‘I would demolish Castel Hospital’ - P&R president
The former Castel Hospital site should be ‘razed to the ground’ the president of Policy & Resources told political colleagues yesterday.
Housing led discussions during the Scrutiny Management Committee’s hearing with the senior States committee.
Asked how he was going to speed up the development of new homes, Deputy Trott said that he believed that the former hospital site could not be a priority, but nevertheless he would want to bulldoze the historic building.
Scrutiny president Yvonne Burford asked Deputy Trott how he could justify not looking at urgently developing the States-owned site for housing.
He said that it was by no means certain that it would get through planning, whereas housing projects at Leale’s Yard and Les Coutanchez represented ‘dial-moving’ impacts on the market and should therefore be a priority. But he would see the hospital as a housing site at some point.
‘I would raze it to the ground, I see no architectural merit or social merit in preserving an ex-mental asylum. But the answer to the question is to have real priorities.’
On Leale’s Yard, Deputy Trott said that his committee expected to be able to make an update by mid-June, adding that the States was funding an independent reviewer to ensure risks associated with the project were mitigated.
‘It will be challenging to bring proposals to the States before the summer break but that does remain the target because it’s important to see demonstrable progress to start the regeneration of the Bridge.
‘I think we are doing everything in our power to get this site going.’
P&R vice-president Deputy Heidi Soulsby said that she was interested in the idea of micro-housing – one-room, self-contained, often purpose-built living spaces – when it came to getting units built to meet the current need for key workers and other islanders.
‘They would really suit us now, they’re considerably cheaper, would do the business now and would enable us to focus on the building that we need for people that we are going to need on a more permanent basis.
‘It’s better for our community to have people here who are invested in the community and who are providing services. But we talk about key worker housing and it’s a frustration of mine that we haven’t even got a definition of what a key worker is at the moment.’
‘It’s one of those areas we really need to think carefully about.’
