MINISTERS are sitting on a “goldmine of opportunity” for children’s play in the centre of town, St Helier’s Constable has said as he unveiled ambitious proposals for a large indoor skate park.
Simon Crowcroft is once again bidding to transform Millennium Town Park and the former showroom and warehouse of Jersey Gas, which sit adjacent to the site.
The JEP understands that Mr Crowcroft is now intending to bring a proposition asking States Members to back his project – and he intends to seek their approval to rescind the priority currently given for the site to house a new town primary school.
And former Housing Minister David Warr – who has thrown his support behind the idea – said that the need for the town school had passed after recent figures showed that the Island’s birth rate was in continual decline.
Mr Crowcroft shared his plans with the JEP following a tour of the site with Jersey Youth Service.
He said the large complex of buildings was in a “good state of repair” and was “ideally placed” to be repurposed for youth and community use, including a large indoor skate park.
Mr Crowcroft said: “Although the government has successfully created a large skate park in the west of the Island,it has not been able to find a town site to replace the skate park on the New North Quay.
“I was simply blown away by the extent of the open space that the Jersey Gas site would provide for play facilities for children of all ages.
“Government ministers are sitting on a goldmine of opportunity for children’s play in St Helier.”
Mr Crowcroft added: “The arguments in favour of a reconsideration of the plans for a new school on the site have become even stronger, given the urgent need for better play facilities in town, including a skate park, and the fact that primary-school rolls are falling.”
Education Minister Rob Ward and former Education Minister Inna Gardiner are committed to building of a £40 million town primary school on the Jersey Gas site, having both brought separate amendments to the Bridging Island Plan to secure the land for educational use.
States Members overwhelmingly approved these in 2022, overturning Mr Crowcroft’s alternative proposal that the site be used as an extension of the Millennium Town Park.
Deputy Warr said that given the Island’s falling birth rate, the £40m which would be put towards a town school could be spent “making sure existing infrastructure was looked after”.
The Deputy, who accompanied Mr Crowcroft on a tour of the site, said that the “massive internal space” could be “turned around very rapidly” into an inside skate park, conditional on the position of Andium Homes, which is using the site to store building supplies.
Deputy Warr added that there were four vacant homes – two buildings – on the site which could also be brought back into use by the parish.
“This is not something that will happen in ten years’ time, but in the next 18 months,” he said. “This isn’t a wing and a prayer.”
FACTBOX:
Mr Crowcroft has been a persistent advocate of extending the Town Park since Jersey Gas Company’s planning application for 300 units of accommodation was turned down in 2015.
The site was then acquired by Andium in 2017 for a smaller housing development scheme that would have combined 122 homes with a car park and a 50% extension of the Town Park.
Although the scheme was approved, it was subsequently withdrawn and replaced with a new one that was ultimately rejected because of its impact on a dolmen below ground level.
Andium then submitted revised proposals to expand the Town Park onto the old Gas works site, providing the additional housing elsewhere. This led to a proposition from Mr Crowcroft in March 2022, asking the States to agree the approach.
However, in the meantime, an amendment to the Bridging Island Plan brought by Deputy Rob Ward and adopted by the States in the same month agreed that the site should instead be reserved for a town primary school.
