Leale’s Yard has space for imagination

Magical words which we have heard many times over the last decade as weeds continue to be the only development at a site which has the potential to transform a tired Bridge.

For more than a decade different plans have been released, shelved, revised, consulted on, thought about – there have been no shortage of ideas.

The focus has shifted from retail to housing as the economic conditions varied, but little has happened of note at the site since planning permission was granted three years ago.

Policy & Resources has been in talks with the Channel Island Co-op for the last 10 months about kick-starting progress, but the sizzlingly hostile reaction in the Assembly last week to the mere idea of a public subsidy will be ringing alarm bells.

However, all parties need to come to an accommodation for the greater good of the whole community – if the cost to the public purse leads to a social and long-term economic benefit, there are sound reasons for government to get involved and work with the private sector.

Dismissing the option based on limited detail in the public domain, as some clearly have, is rash.

As it stands, States’ planning policies, which it should be remembered this cohort of politicians agreed to, are guiding housing development into ever more unsuitable locations, angering islanders, while this brownfield site is untouched and the consequential knock-ons of breathing fresh life into the Bridge are lost.

After a successful amendment last week, the States will now debate the future of Leale’s Yard by April.

All members needed to be open-minded and leave their prejudices behind.

There is potentially a huge corridor of opportunity if Leale’s Yard is taken as a whole with the ‘datapark’ site at the Saltpans – a true once-in -a-lifetime chance for some joined-up thinking to produce something much more than rabbit hutch houses and flats and congested roads which seem to be the consequence of this States’ short-sighted planning policy decisions.