Why we should buy Plémont

This week, the argument – intense, divisive and sometimes acrimonious – will reach a crucial juncture in the States Chamber, where Members will have a golden opportunity to demonstrate that they truly care about Jersey’s long-term wellbeing and its special character.

They can do so by voting emphatically in favour of the Council of Ministers’ proposition to use public money to help the National Trust for Jersey buy 26 vergees of coastal land at Plémont and so prevent it being permanently spoiled by a planned housing development.

Chief Minister Ian Gorst and the proposal’s lead advocate, Senator Sir Philip Bailhache, will face strong opposition from Members understandably concerned over the sums of taxpayers’ money which might be required to secure the deal with multi-millionaire landowner Trevor Hemmings.

However, in arguing, as they surely will, that public spending on non-essential items should be shunned in the midst of a recession, those opponents will be missing the crucial point of the argument, which is that nothing can be considered much more essential than the preservation for future generations of the Island’s remaining coast and countryside.

Besides, although the cost likely to be involved is significant, it is far from prohibitive, even at the most liberal estimate of the land’s commercial value. The amount required to be added to the National Trust’s own impressive fundraising total is a tiny fraction of overall public spending and, importantly, it would be a one-off cost, not a recurring one.

In return, the public would acquire in perpetuity an asset beyond price in an Island where natural open space and the stress-reducing sense of pride, contentment and renewal it can provide is at an ever higher premium.

That is why, faced with an intransigent developer who seems to believe that building a cluster of luxury houses in a place where development would not be contemplated for a second were it not for a historical planning anomaly will somehow improve on nature, the Council of Ministers’ failsafe clause of compulsory purchase if necessary is, for once, fully justified.

That is why the States this week should demonstrate vision and boldness by seizing the kind of opportunity which comes along only once in several generations.

And that is why, even at whatever price is ultimately deemed fair to Mr Hemmings, the purchase of Plémont will represent the biggest and best bargain to be struck by the keepers of Jersey’s public purse for many decades past or to come.