it can be seen as temporary - even if it has been that for some time. Give it another couple of years and it will be so covered in ‘nature’ that it will be lost for a generation or two, and by the time it is unearthed again the graffiti will probably be recognised as some primitive art form and analysed for years to come.
However, if the building of 36 homes on the site does go ahead, what guarantees can there be that more will not follow in the future?
One of the comments from the Environment Minister which was intriguing related to the status of the land and the minister’s inability to change it. Senator Cohen is reported as saying that although the application had been refused, the decision related to the application and not to the request for the land to be turned back to its natural state.
The reason why this decision cannot be made, he said, is that he does not have the power to change the use of the site, which is currently authorised for commercial / tourism accommodation.
This begs two questions. The first is how, if that designation is correct, an application for domestic housing ever got this far? Do we assume then that ‘commercial’ can also mean that if you build houses you are selling them and the development can then be deemed commercial?
If not, then surely the impasse reached is one which is infuriating for all because it can be neither housing nor natural land.
Further, if that really is the case, then surely there must be any number of sites which have been redesignated in the past.
Which leads to the second question of who would have the power to change the designation of the land if not the minister and his ministry? Who has changed land designation in the past? The other question at this stage of play for Plemont, which over time has become more rather than less contentious a site, is: who would have the courage to do so?
Such a decision would almost certainly incur the litigious wrath of the land-owners, among them Jersey resident and multi-millionaire businessman Trevor Hemmings. Mr Hemmings, whose son is a director of the owning company, has already made it clear that he intends to fight for his right to build on the land, whether that involves courts or not.
This is just the latest in a long line of plans and proposals that have been rejected in relation to the site, and there never will be a plan which will suit everyone. So, that being the case, can’t we just return it to nature while we wait and spend lots of time and money arguing about it? That way, it might just find a designation all of its own and we might find that we like it that way.
THE remit of the Environment Minister these days is not an enviable one. It has always been something of a balancing act between needs, aspirations and securing some sense of the Island’s identity for future generations.
The current Environment Minister’s stance is that he will resist rural development. This is a position he has developed from various consultations that indicate that Islanders want green fields. The trouble with us, the public, is that we want everything and that that, unfortunately, is something that he cannot deliver. And this is where the plans for town seem to fall down.
I’ll admit that my interest is that I live in town and parking is an issue. So the likelihood is that I am going to be against further development - some of it already approved - which aggravates that situation.
While he is right that we should not, if the motor car is to stop running our lives, expect a parking space with our housing, I suspect that by not providing it there will remain a huge number of people who will resist even a pretty, regenerated St Helier as a dwelling place.
Would he, himself, move into a lovely St Helier apartment without secure parking, I wonder?
Senator Cohen did hit the nail on the head when it comes to the results of the housing survey. He may not have meant it quite in these terms, but the survey does not so much point out a housing shortage as an aspirational mismatch when it comes to housing. Many of us want what is not there or what we cannot have.
Let nature call on a site for sore ears
NOW that the applause has died down on the decision to refuse a 36-home development at Plemont, it could be time to reflect, once again, on the future of the site.
Undoubtedly this is a victory (even if not a decisive one) for those who would have the land returned to its natural state. It is also a decision which has the businessmen and architects behind the scheme spitting now that their plans have been completely rejected.
Although both these feet are firmly planted in the ‘knock it all down and return it to nature’ camp, it is hard not to have some sympathy with those who want to build homes on it. It is difficult to see what could be worse than the mess that the headland has been allowed to become.
The refusal is, in a way, not actually a decision at all in that it leaves the site as it is - derelict and unsightly. The only saving grace of the current decay is that it can be seen as temporary - even if it has been that for some time. Give it another couple of years and it will be so covered in ‘nature’ that it will be lost for a generation or two, and by the time it is unearthed again the graffiti will probably be recognised as some primitive art form and analysed for years to come.
However, if the building of 36 homes on the site does go ahead, what guarantees can there be that more will not follow in the future?
One of the comments from the Environment Minister which was intriguing related to the status of the land and the minister’s inability to change it. Senator Cohen is reported as saying that although the application had been refused, the decision related to the application and not to the request for the land to be turned back to its natural state.
The reason why this decision cannot be made, he said, is that he does not have the power to change the use of the site, which is currently authorised for commercial / tourism accommodation.
This begs two questions. The first is how, if that designation is correct, an application for domestic housing ever got this far? Do we assume then that ‘commercial’ can also mean that if you build houses you are selling them and the development can then be deemed commercial?
If not, then surely the impasse reached is one which is infuriating for all because it can be neither housing nor natural land.
Further, if that really is the case, then surely there must be any number of sites which have been redesignated in the past.
Which leads to the second question of who would have the power to change the designation of the land if not the minister and his ministry? Who has changed land designation in the past? The other question at this stage of play for Plemont, which over time has become more rather than less contentious a site, is: who would have the courage to do so?
Such a decision would almost certainly incur the litigious wrath of the land-owners, among them Jersey resident and multi-millionaire businessman Trevor Hemmings. Mr Hemmings, whose son is a director of the owning company, has already made it clear that he intends to fight for his right to build on the land, whether that involves courts or not.
This is just the latest in a long line of plans and proposals that have been rejected in relation to the site, and there never will be a plan which will suit everyone. So, that being the case, can’t we just return it to nature while we wait and spend lots of time and money arguing about it? That way, it might just find a designation all of its own and we might find that we like it that way.
THE remit of the Environment Minister these days is not an enviable one. It has always been something of a balancing act between needs, aspirations and securing some sense of the Island’s identity for future generations.
The current Environment Minister’s stance is that he will resist rural development. This is a position he has developed from various consultations that indicate that Islanders want green fields. The trouble with us, the public, is that we want everything and that that, unfortunately, is something that he cannot deliver. And this is where the plans for town seem to fall down.
I’ll admit that my interest is that I live in town and parking is an issue. So the likelihood is that I am going to be against further development - some of it already approved - which aggravates that situation.
While he is right that we should not, if the motor car is to stop running our lives, expect a parking space with our housing, I suspect that by not providing it there will remain a huge number of people who will resist even a pretty, regenerated St Helier as a dwelling place.
Would he, himself, move into a lovely St Helier apartment without secure parking, I wonder?
Senator Cohen did hit the nail on the head when it comes to the results of the housing survey. He may not have meant it quite in these terms, but the survey does not so much point out a housing shortage as an aspirational mismatch when it comes to housing. Many of us want what is not there or what we cannot have.
Article posted on 10th May, 2008 - 1.37pm