Guernsey Press

Growing vision at Oatlands

IT HAS long deserved to flourish and now Oatlands Village looks set to grow further as a site and visitor attraction.

Published

Thanks to the recent approval of the island’s first planning covenant, it seems the St Sampson’s complex could go from strength to strength.

An old planning legacy had limited it to crafts and artisan businesses, making it challenging to create a viable way forward in today’s economic climate.

Now thanks to the covenant, which although different from planning permission provides much-needed clarity on usage, the site’s owner is able to forge ahead with a long-term vision for the future.

Its plan could see a second courtyard, large new playbarn housing Joey’s World and the beloved Trislander, and various other attractions such as a tenpin bowling alley and a timber-clad retail unit.

Work is expected to be done by summer, in time for the tourist season, although in recent times the site has increasingly felt like a year-round attraction.

The historic moment is a far cry from darker days just three years ago when the previous company that owned Oatlands was put into administration.

However its tenants worked hard to show it was business as usual, a message boosted following its sale to its current owner in 2015. At that stage it hoped ‘to make Oatlands beautiful again’, ‘a favourite destination for locals and visitors, not just in the spring and summer’.

Yet it was also accepted that would take time, investment, hard work and cooperation between the company, occupiers and government.

This month’s developments appear a testament to that goal and a refreshing example of just how well a joined-up approach can work.

Key to progress has been the common sense amendment agreed by the States last year to change planning policy to allow for the ‘gateway provision’.

Without this, confidence to invest in revitalising the site may have been much harder to imagine.

As a shareholder and director pointed out, the purchase of the site two years ago had not been without risk. Though its final price was never made public, it was being offered for sale at £1.95m., having initially been on the market for £3m.

That faith in its future appears to be paying off.

And not a Spiegeltent in sight.