Omnibus Investments said the one- and two-bedroom units could have been finished within two-and-a-half years alongside private homes, shops, a civic square and a large green space.
But P&R claimed the company failed to obtain an adequate valuation of the scheme and ignored repeated requests to provide essential commercial and legal information. The senior committee also suggested it had doubts about the developers’ capacity to deliver their proposed scheme, after the collapse of an earlier plan to use modular construction.
The withdrawal of public funding from the scheme was announced last week. The Guernsey Press can today reveal the breakdown of relations between P&R and Omnibus after obtaining recent correspondence between them.
‘At this stage, we do not have a confirmed and detailed financial proposal from you, and we have been advised by you that any new scheme would not be more expeditious than a traditional build, which had been one of the purported benefits of the scheme you had initially proposed.
‘We therefore both need to recognise that the project is not now deliverable in the original form, and therefore has shifted in its affordability and attraction for the States,’ said P&R president Lyndon Trott in a letter sent to Omnibus on 17 April.
Omnibus rejected the claims, saying that a valuation by a respected property services company was provided in January and that the company had been falsely accused of withholding essential information. It also said its bankers had confirmed their full support for the scheme at a meeting with P&R.
In a reply sent on 22 April, the company’s directors, Charles McHugh and Jeremy Rihoy, insisted that the States was responsible for the demise of the scheme but was now trying to shift the blame onto them.
‘After years of engagement, it is deeply disappointing that the process has concluded with a letter so heavily weighted toward blame,’ they said.
‘Throughout, Omnibus has faced delayed responses, inconsistencies, and risk-averse decision-making from the States. When external market conditions changed, we adapted. When asked for more detail, we delivered. When suppliers fell away, we restructured.
‘It is regrettable that this opportunity now appears to have been lost due to inaction and internal financial pressures.’
The negotiations, ongoing for about three years, were subject to a non-disclosure agreement, but the developers provided their letter after the Guernsey Press had obtained P&R’s letter to them.
The letters are published in full in Monday’s Guernsey Press.
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