Our first national park?
Tuesday 25th November 2008, 2:58PM GMT.
ST Ouen’s Bay could become Jersey’s first national park.
If the new States agree to the proposal in six months’ time, further planning restrictions could be applied to the whole bay. National park status would also affect conservation and biodiversity work going on across the sand dunes, at La Mielle de Morville and at St Ouen’s Pond.
With less than a month to go before the end of his first term as Environment Minister, Senator Freddie Cohen has invited residents and businesses in the bay, as well as heritage and environment groups, to get together to discuss the national park plans, and what rules should apply within the park boundaries.
The rules will not include a blanket development ban, but will create a ‘higher bar’ for anyone wanting to carry out development work in the bay. ‘A blanket ban is not possible,’ said Senator Cohen. ‘The creation of a national park will tighten up controls, but you cannot preserve everything in aspic and it is essential that we allow some development and progress in the area.’
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Is this before or after we cull the comorants!!!!
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I hope the park includes improving facilities at the watersplash and letting them build that new centre.
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Maybe it is just me but I think the whole area looks a bit tatty.
There are far prettier areas of Jersey to preserve.
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i think a national park would be a wonderful idea, as it is such a beautiful area, any building or other forms of construction would be wicked, once built on it can never be the same again, it is one of the most lovely views in the world and I have traveled, if made into a park, it must not become a tourist area, as that would spoil the area.
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I have been coming to Jersey now for 20 years for my annual holiday. St Ouen’s has always been my favourite place, winter and summer. Please do not build any more you are spoiling this beautiful part of Jersey. Can’t wait for Pontin’s to go back to nature! Please, Please stop ruining the island.
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And will making the bay a National Park guarantee its survival? Is a National Park any more sacrosanct than a Ramsar site? Yet Senator Cohen is quite happy for Public Services to build a road across part of the Ramsar site at La Collette. Basically nothing is sacred to development and this is another exercise in wasting public money.
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Forgive my ignorance but to have a national park do you not need to be a nation?
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Too little too late. Ask the Minister why SSIs are not around the Splash and El Tico. We already have the framework to protect the area but nothing is done – does the Minister want to preserve the golf course, sand pit, and commercial tat and its related rubbish in the bay?
Make the adjacent sea a “No Take Zone” then the flora & fauna would really flourish all round.
Also suggest some effort is made to restore the Plemont headland to a reasonable state and not an eyesore.
Over & out
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Unless you are making a comment about the condition of social cohesion in Jersey, you will of course be aware that Jersey is indeed a nation.
National park: waste of time and money. This will not change the way the land is managed, or the way decisions are influenced.
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Leave the Island alone..look at the mess of St. Helier already..you start work here and it just goes on and on, in the end our island will be lost of all beauty and natural nature.
So many changes and what for to ruin a beautiful place..
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St Ouen doen’t need a national park – the natural beauty is there to be enjoyed already. It just needs a little TLC and attention to the seawall. Once that is achieved, the States should turn their attention to other neglected coastal beauty spots like Havre-des-Pas and Westpark which are treated with such disrespect at the moment.
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