The Pomme d’Or Hotel, which is part of the Seymour Group, has submitted a lengthy letter of objection to the Liberation Group’s revised plans for the building.
The Liberation Group has signed a deal to lease the ground and basement floors of the former hotel from developers Comprop, which previously received planning permission to redevelop the building while retaining its historic façade.
Under those plans a ground-floor restaurant was approved, but if the Liberation Group’s revised scheme is accepted that space will become a pub, a restaurant and an entertainment venue.
The potential changes, which are currently being considered by the Planning Department, have prompted the adjacent Pomme d’Or Hotel to speak out about the proposals.
In a letter submitted to the department, Seymour Hotels managing director David Seymour asked Planning to consider the impact the changes would have on the area, the potential for an increase in noise and disturbance for the Pomme d’Or, and potential traffic and parking issues.
The Liberation Group is understood to be penning a reply that will be submitted to Planning, but the organisation did not want to speak publicly about Mr Seymour’s objections before responding formally to the department first.
The letter goes on to say that having large numbers of people gathering outside at night while drinking and socialising leads to increasing noise levels and that the changes proposed need more detail than is given by the Liberation Group in their ‘change of use’ planning application.
Mr Seymour also points out that his organisation had made it clear to the Southampton’s owners Comprop and the Liberation Group that they would support the creation of a restaurant at the site, but would object to any scheme that involved a late-night licence.
The letter adds: ‘Approving this change of use application will clearly be to the detriment of the hard-earned, good reputation of the Pomme d’Or Hotel and will add to the significant challenges faced by the hotel in ensuring that its guests’ expectations are met even though the aspects of noise, disturbance and nuisance identified above are not of its own making.’
No other objections have been made about the revised scheme.
Last summer, St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft said that no more late-night drinking licences should be issued until the States ‘get their act together’ and decide how they want to tackle nuisance in town caused by late-night revellers.
The Constable was speaking after a Licensing Assembly refused an application in August from Champions Bar in Wharf Street seeking an entertainment licence that would have allowed it to open until 2 am.
During his submissions to the Assembly, which is a division of the Royal Court that deals with licensing matters, Mr Crowcroft said that the Mulcaster Street and Liberation Square area struggled to cope at weekends because of the number of people who spill onto the streets in the early hours.
Speaking to the JEP at the time, Mr Crowcroft said: ‘On Friday and Saturday nights the policing of the streets is stretched to breaking point, and to hand out more late-night licences would be inappropriate.
‘The States Police licensing unit members were in court and agreed with the views I was expressing.’
He added that the States should get on with the long-awaited debate on the overall licensing strategy before considering any more late-night drinking licences.
‘It is important that a policy is in place – it affects a lot of St Helier, as people are disturbed by those making their way home after a night out,’ said the Constable,
However, he did say that the major problem area was Mulcaster Street and Liberation Square and that a director of the group that owns the Pomme d’Or Hotel, David Seymour, was in court to express his opposition to the late licence for Champions.
The Constable said that potentially more applications for entertainment licences will be forthcoming in the months ahead from new premises being built on the site of the former Southampton Hotel.
He expressed concern at the sitting that allowing Champions Bar a late licence could mean that up to a further 400 people would be joining the throngs on the streets after 2 am.
But the proprietor of Champions Bar, Johnny Young, argued that it would work in the opposite way.
FOR many Islanders, the area round the Southampton Hotel brings back fond memories of probably the most important day in Jersey’s history:
BOB Le Sueur was 19 when the Germans invaded the Island in June 1940. During the Occupation he befriended Spanish forced workers and helped escaped Russian slave workers to shelter in Islanders’ homes.
He was later decorated by the Russian government.
Where were you on 9 May 1945?
I was with friends at the end of the Victoria Pier. The British troops actually landed on the Albert Pier and I had chosen the wrong one. It was a day of endless rumour and confusion as to where they were going to come in. By the time we had made our way to the Pomme d’Or Hotel the excitement to some extent had died down.
Can you remember how you felt on that day?
Deilirium was the only word to describe it. That evening, with a friend and a Russian escapee that the friend had been sheltering, I bicycled to a house overlooking Beaumont – which was strange in itself as there was no curfew. We opened a bottle of wine that had been kept for this occasion and we each had one glass.
What does Liberation Day mean to you?
It is something that I always commemorate. I go down to Liberation Square, where the golden oldies have special seating. I always feel so emotional and ready to burst into tears thinking about that extraordinary day. One didn’t realise just how much had been repressed from day to day. I had been involved in things that could have been very uncomfortable if I had been caught. You didn’t tell your closest friends what you were doing unless it was absolutely necessary. You didn’t have a free relationship with your family or your closest friends. Three or four days after Liberation Day I was standing on the corner by the Southampton Hotel (in St Helier) and two Spitfires came roaring over Fort Regent and I remember glancing up and seeing their markings and thinking ‘it’s all right, they’re ours’. And then I burst into tears. It was very embarrassing – I was 24 and in those days we were brought up being told that showing emotion in public was very bad form. I saw a man nearby and he must have been nearer 40 and he was the same. It was not just tears coming down my cheeks – I was sobbing.
