Plans for £90m. marina in Pool
A NEW 24-hour access marina will be created in St Peter Port Harbour at an estimated cost of £90m., if the project is approved by the States.
Revealed today, the plans would see a new breakwater built in the middle of the harbour to provide protection for an additional 220 boats.
The project by the Ports Board has followed research and technical studies looking at how to maximise the use of the Pool section of the harbour.
Board chairman Stuart Falla said it was charged with the task after the debate on future harbour requirements last year, when the States’ Trading Supervisory Board was told to investigate the feasibility of a new marina in the harbour.
‘While this may have come out of an amendment, everybody in the ports’ team is dead keen on it,’ he said, adding that the plans had also been welcomed by commercial users, some of whom asked why this had not been done five years ago.
Guernsey Ports’ marinas are 95% full and it is responsible for 1,600 moorings with 204 people on the waiting list.
Programme manager Jenny Giles said the list had increased by more than a third since February.
A survey of boat owners had a 30% response and of those, 61% said they wanted 24-hour marina access – currently, none of the island’s marinas have this facility.
Nearly three quarters of the berths in the marinas were unsuitable for boats longer than 10m but a lot of people had said they would like to get a bigger boat.
While the pool is deep enough in some places already to allow boats to remain afloat at low tide, surveys showed that the depth of critical areas could be increased by dredging.
This would achieve a minimum depth of four metres across all the main areas, even at the lowest tide, and between two and three metres in other parts of the harbour.
Mrs Giles said a wave model had been used to gauge the impact of the worst easterly winds the island experiences on the pool and the angle and length of the new breakwater was designed to create a large area of calm water inside the harbour, whatever the weather conditions.
Mr Falla said it was estimated that half the cost of the development could be met from mooring fees, with the remaining half offset in 20 years through takings from growth opportunities for the island economy, for example boat maintenance and yacht chandler businesses: ‘It will only work if it is both commercial and economic,’ he said.
If the plans are approved, it would probably be two-and-a-half to three years before the first boat took up its mooring.
Full details and costings will be published in the policy letter, which is expected to go to the States early next year.
BLOB A public drop-in session, where members of the project team will be on hand to answer questions, will be held in the harbour terminal on the New Jetty from 12pm to 7pm on Friday 4 November, and from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 5 November. Parking will be in North Beach car park, with short-term and disabled parking on the New Jetty.
