While publicly-owned areas such as the sand dunes and the National Trust for Jersey’s Grantez site overlooking St Ouen’s Bay are open for all to enjoy, there are restrictions on activities there which are being routinely ignored.
The Growth, Housing and Environment Department’s countryside rangers are increasingly dealing with incidences of illegal camping and fires in protected locations and every Monday trust staff are having to clean sites of party debris.
Trust lands manager Jon Parkes said this included broken bottles, litter, disposable barbecues and human faeces.
He said: ‘These people are using areas of the sites as toilets and that is not something our staff want to deal with on a Monday morning and nor should they have to.’
And, he added, it is not just young people causing the problems, as reported in St Brelade’s Bay, at the Waterfront and Havre des Pas over the summer – older generations were also to blame.
Jersey’s Policing of Parks Law covers publicly-owned wild spaces such as in St Ouen’s Bay and Portelet Common (another site of illegal lockdown parties) and holding unauthorised events, lighting fires and camping are not permitted. Transgressors can face a fine of up to £1,000, and many sites are also covered by legislation designed to protect wildlife and internationally-significant sites of special interest.
Three areas causing regular headaches for the National Trust are Grantez, Le Coleron Battery in St Brelade’s Bay and Don Le Quesne, on the St Clement coast between Le Hocq and Pontac.
Mr Parkes said: ‘We have been continually contacted by neighbours [in St Clement] who are very concerned about the parties that have been going on late into the night. They even stopped a sound system being delivered there that had been hired for a party.’
The trust has a limited number of sites for hire but Don Le Quesne, Grantez and Le Coleron are not one of them and there are restrictions on what is permitted including loud music and unauthorised parties. Lighting fires and camping are also banned.
A recent furze fire at Grantez, possibly caused by a discarded cigarette or a barbecue, was extinguished by firefighters before it spread widely.
Mr Parkes says a bonfire lit at the site using sizeable fallen branches by a group of middle-aged people was fortunately stopped by honorary police officers, who have also been ejecting overnight campers.
States senior countryside officer Tim Liddiard said that illegal activities were the result of more people accessing open spaces and the countryside during the pandemic. However, both he and Mr Parkes said the overwhelming majority were observing the Countryside Code and acting responsibly.
Mr Liddiard said: ‘Some recent problems have been experienced at Portelet Common where large parties were being held and large amounts of debris left behind. Disturbance to nearby residents was also at an escalated level.
‘Concerns, not only over damage to an SSI but also over the safety of party-goers in such an isolated location led to the unprecedented move by the police to temporarily close the common during night-time hours over the period.
‘Also, there has been a recent increase in calls by people concerned about camping, along with fires on the sand dunes.’
