Deputies must debate SLUP vision

The trouble with that argument is that the debate was seven years ago, and two out of three of those deputies have since left the States.

True, this Assembly had a say on planning when the Island Development Plan was approved in 2016.

But if the IDP is the (poisoned) fruit of the SLUP tree then this set of States members need to validate the source not the product.

For there is little doubt that the IDP is working as planned. The professional planners are happy with it, the Development & Planning Authority president loves it and E&I has backed it.

But the question is not whether the IDP is functioning, it is whether the strategy of cramming 80% of development into the areas around Town and the Bridge is the right one.

E&I president Deputy Barry Brehaut is adamant the high level strategy does not need to be changed and SLUP is ‘effectively’ balancing competing demands for land.

Anecdotal and informal reports (such as the two letters on this page) of the ‘perceived overdevelopment’ of the north stem, he says, from a ‘general misunderstanding’ that most development is happening in the main and outer areas of St Sampson’s/Vale. There is no evidence to support that premise.

Yet in the same report the DPA’s own figures for 2017 show that, of the 1,177 homes in the pipeline, 45% are in the north, 31% are in St Peter Port, 4% are in local centres such as St Martin’s village and 21% is outside all centres.

Not all will be developed, but northerners see the frameworks, the cleared land and the permissions and fear for what is coming.

The plan is for an 80:20 split. Of hundreds of homes due to be built over the IDP’s 10-year lifespan the vast majority will be in St Peter Port and the Bridge corridor.

With green fields being turned into clos, the question is whether it is the most suitable places that are being developed or just the ones that fit the SLUP’s grand vision for social engineering.

Sadly, E&I does not want this set of States members even to debate that.