Businesses want inquiry into scrapped £75m ‘village’ plans
Sunday 2nd December 2012, 5:00AM GMT.
An artist's impression of the Parkside Village scheme which has been scrapped
A MAJOR independent inquiry into the events that led to developers axing a £75m project in St Helier is needed, the president of Jersey’s Chamber of Commerice has said.
Chamber president David Warr has written to the Chief Minister Ian Gorst and Environment Minister Rob Duhamel to urge them to arrange a review of the steps that led to Le Masurier cancelling their plans to build Parkside Village near the Millennium Town Park.
The project would have seen hundreds of homes built, as well as restaurants and shops created in a part of town that has been identified as in need of rejuvenation.
However, developers this week revealed that extra planning guidance, delays in the process and the lack of certainty from the Planning department has forced them to shut the scheme down.
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Jersey Evening Post
Or in other words – given the current financial situation the developers could not see how they would make a profit out of spending their £75m.
There are thousands of ‘homes’ for sale currently, they are loads of empty shops ..
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We cannot fill the buildings we have now.
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so the chamber of commerce will be wanting to pick up the bill for the enquiry? come on dip into your own pockets .
endless enquiries , reveiws , talks , consultants .
round and round it goes where it stops knowone knows .
it stops with taxpayer paying thru the nose , again.
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Maybe he should be asking for an independent inquiry into the retail prices in St Helier.
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The shortage of shop fronts keeps the rents high, more shop fronts means lower rents and more competition.
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What shortage of shop fronts is that, plenty empty shops in town. Barratts shoes is closing down so another available, most of the abatoir site hadly plenty of empty units last time I was there
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Ah! The Abattoir. The ideal site for the new police station. It’s not too late.
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An independent inquiry into a commercial decision by those who blaim our planning department for stopping a £75 millon development? No way.
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It is the job of planning to get the best buildings built in St Helier. The obviouse thing that seems to overlooked is that these have to be the best buildings which can be built, within a budget that enables a profit to be made.
Requiring any building to be built to unprofitable specifications effectively stops construction and stalls the economy.
Compromises will have to be made, how bad can a building be to be worse than what is there now. The same reveiw needs to be done on all the stalled building sites in St Helier.
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No it isn’t.
It is the job of planning, as well as preserving the beauty and amenity of the island, to supervise applications in order to prevent the widespread abuses that would otherwise occur.
It is also the “job of planning” to ensure that the developers and the architects “get the best buildings built in St Helier”.
There is a distinction between the latter and between your perception of the duties of the planning minister and his officers.
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Maybe we could have an enquiry in to why the finance industry is in retreat despite unprecedented levels of government support in terms of cash and interest?
It is going down the tube, just like farming and tourism, and it is being helped on it’s way by the imported £75+ K dummies on a safe contract plus yummy benefits.
The gods have driven the States mad and they will destroy us!
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I agree.
However, this area has been an unsighty slum for many years so it would have improved St Helier greatly if it had been rebuilt.
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Plus we can’t have anything built that would compete with the States sponsored mess, (sorry I mean wonderful development), at the old abattoir.
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Tax Payer,
“…However, this area has been an unsighty slum for many years…”
Yup, and who’s fault is that if not Planning’s?
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Err, the owners?
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Whose fault – the extremely wealthy owners
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Starter for ten,
“Err, the owners?”
What can they do without Planning’s approval though?
There have been various planning applications over the years that would likely have been an improvement, but were rejected by Planning.
If Planning have such specific plans for the area shouldn’t they be suggesting the Public buy the area to achieve these obvious improvements??
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Overpopulated,
“Whose fault – the extremely wealthy owners”
What has wealth got to do with it?
Like I said above; what can they do without Planning’s consent?
If they’ve tried to progress plans and been frustrated by Planning’s sloth and incompetence how is that their fault?
And it can’t just be about ‘bad’ plans being submitted, the last plan for the area received positive feedback from the Public, but still Planning stood in the way.
If they wanted to return the area to nature Planning wouldn’t let them; how is it their fault?
What would YOU do with the area if you were rich; and would you do it without Planning consent and risk the prosecution?
If not WHY not when you’re willing to blame others?
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It seems that this is the second company in recent times to be put off developing because of planning.
We need a planning department with the power to guide all people from inception to approval or what is the point.
Planning want models, audited drawings, environmental reports and then they can say at any time without redress sorry we have changed our mind we would like to start again and there is nothing that can be done as the advice given is in no way accountable….amazing we get anything built.
Jersey the place where great ideas come to die!
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