From Marti Rault.
WELL, it’s been four years since I’ve visited my parents in Jersey from Sydney, Australia, and I want to cry with frustration each time I come back. We are of a generation where modern materials and technology afford us so many artistic choices and design, so I really can’t get my head around the choices that are being made with the buildings that are going up. I am not surprised the Islanders are up in arms and angry.

What I can’t understand is why is it still happening? Apart from the obvious mistakes of the past (ie, the steam clock and underpass), why does it continue? Now an ugly tower block has been built as a hotel on what was once a beautiful skyline beside Elizabeth Castle – now totally spoilt. Why not put it somewhere else less intrusive to the eye and instead complement the area, by creating a beautiful parkland that families young and old can enjoy, not just the minute handful who can afford to buy such apartments with such a view? And now more houses are planned in the car park across the road.

St Helier was once a quaint French-style town with an elegant, modest ambience and held stories making it a place of rich and unique history. Now it is slowly (and irreversibly) turning into a concrete headland of ugliness and in the process destroying our heritage.

Now we have this incinerator – another coastal eyesore. Maybe it could be made to look like an Elizabeth or Gorey castle? What I hear most from the experience of locals is that Planning’s only ‘consistent’ rule is that whatever is built has to ‘fit in with the surroundings’, but that definitely does not seem to be the case in this instance and in so many others, so why are they getting away with such inconsistencies?

I know it’s been said before, time and again, but seriously, do you not see the damage? There is so little insight in Jersey planning that they can’t have seen the beauty the rest of the world seems able to achieve.

As a metaphor, we are aware that the way people dress and present themselves sends a message out to the world and tells the world a lot about their character and personality, and in the same way we have to take this into consideration when we dress our Island. It’s a style we have to be choosy about, or else we will spoil how we are representing ourselves and our Island.

If we do it wrong, we will not attract, only detract away from it, and in more ways than one. You need to keep the soul of this place, otherwise you will destroy any trace of how unique Jersey is. I hope this is taken to heart before any more damage is done.