Admiral Park twists and turns take it to the States

LATER this week the States will be asked to intervene in the Admiral Park planning saga – a situation that has seen Environment admitting error after error.

It all revolves around multimillion-pound plans to develop the site, predominately with office space, but also with a pledge to build a cinema.

Planners had wanted to give the go-ahead to something that would no doubt come as a welcome boost to the construction industry at a time when things are flagging.

But just days before the site was due to be discussed at an open planning meeting in November, Environment decided to withdraw it from the agenda.

It took a while for the department to say why, and when it did, it decided to simply post a statement online, presumably in the expectation that the public would just stumble across it.

Planners had to admit they had used an out-of-date planning brief to judge the application against and asked the developer to submit a new design statement.

At the time, questions were raised about what this meant for the Glategny Esplanade planning brief, which was similarly outdated according to the new planning law, which states these briefs should be reviewed every 10 years.

Then there was another twist in the saga, despite Environment's insistence the urban area plan was enough to deal with the application.

It announced – well, put a statement on the website – to say that it wanted to reinstate the 15-year-old planning brief after all.

This needs a States debate and a new law, something that will cause further delay.

But not as much delay as the other two options available to the department.

It no doubt has to weigh up the balance between speed and giving the public a voice in the planning process.

What we will find out this week is whether States members are concerned about that balance too.

Environment could have asked for a new development brief or new local planning brief to be drawn up.

But both require public consultation.

It may have been an interesting process given the grave concerns about vehicle movements already acknowledged by the department's traffic section when it assessed the initial plans.

Environment's report is silent on the costs involved in this process so far, for the department or the developer.

Its report is also silent on how what it is proposing is a review of the existing brief, as required under the law every 10 years – it is a history lesson of what happened to the application and no more.

That the department issued an emergency Billet to attempt to resolve the matter shows how urgent the situation has got.

It was, after all, juggling a ball that included the threat of legal action.

But in its haste to resolve the situation, the department has now performed two U-turns and fallen well short of what would be expected under a proper communication strategy.

The surprise may be that the public and parish deputies do not seem too bothered.

That may be symptomatic of planning in general.

Too often, people scream after the event when they have had ample opportunity to influence what is happening beforehand.

It is why open planning meetings were such a positive move – as was allowing

limited public speaking at these.

But it was a backward step when Environment decided not to properly engage the public with what was happening with Admiral Park.