Best place for Town Park

Saturday 27th June 2009, 3:00PM BST.

From Antony Gibb.
IT is interesting to see how Fort Regent excites people’s imagination, even if some of the ideas that result are not very workable.

The Fort is certainly a muddling kind of place, so I’m not surprised. A late Georgian fort doesn’t easily sit in the 21st century in the way that, say, a mediaeval castle does.

The idea that Fort Regent should become another monument in the mould of Elizabeth Castle or Mont Orgueil is certainly not feasible. With its modern roof, the fort became something else 30 years ago and is now the hybrid beast that a recent Jersey Evening Post leader identified.

The tragedy is that less than half the fort is now fully used. The roof over the parade round houses a sports complex and a concert, exhibition and conference venue. It also provides a home for clubs, a children’s playground and rooms for parties.

But where the inside of the fort is well used, the outside is hardly used at all. The gardens in the east outworks are now closed to the public. The former cable car station lies abandoned. The north outworks no longer has its café – although the building remains – or its mini-golf or its children’s playground. Nor does it even have a sign to explain the roof top view of St Helier and panoramic views across St Aubin’s Bay. The well-maintained gardens around the rest of the Fort are rarely visited.

Cable cars and ski slopes are all very well, but they are also prohibitively expensive to build. Other attractions – even simple ones – are costly to staff and maintain. So what can be done and for what cost? Signs; a few thousand pounds – a leaflet; a few hundred more; perhaps some advertising for the fabulous panoramic walk around the ramparts. These would all start to help make sense of the Fort as a whole.

But there is a more major project that could really make a difference. The site as a whole –the Fort, its Glacis Field, the defensive works on South Hill, the barracks that serve the defences and the gardens around them are now split. They are split by the redundant swimming pool building, which effectively manages to break the site in two. Reuniting Fort Regent and Mount Bingham, and linking them with La Collette and Havre des Pas would provide a lovely walk close to the centre of town. Town Park? We already have one that was used by generations of Jersey folk who promenaded on the Town and South Hills before the Fort was built.

Even the cost of reuniting the site isn’t expensive when you look at it. Which is cheaper? Demolishing the swimming pool and mowing the grass afterwards – say £350-400,000 – or building a budget hotel? Or a ski slope? Or a restaurant?

One gives us a park and a revitalised Fort Regent, the other gives us a new lump on the skyline and a private operator taking advantage of States-owned land and panoramic views. A new building will also leave the States with the knotty problem of which private sector partner to choose. How much should be paid for the site and over what period?

What use should the building be put to? And all this at a time when it is difficult to see that any private operator would be interested except on the most advantageous of terms.
I urge the Minister for Education Sport and Culture and anyone advising him not to be tempted by big, complex and expensive ideas. The idea that a big, complex site will with one mighty bound break free of its problems is naive. No, what is needed is smaller improvements that are easily achieved.

Why not start with removing the pool? Perhaps some of the £44 million earmarked for revitalising the economy could help kick start this project.
Ballarat,
Route de la Trinité,
Trinity.

1
Nick

June 30, 2009 at 12:09 pm

I wholly agree with Mr Gibb concerning the refurbishment of the gardens on Fort Regent, but penny pinching is not the way forward.
Millions have already been spent on this facility and for what? As he rightly points out large areas are delapidated or unused, there is already a cable car station (Unused!).There is no cheap option here, what the Island in the future needs are local jobs outside the finance industry and businesses to provide them. There is a lack of space in St Helier, a lack of bad weather facilities for visitors and locals.There is absolutely no doubt that the failure of the Fort to take off financially has been the perceived difficulty in getting up there, and the lack of interest in any of the activities on offer sufficient to draw the people in, the absence of any sustainable core activities that would place visitors up there in the first place with good town access.It is essential that any redevelopment of these facilities provides as broad a range of activities as it is possible to get of a type that will appeal to residents and visitors alike.I would suggest that cable cars (As I have suggested in detail elsewhere)not for access to FR, but going out from the Fort to the East of the Island gives an alternative access and exit point to just going into St Helier, and offers day visitors an attraction which gets them up to the Fort (By lift from Snowhill)to go on a lovely scenic ride to Gorey and beyond by cable car (In most weathers). There’s just a chance while their up there they will see the other facilities such as the gardens/cafes, the State of the art Amusement Arcade with it’s simulators and rides (Another bad weather facility)and all the other large and small, sporting and otherwise facilities.And then there’s the old Swimming Pool? I have seen more attractive Aircraft Hangers!What is this monstrosity doing in one of the most picturesque sites overlooking St Helier? and can anyone tell me just what would be achieved refurbishing it? Does it take advantage of the wonderful views it enjoys? is it in anyway an efficient use of this Space?The answer is NO!What would get people up there and would fit in with the suggestions Mr Gibb puts forward is a modern Health Spa like the one built in Bath recently.This could go above a full size 50mtr swimming pool, but be let out under management so that it helps pay for the pool, which could have public access. The Spa building could maximise the views, fit in architecturally with surrounding gardens and have some residential accomodation like up market spas in the UK and elsewhere.This would provide local jobs and draw in visiting clients on detox and relaxation holidays.Clients who because their up there might just use the other facilities on their way to the cable cars or to town?
As for the Ski slope well that is an all weather facility that again has a local as well as a visitor attraction.It also would get people up to FR.
Technology has moved on from the 1970′s when I suspect these facilities might have been considered, if at all! There are real snow indoor slopes now in quite a few places, and toboggan runs! Cable car technology is in use all over the world and is an investment for several decades with the right maintenance program (Again providing local jobs)
Before the rainy day money is spent on private development projects and leaves the Island in the pockets of outside developers infrastructure development to revive an area of economic activity that just might provide ongoing jobs outside the finance industry is essential.
If that money can also provide facilities attractive to Islanders as well then that is a social bonus!Well worth the money, win or loose! But don’t hand the whole thing to one big out of Island operator, that defeats the local jobs and businesses scenario and brings on the likelyhood of exploitation governed by outside influences i.e.The sudden pull out because business has failed elsewhere in the world.

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