AN extension to the Millennium Town Park could still be on the table after St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft pledged “eleventh-hour” efforts to revive the proposal.
Plans to effectively double the size of the park by extending it across the former Jersey Gas site to St Saviour’s Road appeared to have been dashed last year when the government submitted proposals for a primary school on the site.
This followed the adoption of the Island Plan earlier in the year, in which States Members voted overwhelmingly to safeguard the site for education.
The Constable – who was made an Assistant Chief Minister in the government reshuffle following Constable Andy Jehan’s resignation from the role – said he would sit down in the new year with the Education Department “to understand more about their catchment areas” in an effort to identify an alternative location for a new town primary school.
“An extension to the park is something I pledged to bring back to the States for debate, and I made it clear when I joined the Council of Ministers that it was an election commitment, and they accepted that,” he said.
As part of the plan to build a primary school on the land, smaller “pocket parks” could be created at Springfield School and Le Bas.
Mr Crowcroft acknowledged that these smaller green sites might deliver an equivalent or larger area in total – but said the idea “missed the point”.
“It’s all about adjacency and is more than simply the sum of the two pocket parks. Most cities have parks which are large open spaces. They should be places where you can get out of breath and that’s not the case with pocket parks,” he said.
Mr Crowcroft’s comments follow those of the chair of the Friends of the Millennium Town Park group, Bernie Manning, who said that the park should be extended across the whole of the former Jersey Gas site from the current eastern border with the park through to St Saviour’s Road.
“It is a unique opportunity. It is a one-off opportunity. It offers current and future residents a green community space of appropriate size. It is absolutely essential to extend the park to provide balance to the many, many housing developments taking place and planned for north St Helier,” Mr Manning said.
“The census at the time of the development of the Millennium Town Park recorded that around 11,337 people resided within 400 metres of the town park. That number has no doubt increased in the intervening years. If we also take account of the number of adults and families to be accommodated in the new developments coming on stream in the next few years, there is an overwhelming need for more open green space.”
