Wednesday, November 28, 2012
You can't always blame the planning dept!
Representatives of the firm that owns a large chunk of the north of St Helier, the regeneration of which is key to the future or this part of the Parish, came to see me last week to say they were going to pull the plug on the development. As it was the first I had heard of any problems I asked them to allow me to act as 'honest broker' with the planning dept to see what could be done to save the scheme. I had spent much of the previous day with the Minister and Chief Officer of planning and knew that as far as they were concerned the scheme was on course to follow the Millennium Town Park in the much needed uplift of this part of town. The developers, however, were not interested in any assistance I might have been able to give. I think that's a shame, especially after the way public expectations have been raised that the regeneration of northern St Helier was on the way to becoming a reality.
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8 comments:
I agree Simon, this is very disappointing news. St. Helier residents have been waiting such a long time for this part of town to receive much needed re-generation.
They were very vague about the bits from Planning that caused them to pull the scheme.
Perhaps as Constable of the Parish and in view of the enormity of the project you should have become involved earlier?
What does this say about the role of the Constables in the context of the proposed Electoral Commission reforms? What is the purpose of the dozy dozen if they can sleep through such important matters and I note that your colleagues have been remarkably invisible regarding Plemont too.
At least the incident has woken you up to post on your own blog which has been comatose for months...welcome back writes Mike Dun
Not sure how I could have been involved earlier, Mike. We gave the firm lots of publicity in the Town Crier, fully supported their scheme on Roads Committee, but at no stage did they come to us to indicate there were any planning issues. Had I your crystal ball, of course, things might have been different ;-)
Simon please use your influence to try and bring the two parties back around the table. For us residents it was a huge blow to learn of the breakdown and I'm sure that the millenium town group would be willing to do all they can to show that the public have huge support for this long overdue and much needed development in the north of town.
Perhaps it finally dawned on them that investing in Jersey property "development" would be a bit mental nowadays. I doubt if Hemmings will go ahead at Plemont with his "hamlets" either.
The sad fact too is this part of town was one of about 6 areas that were supposed to be subject of intensive examination - by the Planning Department itself - with a view to regeneration.
This has ben required in the past three Island Plans - not as an optional extra but as a must do - and it just simply was not undertaken . Not by Freddie or anybody else!
The Planning failure is long term and very deep and can be seen most starkly in the absence of any plan to ever house the entire population adequately.
Of course the Department is now desperately underfunded or resourced and the paying and long sufferimg public is faced with the highest planning fees known to man...
No its not always the planning department, but invariably it is the government's fault.
All we need is a multi-storey car park (all that States owned property in La Motte Street would be a perfect site) and free parking on Saturdays everywhere, you can do it Simon!
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