The non-inclusion of the site among the five-strong shortlist for the project,
announced earlier this month, has prompted a call from the Housing Minister that the site should now be used for housing without delay.
Senator Sam Mézec said he had made it ‘perfectly clear’ to colleagues in the Council of Ministers that the site was an ideal one for homes.
The minister wrote on Twitter that the time was right to progress the development of the site for housing without delay.
The publication of the hospital shortlist appears to have marked the end of suggestions that it might be built on the St Saviour’s site.
A government spokesperson said: ‘The St Saviour site has not been shortlisted, as it did not meet the necessary criteria for the Our Hospital project.’
Outlining the background to the decision, the government indicated that, although it was large enough, the site did not meet the requirements of the Citizens’ Panel which contributed to the shortlisting process. The reasons for this included:
lThe remote location, with very restricted highway access capacity either locally or on the wider highway network.
lThe significant likelihood of major highway improvements to cope with the capacity that a hospital would require both locally and on the wider highway network.
lThe remote location would encourage the use of the private car.
lThe lack of social and community facilities nearby would not support sustainable behaviour and staff and visitors would have no facilities to provide services found in less remote locations.
The spokesperson also cited the comments of planning inspector Philip Staddon following the 2018 public inquiry into the issue, in which he said that a new hospital on the St Saviour’s site would ‘conflict with a raft of strategic and other polices within the Island Plan’.
Senator Mézec told BBC Radio Jersey that Environment Minister John Young was looking at a brief for developing the site for housing.
He said: ‘That would be a really positive step forward that we are able to make now that the idea of putting a new hospital on this site is finished with.’
