IN these uncertain times of economic doom and banking gloom, as the world suffers from the reckless investments of fat bonus-chasing Wall Street and City banksters, there are few reasons to be cheerful.

In the same week as we marked Holocaust Memorial Day and contemplated the evils of racism, British workers were demonstrating against foreign companies being awarded contracts over local firms, and the French took to the streets in mass protest.

Admittedly our Gallic neighbours have made rioting a national pastime, and erecting barricades for whatever reason has come as second nature since the storming of the Bastille, but the latest outbreak of unrest in France took on a new dimension. Strikes and demonstrations brought the country to a halt as millions of people took to the streets to protest at the government’s handling of the financial crisis.

While les Français were putting the fear of God – or more likely the ballot box – up President Sarkozy, our Cornish cousins were proving that well-organised people power of a more sedate nature can make politicians sit up and take notice. A change of name as from April for the Cornwall County Council to just Cornwall Council took on a different, and potentially expensive, extra dimension when some bright spark came up with the idea to ‘rebrand.’

The suggestion to replace the existing emblem, Cornwall’s county bird, the chough, sitting atop a shield and 15 bezants, with a snazzy design symbolic of black and gold flames – more reminiscent of the unique hairstyle sported by American boxing promoter Don King – ignited a public outcry. Fortunately, it did not require mass civic unrest in Truro, Falmouth or Redruth to dissuade the county council from adopting an obscure and largely irrelevant new logo. All it took was 11,000 Cornish folk, good and true, to sign a petition and the chough kept its rightful place.

If only the good burghers of Jersey had taken a similar approach instead of just complaining before the flying banana was foisted upon us. But then, we didn’t have a beloved and established emblem to begin with. The triumph of Cornish common sense was a brief but heart-warming moment amid the pandemic of gloom of doom. Then, just as the next economic expert jumped on the dreary bandwagon to announce that the British economy was likely to be worse-hit than any other, a newly erected sign on the Grouville coast again lifted my spirits.

To most Islanders, the little car park at Seymour Slip has no significance. It is passed in a flash and frequented only by beach users, dog walkers, low-water fishermen and the regulars of the Seymour Inn. For many years it has lain as neglected as the variety of abandoned vehicles and trailers that had become its permanent features. The uneven surface and many potholes were as much a deterrent to parking there as the lack of vision to safely exit since the mirror, which once gave a clear view along the coast road, fell off the wall of the pub opposite.

That new sign had a far more significant story to tell than the instruction printed in black on white to remove vehicles. This little piece of Jersey now belongs to its people thanks to the altruism of a company known as La Rocque Developments and businessman Tom Scott. Not many moons ago plans to build a luxury house on this prime site were thwarted by parish opposition. Planning refused permission, quite rightly so.

The old Seymour Inn car park is the only easily accessible open space between La Rocque Harbour and the Welcome Slip, from where the public can enjoy the full panorama of the Royal Bay of Grouville. All available space in between has been built on, creating a barrier as impenetrable as the Berlin Wall between Islanders and the beach.

Now, however, here is a little space that belongs to us all, even those who are unfortunate to have to live in one of the other 11 parishes. Work will begin soon to level and resurface the car park and to erect interpretation panels to tell the story of the bay and its designation as a Ramsar site. There will also be room for a plaque, one that recognises those who generously donated the land.

This particular gift to the people of Jersey is small in comparison to that of the Clarke family, who three years ago donated the Devil’s Hole and surrounding land to the National Trust for Jersey. It is not the size of the gift that matters, but how it benefits the people and protects the environment and, moreover, what it means to the Island.
The States’ acquisition of the old Bal Tab site above St Ouen’s Bay has not resulted in any material gain; what it achieved was preventing the site from being developed. It also set a precedent for Charlie Chuckle’s Laughter Factory to do something meaningful for a change by acquiring the old holiday camp at Plémont and having that beautiful headland and its environs restored to nature.

A petition presented to the Laughter Factory a tad over two years ago contained the signatures of 10,327 Islanders who wanted the States to buy Plémont. Compare that to the Cornish one against a county rebrand, and the respective populations, and that amounts to a heap of Jersey people power.

The beach at Seymour may not be the prettiest in Jersey, nor (thankfully) as popular as St Ouen or St Brelade’s Bay. What makes Seymour special, as it has done for generations of Islanders before ours, is the promise of venturing down the beach to the lowest point of the Island’s extreme tidal range to fish or to experience a sense of wilderness and wide-openness that we are deprived of anywhere on land. On the homeward trip, it is the prospect of a cold beer in the pub that hastens tired and wet feet across the sandbanks and through gulleys.

Quite simply, Seymour is, to borrow the title of a recent series in the Western Morning News, which celebrated what readers regarded to be the best of the region, a Site of Special Sentimental Interest – an SSSI. An SSSI has neither legal protection nor government officials nor international treaties to defend it against those who see pound signs instead of natural beauty, heritage and tradition. It is worth fighting for and protecting simply because it matters to the people, and that sentimental importance is often overlooked by the powers that be. And that is something our beloved States Members will ignore at their peril.