From David Richardson.
THE image of Portelet from the sea gives the depressing impression, once again, of Jersey as a giant building site.

Jersey needs more housing like a hole in the head. Our march into a suburban sprawl is killing our Island spirit, as well as putting off tourists from using this Island as a holiday destination.

Jersey’s population has doubled in my lifetime – half a century – and unless we make it more difficult for people to settle and live here, it is bound to rise. We have, in my view, made enormous mistakes, such as lowering the housing qualifications, which have led to an upsurge in demand for housing.

Obviously no one wants to keep people out, especially hard working people who spend much of their adult working life here, but space is limited and we will continue to lose tourists at a faster rate, as well as any remaining attractiveness left in our Island as a holiday destination, if we continue down the route of build, build, build.

Many of us would consider that the Island has changed for the worse over the last 100 years, with built-up areas such as Red Houses or some parts of St Helier taking on the appearance of Slough or the worst part of Hackney North, rather than that of a beautiful Island that was once full of orchards and peaceful meadows. Long gone are those days, but it does not mean that we should not try and reverse this erosion.

The Environment Minister’s job must seem like a poisoned chalice and he should be encouraged to take up the gauntlet and withdraw any plan for the further utilisation of land, such as the Samarès nursery, from the Island draft plan.
Any planning on this scale should not be allowed to go ahead and the myth that disused glasshouses are not agricultural land should be dismissed. A fund should be set aside to pay for the removal of such structures if they fall into disuse, so that the land can be returned to agriculture or at least set aside for some sort of acceptable agricultural use.

Also, much of twentieth century housing not only needs to be aesthetically improved, but more importantly energy efficiency needs to be substantially upgraded.

From now on, our homes in the Island should need little or no heating if we insulate our homes to modern high Scandinavian standards. This would save money on heating, improve our eco credentials and probably encourage discerning tourists to our Island.

A measure that is under consideration in the UK is that homebuyers may have to pay thousands of extra pounds in tax if the property they are purchasing has insufficient insulation, an old boiler or draughty windows.

Under these new measures being considered by the UK Government, millions of poorly insulated homes would automatically be liable for a penalty rate of stamp duty. New owners would be able to reclaim their money if they upgraded them within weeks of purchase. The advantage with this method is that houses would be upgraded, whereas the existing voluntary code does not currently work.

It has been estimated that in the UK the downside of this potential legislation is that 85 per cent of the existing houses will require at least £5,000 spent in order to upgrade these homes to a minimum E coding – minimum currently energetically acceptable rating – with the rest costing £15,000 upwards.

Goodness knows what it will take to retrogressively insulate some of our Jersey farmhouses to a decent energy efficient coding.

Either way, our Environment Minister has his hands full if he is to both meet the Island’s future needs of our environment and also upgrade our existing housing stock, without committing ourselves to further urban sprawl.