Guernsey Press

Pointues Rocques owners selling for development

A CONTROVERSIAL housing site is going on the market for an undisclosed sum this week.

Published
Pointues Rocques has planning permission 68 houses, including 15 affordable homes for the GHA, on part of the land, but the site has been touted as being able to cope with more than 125 homes. (Picture By Peter Frankland, 32157118)

Pointues Rocques already has planning permission 68 houses, including 15 affordable homes for the GHA, on part of the land, but the site has been touted as being able to cope with more than 125 homes.

The site, near Delancey Park, sits between several sites being developed by the Guernsey Housing Association on behalf of the States for social housing.

But the States would not comment about whether it might be interested in taking on the 15-vergee site.

After six years of planning battles over the former vinery site, its current owners are now looking to sell to a developer.

The site is owned for several different people.

PF+A Architecture group director Peter Falla said the project was just going through the final legal hurdles in relation to the covenant to gift part of the site to the GHA.

‘Legally it is complicated and it has taken quite a long time,’ he said.

‘It’s 95% there, the proposals have just been released for a prospective sale, now its up for interested parties to see if they want to invest.’

The site has been allocated as housing under the Island Development Plan since 2016, with planning permission finally granted in July last year after it was first submitted in 2017.

The marketing of the site is being handled by Lovells & Partners Limited.

Lovells director Stuart Thompson said they were in the process of reaching out to possible investors, but were not at liberty to discuss the sale price.

‘We are speaking to a number of people regarding this,’ he said.

‘And it is a case of price on application.’

States would not comment about whether it would be purchasing the site, despite owning other land nearby in St Sampson’s, which is due to be developed as housing.

Saltpans – also known as Kenilworth Vinery or Parc Le Lacheur – was bought by the States for £6.5m. in 2021 and has a planning application is pending for 69 houses and 60 flats.

Belgrave Vinery, where the GHA currently has an application in for 46 houses and 45 flats on the central part of the site, as well as an application for 21 houses and 21 flats on the neighbouring Duval vinery site.

And Guernsey Data Park, which was taken on by the GHA last June, after it was purchased for £4.75m. with backing from the States. In the long-term it is hoped the site could be used for more than 100 new homes.