Blue-sky thinking over brownfields

Certainly if a win can be classed with the definition of ‘least worst’ option.

But just as it intuitively feels wrong to want to build on the green fields in the grounds of the Princess Elizabeth Hospital, for once this proposal to investigate multi-storey development beneath the cliff at La Charroterie, feels kind of right.

As people are saying on Facebook: ‘I hate to agree with this but…’

Even if, of course, such a proposal flies in the face of evidence given to the Scrutiny Management Committee by Environment & Infrastructure Committee president Lindsay de Sausmarez earlier this month.

There wasn’t much dispute when she told Scrutiny that building high-rise blocks would face ‘cultural resistance’ if proposed as a way of tackling the island’s housing crisis.

And it was notable that in putting the concept forward, Deputy Peter Roffey was quick to say how he wanted to avoid Jersey’s approach to tower block-living.

He also nodded towards Cour du Parc, 11 storeys high, more than 50 years old now, and still Guernsey’s only residential tower block. Nobody is worried about that, he said, so why not another block (or maybe two) against the cliff face of the Charroterie valley?

It is fair to say that in nearly 30 years in operation, Sir Charles Frossard House has never been seen as a thing of beauty. The car park – which before the advent of ‘working from home’ was one of most densely-packed car parking spaces in St Peter Port, and an area Deputy de Sausmarez describes as ‘a criminal waste of space’.

So few tears would be shed if that land were to be lost to more creative uses. It may be that underground parking is too expensive for the States to countenance, there may be other reasons which preclude the entire high-rise development.

But let it be investigated. For this looks like the kind of blue-sky thinking over brownfield development that many islanders want to see.