Havre des Bah!

Wednesday 25th November 2009, 3:00PM GMT.

From Margaret Church.
IT is so sad to learn what will be built on the Fort d’Auvergne Hotel site in the future. The area will be completely spoilt.

Havre des Pas was unique, a truly Victorian part of Jersey. I was brought up around that area, having been born at Halesea, a house which at that time was run as a nursing home.

As regards the house next door to the hotel, deemed to be of local importance, I do not believe it originally belonged to the hotel. The property belonged to a Mrs Venement who, together with her daughter Kathleen (a friend of my mother) ran a guest house there after the Occupation.

The hotels either side of the house were keen to buy it and it would appear that Fort d’Auvergne was successful.

As for the merits of the naked man statue and why it should be situated in that area, a thought has occurred to me. Maybe it is to commemorate the loss of the ‘Low Cement’ (men’s bathing place) which is now no more, buried under tons of rubble.

1
Magnolia Man

November 25, 2009 at 11:34 pm

The United Kingdom has an excellent system whereby historic buildings, and buildings of exceptional architectural interest, are “listed”.

English Heritage has the task of identifying and protecting this inheritance in England. Its main means of doing this is by listing recommending buildings for inclusion on statutory lists of buildings of ‘special architectural or historic interest’ compiled by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

Buildings can be listed because of age, rarity, architectural merit, and method of construction. Occasionally English Heritage selects a building because the building has played a part in the life of a famous person, or as the scene for an important event. An interesting group of buildings – such as a model village or a square – may also be listed.

The older a building is, the more likely it is to be listed. All buildings built in England before 1700 which survive in anything like their original condition are listed, as are most built between 1700 and 1840. After that date, the criteria become tighter with time, so that post-1945 buildings have to be exceptionally important to be listed.

The buildings are graded to show their relative architectural or historic interest:

• Grade I buildings are of exceptional interest

• Grade II* are particularly important buildings of more than special interest

• Grade II is of special interest, warranting every effort to preserve them

Listing currently protects 500,000 or so buildings, of which the majority – over 90% – are Grade II. Grade I and II* buildings may be eligible for English Heritage grants for urgent major repairs.

We have several buildings in Jersey that deserve similar protection if we are to protect and to preserve our historical heritage.

The trouble is that not a single organisation is interested in promoting the legal protection of building on the island.

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2
J Lamborrari

November 26, 2009 at 12:55 pm

@ Magnolia Man
You’re right of course, but it’s not like Jersey doesn’t have a similar system in the Historic Building register.

The notable differences being that the listing was originally pretty much one man’s job; he listed just about anything worthy or not, then left the Planning Department and set up a private business as a consultant to property owners wanting to develop their property and negotiate with his replacement about the virtues of being allowed to get removed from the list! (as I understand it)

Also where you’re right (as far as I’m aware) that listed building’s in the UK are eligible for grants to preserve their character, in Jersey the building AND the owner must be decided to be eligible. If you own a building and it’s put on the list, if the department think you’re rich enough (their opinion, not means tested) you bare the additional expense. While a ‘poor’ person can buy a building they know to be listed and receive a grant to maintain the devalued property they’ve purchased.

With regard to the statue; planning require developments to provide ‘public art’ the value of a % of the developments cost: I wonder whether the developers always care what the art is, as long as it meets the planning requirement? surely an expensive statue from a ‘known’ artist is better than a cheaper work that might need/be able to be bigger, and therefore eat further into the developers profit?

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3
Magnolia Man

November 26, 2009 at 4:04 pm

Thank you, J Lamborrari, for the exegesis on my earlier comment.

To sum up, “that’s the Jersey way” would cover the island government’s attitude to historic building preservation.

In this case, “the Jersey way” would be to put worshipping Mammon before all else.

Oh yes, silly me: that IS “the Jersey way” in ALL things.

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4
Rozel Joe

November 26, 2009 at 5:41 pm

#2 Not quite right.

There has been a listing system in Jersey for many decades. It is on two levels. SSI (Site of special interest) and BLI, building of local importance. The SSI has legal status as SSI’s must be listed through a Royal Court Process.

BLI’s are policy led. The historic building list is a policy document. There is another, Proposed SSI (pssi) this sits between the two and is part of the Royal Court Process to become an SSI.

There has been a committee that selected the buildings and structures for listing. The buildings would first be researched and put forward by planning dept staff to the specialist committee. If they agreed, then it would be placed on the “list”.

However, as the planning dept staff changed, this list was reviewed as the new staff, would question the old staff motives or claim they had missed important buildings, so more would be added and rarely any taken off.

Grants for “Listed” buildings were debated decades ago when Sen. Reg Jeune was in the states. It was agreed that the public could not be expected to pay for works ordered by the States when no funding was in place. So a grant system was set up on the condition that grants could not be used to better a commercial building.

In UK grants can be obtained from various agencies, but Jersey has a disadvantage, as funding can only really come from the States and thus is limited. Planning officers and the historical buildings dept began to develop a system of trade offs as “planning gains” where to save a building, a development would get a little bit extra in the way of floor space or more lenient planning criteria.

But if you purchase a BLI or SSI, and you wish to do work on it, it is highly unlikely that you will get a grant that will cover even a small percentage of the work that the historic department will want you to do. Make sure you have deep pockets. With this in mind, a Jersey listing, could actually devalue your property.

#1 Suggests 500,000 listings in the UK (Palaces, Castles, Stately Homes, Town halls etc ) considering the size of the UK and the size of Jersey, is our list not a tad oversubscribed with listings? I understand the list is under review again, must be a new member of staff.

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