A battle for Minden

Friday 25th September 2009, 3:00PM BST.

From Rodney Ison.
THE proposal to demolish Minden Place car park must qualify as the worst suggestion the Island has seen for many years.

That is saying a lot, with some of the decisions made in recent years. Should the demolition take place it will be the end of St Helier for shopping and I would suggest that owners of shops and market stalls start looking now for other employment.

Whoever had this brainwave obviously does not shop in town and have to carry their purchases any distance to their transport. Parking in Town is difficulty enough and with the loss of Minden Place it will result in St Helier becoming a ghost town.

This car park works well and is used by many thousands of shoppers each week. I think the saying ‘If it is not broken, don’t fix it’ applies here.

1
Pip Clement

September 25, 2009 at 3:30 pm

I would describe Minden Place car park as being very important for the continued success and survival of the Beresford and Central markets.
If they went there would not be much left of historic St Helier.
But the people in charge of this island do not seem to care about the character of the island and they will not rest until the have turned it into a clone of Suburbsville, South West England

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2
Warren J

September 25, 2009 at 3:37 pm

Unfortunately, Minden Place Car Park was poorly designed from the outset, for a shoppers facility, it has very narrow staircases and poor access. Coupled to this, cars have got arger over the years, just compare an original Mk I Golf with the current model, or the Renault 5 with the latest Renault Clio, and you generally get the picture. The spaces are thus simply too small to accomodate the average family cars in use, particuarly on the corner spaces and that is why it is no longer fit for purpose.

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3
Islander

September 25, 2009 at 3:58 pm

That is absolutely right. I rarely get into town now due to the parking problems. When I do it is convenient to use Minden Place for a short walk to the shops.

I am a pensioner and my mother is nearly 90. We do not want to have to park further out. With the present system we only have a maximum of 3 hours which means that we have very little time to shop if we also pause for some lunch which we normally need.

Many years ago it used to be a pleasurable experience going into the town for some shopping and a meal. We would then pay for the parking time used instead of having to predict that in advance.

It is fortunate that we can now do most of our shopping on the internet which avoids those problems. It also means that we can get what we want at much lower prices and it is delivered to the front door.

We have been told that the population will soon reach 100,000 which will make those problems even worse. It seemed crowded enough 40 years ago when we only had about 65,000 here.

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4
karen eliot

September 29, 2009 at 12:42 pm

This is a step in the4 right direction but may i suggest somethign even more radical? Imagine if ALL the car parks in St Helier were demolished and turned into green spaces! Minden Place, AnnStreet and Sand Street could all be turned into open spaces and Green Street might become truly deserving of its name and not as choked with traffic fumes as it is now. The absence of traffic would increase air quality, reduce noise pollution and make St helier a more pleasant environemnt for residents and visitors alike. Furthermore the lack of car parking would force people out of their cars and encourage the States to develop better, more integrated public transport.

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5
Leah Holmes

September 29, 2009 at 7:43 pm

Karen #4, that is what I call living in a dreamworld, even though I would entirely agree with you IF it was workable.

What you suggest is not what will happen. For starters people like myself, with mobility problems, will become second-class citizens (even more than we already are). Mobility problems are on the increase, quite drastically so, in fact prosthetics and orthotics is one of the few fields where if you get your degree you are virtually guaranteed a job. That’s not even entertaining mobility problems where your limbs are unaffected.

Public transport would only work if drivers were considerate and there was far more space in the buses (people will be carrying heavy bags and moving slowly after all) but this will not be the case as the drivers will probably have low job satisfaction, taking it out on the customers, and the States will see space on buses as an opportunity to make more money!

So all that will happen is that people will shop online even more, taking more money away from Jersey’s economy, the very thing that would help finance a great public transport system.

Anyway, who thinks the States will actually allow a green space? They will just build flats on it!

As for air pollution, I can’t smell traffic fumes for cigarette smoke! Maybe we’d better tackle smoking first, in Jersey it seems to be the larger of the pollutants.

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6
R B Bougourd

September 29, 2009 at 10:37 pm

The only solution is to raise the entire town up at least one storey (a bit at a time) thus creating massive parking space beneath. I would not recommend digging down too much as the water table might be a problem.

The original character of the place, which we all obviously love so much, would be preserved.

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