ISLANDERS gathered outside the Howard Davis Memorial Hall in Howard Davis Park on the weekend to call on the government to reopen the building to the public two years after it was closed and a year since its management was handed to a private company.
Announcing the protest in the JEP on Friday, Islander Sue Hardy (pictured below) also called for the return of the portrait of Howard Davis, who was killed during the First World War.
The land that became Howard Davis Park – and the building that was retained as the hall – was gifted to the Island by Howard’s father, T B Davis, in his son’s memory in 1939.
“The displays in the hall explaining the history of the park and information about the property and the Davis family, and the special benches which furnished the room belong here and should be returned,” Ms Hardy said.
It emerged earlier this year that Howard Davis’s portrait was removed during the renovation of the hall in 2022 and has been restored by Jersey Heritage. But it remains in Jersey Heritage’s vault, the JEP learned recently, with no plans to return it to its place in the hall.
Through a series of freedom-of-information requests and questions to the Justice and Home Affairs Department, this newspaper has learned that the day-to-day management of the hall was handed to a private company, Ghost Kitchen Ltd, in 2023 to be operated as an events space.
It followed a £750,000 renovation of the property, which the government said had fallen into a state of disrepair.
As part of the deal, a government spokesperson said, the company were required to hold regular “open days” when the public could visit the hall. It has since emerged that since 2022 the hall has been opened to the public on only four occasions, for a total of 12 days. It has also been opened on request to the Superintendent Registrar to tour groups “many” times, a government spokesperson said.
Neither Ghost Kitchen nor representatives of the company listed on Jersey’s company’s register have responded to requests for comment by the JEP.
Despite being marketed as a wedding venue, it is not clear on how many occasions the space has been used as such, although the government spokesperson said it was on “several” occasions.
Attempts by the JEP – and members of the public – to discover how much revenue the hall has made for the government since it was effectively closed to the public in 2022 under the law have been rebutted and are currently subject to appeal by this newspaper.
The government confirmed that the pilot scheme service-level agreement with Ghost Kitchen will end in December, and that from January 2025, the running of the hall will transfer from the Superintendent Registrar’s office to Infrastructure and Environment, at which point the department will invite expressions of interest from companies that would like to consider running it.
