THE winning image in the Société Jersiaise Open Photography competition 2009 said far more about the changing face of Jersey than the skills of the photographer who captured it.

Entitled New Look of St Helier, Cliff Huby’s picture of the junction of Castle Street and the Esplanade was as alien to local perception as being parachuted into Canary Wharf.

Only on much closer inspection could the discerning eye spot the remnants of the distinctive granite façade of the old abattoir and a Victorian frontage or two on the Esplanade, defiantly standing proud among the bland plethora of concrete, glass, polished stone and steel.

It is ironic that the society which has guarded the Island’s intellectual heritage since 1873 has, through its annual competition, encapsulated in one image the rapidly changing face of Jersey. Wind the clock back just ten years and Mr Huby would probably not have bothered to take a picture of what was an ordinary St Helier location. Then, it was lined with the familiar warehouses, houses, hotels and pubs we had all grown up with.

The Esplanade of the recent past was nothing special, but it had character, architectural diversity and history. It gave drivers something to look at in the days when rush-hour traffic crawled along it before the underpass was dug and there was suddenly somewhere far less interesting to be stuck in a slow-moving line of commuting motors.

A stroll from the Weighbridge to the Grand Hotel in those days was not one of the most pleasant walks in Jersey, but it was still stimulating, with plenty of activity and many reasons to look above street level. Now, the section from the Pomme d’Or to Castle Street is more reminiscent of London’s Victoria Street than a Jersey thoroughfare.

What shocked me about Mr Huby’s image was how quickly this transformation of a once-familiar scene had happened. It also made me realise with equal concern that the Esplanade is not alone: whole areas of the town and other locations, rural and coastal, have changed almost beyond recognition over the past decade in the name of progress.

It used to be that when a shop, business, bank or legal practice changed hands, the building remained the same but with a new name above the door. Not any more. Down comes the old one and up springs a brand new all-singing, all-ringing (and mysteriously taller) ultra-modern block with the justification that the old one was not fit for best working practice in the international world of finance.

The new branch of HSBC in King Street demonstrates the loss of the familiar. It is not the demolition of the wonderful Edwardian façades of Linscott’s and Woollens of Scotland that saddens me, but the extermination of the pedestrian short-cut between the main street and the Royal Square, paved as it was with well worn and faded black and white diamond tiles.

That Planning approved this new and nondescript development without insisting that the snicket remained baffles me, as it signalled yet another nail in the coffin of quaint and quirky St Helier.

Architect Mike Waddington’s call last week for Planning to relax not just the heritage restrictions on town developments, but also the multi-whammy relating to density, height and proposed requirement for 40% of residential developments to include affordable housing, came as no surprise. The cost of acquiring land when developing chunks of our little rock doesn’t come cheap, which is why developers want to push the boundaries if they are to profit from substantial investments.

Despite the reassuring response from Planning Minister Freddie Cohen that historic buildings would not be sacrificed for new developments, the developers’ cards are on the table, and they tend to be damn good at playing poker. They also have the resources to engage not just architects with international reputations, but also clever lawyers to argue against planning refusals.

What developer with a site to wring the last penny out of wants to give up nearly half of a new site to housing? Why cut profits by 40%, even if it results in helping those who could otherwise never hope to be able to get that first foot on the property ladder in the place where they were born? Altruism is a virtue, but it comes at a price too high for most businessmen.

The speculators and the aspiring young home owners are trapped in the same vicious circle by the circumstance of permitted land use. If residential developments, as proposed in the new Island Plan, are to be concentrated in town, then urban land value will increase, placing greater emphasis on maximising the available space to increase profit.

The profit motive is what drives economic life and makes common business sense, but where does it leave those who, while living in an offshore finance centre, will never earn a wage sufficient to buy a home in Jersey’s over-inflated property market?

This threat is not confined to the environs of town. Notwithstanding the political will to protect the countryside, if family-based communities are to survive, affordable housing must be built in every parish. It is in these situations that the utmost care must be taken not to dilute the local character by creating inappropriate developments.

Mr Waddington quite rightly pointed out that where heritage restrictions are an issue to development, buildings are mothballed, giving the example of the Odeon and the delightful Le Seelleur workshops. Because property owners and developers with pound signs in their eyes choose to ‘leave the pitch’ until the rules are changed in their favour, it is no reason to sell our heritage down the road.

An 18th-century town house, a Victorian workshop, an art deco garage in a forgotten back street or a stretch of coastline anywhere along our shore are as important to our heritage as Mont Orgueil, Le Rât Cottage and La Hougue Bie.

When a building becomes an inconvenience to a modern development, that is no reason to let it be destroyed. If we don’t start protecting what little remains in the historic built environment, then in ten years the Esplanade will not be the only street changed beyond recognition.