IT’S Throwback Thursday – a new feature where we look back on this day from a random year of our past.
Today, we wind the clock back to 3 March 2006, when grand plans were unveiled for Jersey’s Waterfront…
* If you thought the recent plans for the Waterfront sounded ambitious, then cast your mind back to 2006, when Dandara had visions for a 20-storey tower block at the heart of the Castle Quay development. Announcing redesigned plans, the developer said it was prepared to compromise to produce a world-class Waterfront which the public of Jersey supported instead of a ‘Milton Keynes by-the-sea’. A new model showed that they had significantly cut the height of two of their proposed buildings but were planning to press ahead with a 20-storey, 72-metre high tower. But don’t go looking for it, as it was never built. But some may say that the ‘Milton Keynes by-the-sea’ look was achieved with great success.
* Over the years, many Islanders have wondered how the powers that be could bring more life to the Waterfront. More bars and restaurants? Street-food kiosks? Pop-up shows? Back in 2006 they had other ideas – craning in an overgrown palm tree. The 60-year-old specimen was quite literally facing the axe after out-growing its home, until the Waterfront Enterprise Board stepped in to offer it a new residence. They said the palm would help create an ‘urban valley’ off Rue de la Libération.
* And proving that the same news in Jersey keeps coming around year after year, traders in La Motte Street and Colomberie said more needed to be done to attract shoppers to the area. Constable Simon Crowcroft (yes, he was Constable back then too) went on a walkabout to hear traders’ views, as they called for better street lighting, wider pavements and some pretty flowers to spruce the place up a bit.
* It may have been spring but it was still icy in the parish lanes, as one motorist discovered when she was confronted by a van skidding straight towards her. Describing the incident on Rue des Servais in St John, she said: ‘I could see the van heading straight towards me and realised he couldn’t stop, but there was nothing I could do. The glass shattered over me and I couldn’t move.’ Both drivers escaped unharmed but a little shook-up.
*In crime news, a laptop was stolen during a burglary in Sand Street and a Porsche Boxter was ‘forced off the road’ during an incident along Victoria Avenue.
* And in national crime news, former pop star Gary Glitter was jailed for three years for abusing two young girls in Vietnam. It was his second conviction for child sex crimes, after first being locked up in 1999 for possessing child-abuse images.
