Residents of St Peter’s and Forest shared their worries about the difficulty of bringing up families in the western parishes without more affordable housing.
Planning inspector Keith Holland, who has been running public hearings into proposed changes to the Island Development Plan, heard concerns of a direct link between a lack of housing and the uncertain future of La Houguette and Forest Primary Schools.
‘The parish has such a wonderful village centre and community spirit,’ said St Peter’s senior constable Tim Langmead.
‘The village serves all of the western parishes, but with the falling number of children living in the western parishes, I’ve been told that without some increase in children entering La Houguette School, it’s at risk of closure.’
By a majority, St Peter’s douzaine opposes a housing development proposed at Les Caches in the parish, but Mr Langmead said he supported the project as it would create homes the parish needs and also benefit businesses in the village. He said that local shops benefitted from school traffic and would miss out on passing trade if schools closed owing to low pupil numbers. He encouraged the building of more affordable homes of a variety of sizes to encourage more families to remain or move to the parish and benefit the whole life of the local community.
‘The western parishes need to attract young families but there are very few affordable family homes,’ he said.
‘If the plans were approved at Les Caches, this could also free up smaller properties to enable people in larger properties to downsize.’
The planning inquiry heard that proposals for housing at Les Caches had been overwhelmingly rejected by neighbours and other St Peter’s residents.
One of them, Stephen Fell, argued that just because something could theoretically be done at Les Caches did not mean it should be carried out in practice.
He wanted the States to revisit its Strategic Land Use Plan, which was agreed 15 years ago, and unlock better sites for development within St Peter’s which the douzaine had said it could support and were not too far away from the parish centre.
Development of the former Passiflora Hotel has begun, but the planning inquiry was told of other sites with potential, such as a former site near the Men’s Shed.
Peter and Mandy Mills were in favour of more development in the Forest. They have lived in the parish for more than 30 years, during which time their children had grown up and attended the Forest School.
Mr Mills said there had been no central development in the Forest since the 1990s.
‘When the request for affordable housing came in, we were very passionate about it, and we’re still very keen to do it,’ he said.
‘We need to make sure that the Forest School continues to be populated or it could end up closing.’
He believed there would be solutions to any traffic challenges, such as creating safe streets of the type at St Martin’s and La Houguette Schools.
‘In the area, the principal times of traffic concern are when the airport closes because a lot of workers use the lanes, and for the use of the chip shop, but that is mainly on Friday and Saturday evenings,’ he said.
‘We think there are opportunities to deal with traffic issues.’
One worry raised about traffic danger by the chip shop concerned one of the roads leading to the filter having a 35mph speed limit before changing to 25mph. It was suggested that discussion with the States could overcome such a problem.