Have our planners lost the plot?

From Frank Le Quesne.

HAVE our planners gone completely mad?

A local family develop a thriving business and invest what is obviously a large capital sum in providing Island residents with a selection of goods, both food and otherwise, many of which are not obtainable from other outlets on the Island, only to be told that their level of stocks of local produce is not a satisfactory proportion of their overall stock levels.

This is bureaucracy gone crazy. Instead of making difficulties for the enthusiastic family who have developed this ‘farm shop’ into ‘a shop on a farm’ our planners should be encouraging such efforts. If they hadn’t noticed, or bothered to see, how this business had flourished in this corner of the Island over the past couple of years, then they should take off their blinkers and admit that this development is both acceptable and indeed desirable.

The fact that it has been developed to a somewhat greater extent than they, the planners, or even possibly the owners, had originally foreseen, should surely be applauded rather than lambasted. Whatever happened to good sense?

Enough of this call for ‘iconic’ developments. If a farm shop wants to expand on its own premises without bringing in architects, surveyors and contractors from the UK, support and encouragement should be given, and the negative approach reversed.

For a planning officer to describe the addition of an al fresco eating area and a further restaurant extension as ‘unacceptable’ makes me wonder where all these planners come from. Let the local populus decide if this is unacceptable on our Island.

La Cachette, Grande Route des Sablons, Grouville.