Residents of quiet lane fear vinery being used for waste

Michelle Mahy is one of many who have erected billboards in protest at plans for the Domarie and Avondale vinery site in St Sampson’s.

The proposal is to change the use of 11 associated horticultural buildings and a glasshouse, to general storage/distribution and storage/sorting of recyclable materials. Alterations to access to the site are being sought also.

Ms Mahy believed that, if approved, they would change the area for the worse.

‘Oatlands Lane is classed as a neighbourhood road by the States of Guernsey,’ she said.

‘Which means it’s predominantly residential in character with little or no through traffic, its primary function is access to residential properties.

‘The application states the intended use as light industrial and waste. We could have scaffolding, we could have granite works, we could have lots of things there.

‘This road is not designed for heavy industrial vehicles, if more are coming down here it will make it unsafe.

‘What they want to put there is not in keeping with a residential area.’

Ms Mahy, her partner, James Leale, and their two children, Scarlett Leale 4, and Jax Leale, six months, bought the house she grew up in last year, as they knew the area and wanted to raise their family in a peaceful part of the island.

‘I think this will really effect the areas. There are five schools near here and two riding stables.

‘It’s the traffic, the noise, the smells and the six days a week which worries me the most to us as a family.’

Ms Mahy said she does not know what the best use of the site is, but that there needs to be compromise.

‘I really don’t know what the most suitable thing to build there is, I don’t have the answer,’ she said.

‘But something that’s more residential, and in keeping with the area.

‘It worries me that if this site gets commissioned as something like that, will similar sites close by be the same?.

‘It’s always been agricultural land, I know that agricultural land quite often isn’t used for that any more, and people change the use of it.

‘However, I know that there are restrictions on what agricultural land can turn into, so I’m quite realistic that it does need to change.

‘But maybe there can be some restrictions applied to it so it’s not quite so invasive, and is more in keeping with the area.’

The parish constables are aware of the residents’ protest and are discussing the problem.

Constable Paul Le Pelley said: ‘The douzaine has had an initial conversation about the subject.

‘From the request we have had to raise the subject we have 21 days to respond.

‘We will speak to parishioners at the parish meeting on 2 May.

‘We will then re-convene to make a further statement in regards to the subject.’