Are we robbing tomorrow’s world of today’s riches?

Nothing quite splits opinion like matters of Planning and it’s easy to see why. Demolishing or constructing a building usually costs millions of pounds, can affect many people’s lives and can easily change the face of this small, overpopulated island – sometimes irreparably.

In the last few years several areas or buildings have dominated much debate in Jersey – be it in the States Chamber, at the office water cooler or the bar of a country pub – including Plémont headland, Fort Regent, the Waterfront, the old Jersey College for Girls site, Portelet, Liberty Wharf and, most recently, the Co-op’s buildings at Charing Cross.

And it’s not just the big stuff – regulations and Planning rules have also been extended to the relative minutiae of personal properties, with simple decisions over windows, fences and driveways becoming monstrously fraught and troublesome, further complicating matters and drawing even more divisions between those who would preserve every brick that was laid before 1950 and those who would happily knock down La Houge Bie and replace it with a nice casino.

Whenever a debate over a landmark property takes place, I’m usually left thinking that our main failing as a population is that we are a bit self-obsessed and guilty of living in the moment. Too many decisions are based on our immediate situation, such as the need for specific houses or the whims of planning developers or companies, yet we should be trying to imagine the legacy which we will leave for people in – not just five or 20 years – but 50, 100 or even 500 years.

Because it’s not just about us. It’s not just about Jersey in the first few decades of the third millennium. We can’t be so arrogant to think that we can just pave over what we want or make such permanent decisions with folly.

Like tenants of a rented building, we have a responsibility to maintain our temporary home and ensure that the next people who live here are not appalled at the state of the bathroom or puzzled as to why we painted the kitchen purple. I’m not saying that we should preserve Jersey in a bizarre kind of purgatory, like Miss Havisham’s cobweb-covered wedding frieze, but we should not be so obsessed with how we live today that we ignore the implications for those who come after us.

With that in mind, I am one of those people who appreciate those slightly odd refurbishment projects of listed buildings where existing structures are hidden behind new fittings – allowing an old building to be preserved for future generations to make a decision on but also allowing the site to be used today. A good example of this is the old Odeon Cinema, which has been given a new lease of life by the Freedom Church through their refurbished community centre – the art deco fittings all safely ensconced behind false walls.

But on the other side of the coin there is somewhere like Sion C

hapel. The huge, ugly concrete building has run its course as a place of worship but, because of its listed status, it is hardly worth anyone stumping up the millions it would cost to renovate. The awkward, poorly-lit space is of use to no-one, the pews, pillars and even the organ would have to be retained and preserved in situ, even if it was refurbished, meaning that it is likely to languish for decades until it becomes so dilapidated that demolition is the only option.

I suppose my only verdict is that it is actually impossible to be entirely in one camp. People can be expected to hold completely contrary views (such as being a fan of preserving Plémont but also happy that the Co-op want to create more shops at Charing Cross) because it is such a subjective issue and also because our opinions will be affected by everything from our age, birthplace, which parish we live in, our lifestyles and probably how we were brought up.

So when it comes down to removing 50 red post boxes from small granite walls, it is far from a simple matter – not least because each one should probably be considered on its own merits, which Jersey Post seems to be happy to do.

There is no blame attached to the postal company. The logistics of collecting mail from underused boxes must be a burden at a time when the company is doing all it can to save money and they have been magnanimous enough to ask Islanders to have their say on which of the distinctive red boxes they would like saved at the time of the cull.

Personally, I don’t mind if a few are scrapped for good, if some find their way into people’s gardens or homes and that the worthy ones are left exactly where they are, hopefully for a good few more years. You see, with 50 of them under consideration it is easy to be in favour of removal and preservation at the same time – ensuring that our legacy is intact and also that we cannot be accused of standing still.

But unfortunately we don’t have 50 Portelets or Plémonts. When something is unique or impossible to categorise, making crucial decisions on its future becomes ever more difficult and we get bogged down in details that will seem utterly trifling in the year 3013.

Just ask yourself one thing – in 50, 500 or 1,000 years, are people really going to be glad that we made such a definitive mark on Jersey in the early 2000s, with our heavy footprint of steel, glass and concrete, or will they lament that we robbed them forever of natural beauty, iconic post-war buildings and unique, one-off buildings that were once part of the historical fabric of this Island?