Guernsey Press

Permissions already exceed target

MANY are aghast at the latest development guidance approved for predominantly green sites in St Sampson’s and the Vale.

Published

They will be feeling helpless at the inevitability of what is to happen after being let down by a series of political decisions.

Development frameworks have been backed for Pointues Rocques for up to 125 dwellings and Le Maresquet for up to 38. While planning applications still need to be approved, it is hard to see how they will now fail with all the requirements they need to meet set out so neatly.

The Development & Planning Authority has been at pains to stress that all representations made about planning matters for Pointues Rocques were acted on.

One of those matters was not whether there could be a housing development. Nearly all States members had voted for that with no qualms when they approved the Island Development Plan in November 2016. And that IDP debate – alongside earlier decisions on how housing should be concentrated in the northern parishes – are at the heart of this. No one in the States debate knew what density of housing for the site would be allowed – they were voting blind, which may explain the outpouring of shock from parish deputies.

In explaining the number of dwellings to be allowed, the approved development framework talks of standard methodology and historic estimates, and then of the need for a mix of housing of one to three bedrooms, and then four bedrooms, and then sheltered housing, also some areas of the site needing lower density and then somehow, if you can follow it all through, they come up with a number without quite managing to show how.

There is also a bigger-picture problem to which the only response is a shrug. The States has a policy that requires a two-year pipeline housing supply, which has been more than met by permissions already in place – there is no need for more at this time.

But that doesn’t matter, because as long as a development framework for a site meets the policies of the IDP, it can be approved. Which makes you wonder what the target is really for?