Environment Minister John Young has rejected three amendments lodged to the draft Bridging Island Plan, which attempt to protect the St Brelade area from over-development. Responding as part of a public consultation on the proposal, the minister said Les Quennevais already served as the Island’s ‘de facto secondary centre’, providing a range of public and private facilities and services.
He added: ‘The further development of Les Quennevais – through the redevelopment of existing buildings and land that is already developed – is considered, both from an Islandwide and local perspective, to be entirely sustainable.’
Its designation as a second centre would not mean ‘unfettered growth and redevelopment of Les Quennevais’ that would undermine St Helier, according to the ministerial response.
Deputy Young said he was ‘not minded to accept’ an amendment lodged by St Brelade Deputy Montfort Tadier, who was seeking a ‘west of Island masterplan’ for Les Quennevais and adjacent areas to be brought forward by May 2023, instead of the ‘west of Island planning framework’ currently proposed.
Deputy Tadier said he aimed to temper the aims of the plan for Les Quennevais, highlighting the ‘tensions that arise’ from its designation as ‘effectively Jersey’s second town’ and seeking ‘reasonable safeguards’. Les Quennevais and its suburbs had already ‘taken the brunt of over-development at a pace that has not always been matched by investment in infrastructure’, he said.
Deputy Young has agreed to a small part of Deputy Tadier’s amendment, which would see a Sustainable Communities Fund focus on other built-up areas of the Island, as well as St Helier. This is expected to be established and funded ‘through a land development levy’, subject to approval by the States Assembly.
Deputy Young has rejected outright another amendment from St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft, who said designating Les Quennevais as a secondary centre offered the States Assembly a Pandora’s box, which he strongly recommended ‘should not be opened’.
Mr Crowcroft said it represented a ‘radical departure’ from previous spatial strategies, which focused in particular on the built-up area of St Helier. The Constable said this designation would ‘do nothing to support St Helier’ and ‘may change the pattern of development and the character of the west of the Island forever’.
Deputy Young also said he was not minded to accept another amendment from Constable Mike Jackson, which would remove Les Quennevais from a policy on the Island’s ‘daytime and evening economy’. This policy states that proposals for ‘new or extended uses associated with the daytime and evening economy’ in St Helier and Les Quennevais would be supported ‘where the proposal does not have an unacceptable impact on neighbouring residents and uses’.
However, these amendments could still form part of the Bridging Island Plan, when it is voted on by States Members.
A number of representations have also been made on the issue as part of the public consultation.
The Association of Jersey Architects said the west of Island planning framework should also recognise other existing secondary urban centres, but the minister argued that there were no other parts of the Island of a ‘comparable size with comparable infrastructure’.
Meanwhile, the National Trust for Jersey said identifying Les Quennevais as the Island’s second centre was a ‘sensible policy in spatial planning terms as it would relieve some of the pressure on St Helier’, but it added that the area included ‘ecological SSIs [Sites of Special Interest] and areas with high biodiversity and therefore any proposed development must take full account of any potential biodiversity and environmental impacts’, to which the minister responded that any impact on biodiversity was factored into policy. He added that the ecological SSI Les Blanches Banques fell outside the built-up boundary of Les Quennevais.
