‘Voice your objections to PEH green field plan’
LA SOCIETE Guernesiaise is calling on islanders to object to proposals to build multi-storey accommodation on a green field site at the hospital.
The idea to build housing on the 10-acre field has been a controversial issue among politicians and islanders for some months.
Having secured majority political support for the plan, Policy & Resources has now officially applied for permission for two four-storey blocks, with associated extensive parking, to be built there, despite it being designated as an agricultural priority area.
La Societe president Roy Bisson said it would require a ‘special, political device in order to break open the planning law and island plan’ and claimed that P&R was attempting to pursue the project by declaring the proposal to be a ‘strategic emergency’.
‘Guernsey has been known for millennia as a “green island” but we need to jealously guard our open spaces under the two significant population pressures – increase, by natural increase and immigration, and changes in living conditions – large family groups in large houses to individuals in smaller homes.’
Mr Bisson said it was easy for States committees to take the easy way out when under financial and time pressures.
‘But such developments as are proposed for the PEH valley will not only ruin and remove a beautiful green facility, but also set a dangerous precedent for seven other agricultural spaces adjoining the PEH campus.
‘Islanders who value our landscape must stand up and vocally object when government attempts to take a short-cut.’
Concerns about damage to the environment was the first concern for La Societe.
‘Health & Social Care listed seven agricultural fields in its first nine site suggestions,’ Mr Bisson said in an email to Societe members.
He listed a number of redundant greenhouse sites near to the site, including several in Pointes Lane, and former hotels in Ruettes Brayes and Les Merriennes.
Mr Bisson is advising anyone that feels the proposal for the green field is wrong to write to or email the planning department and offer better options for the use of the field.
La Societe will also be contacting planners direct, but said it believed that individual representations carried the strongest influence.
. The 21-day consultation period is now open and runs until 10 January.
