Douzaines want to hear more than complaints
PARISH officials in St Sampson’s must have been delighted on Saturday to see so many visitors to the parish douzaine room in Le Murier – even though many of them came along with intent to complain.
The monthly drop-ins usually attract only a couple of people, wanting to talk to the constables and douzeniers about local issues.
But with new plans out for a former vinery site earmarked for housing near Delancey Park, at Pointues Rocques, the role of the douzaines and constables in organising parochial opposition to the highly controversial plans for development is critical. Without engagement from parishioners, they will be unable to properly represent their concerns. Hence the joy in the douzaine room.
No matter that what those parishioners had to tell their officials was largely predictable. They have still got worries about traffic in the area, despite the revised application proposing some roads around the site could become prohibited streets, meaning they can only be used by residents or for access. Still no-one seems particularly swayed by the proposed new approach, even though, as this column has previously argued, the site was zoned for housing development by the States Assembly back in 2016, unanimously too. So, at some point, surely some compromise from all parties must surely be required to achieve something.
Comments can still be made on the planning application until the end of the week.
The St Sampson’s parish has already had its electors’ and ratepayers’ meeting to vote through the parish rates this month and it is highly likely that the turnout on Saturday was higher.
Douzaines would embrace such engagement with the parish at times other than when people feel the desperate need to complain.
St Sampson’s and the Vale particularly have an ongoing campaign going, not to stop things from being done, but to press the States to consider much-needed improvements to infrastructure in the north of the island – particularly necessary if, as it seems highly likely, the parish is set to take significantly more housing being developed in the area, whether Pointues Rocques goes ahead or not.
They would surely welcome more regular interest in such activities, at the least.