OPINION: ‘Wrecking green field is not the solution’

‘ALL deputies should either back the building of new staff accommodation on a green field, within an Agricultural Priority Area, or explain why they don’t.’

‘Policy & Resources thinks it is a good idea.’

‘Health & Social Care thinks it’s a good idea.’

‘You are either with us or you are against us.’

Effectively that was the recent call from Deputy David Mahoney. Not a particularly difficult challenge from a man who apparently sees Guernsey’s fields as little more than convenient building sites. Remember his recent call to build large, upmarket homes in the fields around the Castel Hospital?

OK then. Here is why I don’t think putting in a new staff block in a really charming green field is a good idea at all. Here’s why I am 100% against the majorities of P&R and HSC on this issue.

Firstly and foremost because there are far better alternatives.

Ironically some alternatives, which could have been created far more quickly than the planned new building in the field, were blocked by P&R themselves. Partly at the behest of their property lead, Deputy Mahoney.

Both the Housing Action Group and ESS asked for two vacant, States-owned properties to be handed over to the Guernsey Housing Association, for immediate conversion into a significant number of apartments for key workers. P&R decided to sell them instead. Their call, of course, but deeply disappointing.

Admittedly those sites were not next to the PEH but it really is time we stopped thinking about health workers in stereotypical terms. These were never right even back in the 1970s and are even less so today. They are not all nurses, they are not all in their 20s, they are not all single, and they do not all want to live ‘above the shop’ in apartments on the PEH campus.

I am not denying that some do indeed want to live near the hospital for convenience’s sake (more on that in a moment) but I suspect it is a minority these days. Indeed, that’s the clear message from the staff at HSC who are responsible for housing matters.

So where else in the island should they live? All of the new affordable housing developments carried out by the GHA should include mixed tenures. This will be far healthier than large estates comprising just of social housing. So the planned developments at the Kenilworth and Fontaine vineries should be a mix of social rental, partial ownership and key worker housing.

If possible I would extend that into the redevelopment of Les Genats. Indeed that precedent has already been set as there are some key workers living there now.

Nor should the States limit themselves to looking at their own developments. I recently suggested that, through the GHA, we should look at taking an option on about 40 or 50 of the 300-plus new homes planned at Leale’s Yard in order to use them for key workers.

What about those who do want to live close to their place of work? I suppose it depends how close. If we are talking about within a mile then the obvious place is next to Frossard House. I can’t imagine any private property owner squandering so much valuable land on extensive surface parking when the property concerned was in a deep valley which made it suitable for high-rise development. A sizeable block of good quality apartments with adequate parking below is the obvious answer. It was considered briefly at the HAG some time ago but the property services wing of P&R had other priorities at the time. I am determined it should be considered again before the HAG is wound up. A mix of 80-90 new apartments, some for locals, and some for key workers, is too big a prize to let slide.

Need to be closer to the PEH? Well the Dairy is on its last legs and desperately needs replacing. Clearly that won’t be on the same site as you couldn’t build a new one there and keep the old one running at the same time. So once it is gone and demolished it will make the perfect flat, brown-field site next to the PEH, either for staff accommodation or other health-related facilities.

Too long? Well yes I understand there is a need to move quickly. We have the recruitment problem now. One reason why it was so frustrating when P&R declined to support the conversion of the properties I mentioned earlier. Any new build, including the green field proposal, will take years to complete. But there is still a far better option on the PEH campus.

The former Duchess of Kent residential home is currently under-occupied and every service provided there would be far better served elsewhere. This includes HSC’s own corporate headquarters, which is housed in completely unsuitable offices and could be re-provided in any offices, anywhere, rather than taking up significant amounts of precious space on the hospital complex.

Which idiot put them there? Well, it was me. Why? Ironically, in order to free up the site of the old ‘John Henry House’ to make room for a new block of staff accommodation. But it was always meant to be a temporary move, making use of some vacant space, in order to free up a valuable site. The fact that the HSC office complex is still there is astonishing.

While John Henry Court is indeed a valuable block of staff accommodation, there would actually be room for three blocks of equal capacity if the former Duchess of Kent building was demolished. Personally I doubt there would be demand for that amount of on-site accommodation, given the trend for more-mature staff wanting to live ‘in the community’.

That said, it is the very obvious site for any new on-campus housing and has one obvious advantage: it doesn’t destroy a quite beautiful green field. Anybody who thinks that maintaining Guernsey’s countryside is (to quote Deputy Mahoney’s reference to Utilitarianism) ‘the needs of the few’ is seriously misguided.