Environment 'willing to justify actions over eyesores'

ENVIRONMENT minister Peter Sirett has moved to answer criticisms of his department over so-called 'eyesore architecture'.

He met representatives of the Guernsey Press with his senior team to stress that the department was and had always been willing to explain and justify its actions.

His comments follow criticism in the Guernsey Press that the department refused to say why it had approved some of the properties at the centre of a petition against 'eyesore architecture'.

But Deputy Sirett (pictured) said Environment would have explained its decision – it understood it was responding to a request from the newspaper for minutes of the meetings when the applications were discussed and these remained confidential, he said.

It was unfortunate that this misunderstanding in email correspondence had occurred, preventing the department from stating its case, he said, a point accepted by the newspaper.

He explained that it was not a black and white issue and that there were complex reasons why different developments were approved.

The political involvement of the board comes at the end of a long, quasi-legal planning application process.

Members had limited scope to reject an application if it complied with the legislation and policies and had been backed by expert planners, he said.

Environment is still exploring the idea of open planning meetings and plans to visit other jurisdictions where these happen to explore any pitfalls.

Deputy Sirett undertook to provide a full response to campaigners' concerns and criticisms and to explain how the planning process operates under the new legislation.

These will form part of a series of Guernsey Press articles to come on planning.

He welcomed the opportunity to have a mature and considered debate on the merits of different forms of architecture and said that the petition would form part of that.