Plans should preserve Bridge's identity

Clearly there is room for more discussion with the owners of the site to see what might be possible.

Nevertheless looking back it was clear that the original proposed commercial development was far too big and totally out of keeping with its surroundings, which thankfully the planners recognised.

You only had to look at the architect's impression on the front of the Guernsey Press at the time to get an idea of what the Co-op wanted to put there, which is why the planners quite rightly insisted it was scaled down.

The original design brief back in the mists of time wanted to... 'Create an attractive place with a strong identity and critical mass.'

I would point out to the planners, as they consider the plans again, that the Bridge already has a strong identity and what happens around it is hugely important. I would want to see that strong identity preserved, not diluted by some awful structures blighting what we already have.

I was not convinced going back to the original proposals that a six-storey-high steel and glass building, in fact something that looked like Admiral Park Mk 2, was the right fit for that sensitive area. I think it might lend itself to four storeys behind the Bridge streetscape.

These steel and glass buildings are fine in their place but not here. What was proposed was so grotesquely out of proportion that the development would have completely overwhelmed the natural streetscape of the Bridge, rather than blending into what is an important historical part of St Sampson's.

In fact it looked exactly what it was – a carbon copy of any shopping mall you can find in most towns anywhere in the UK.

The whole thing would have wrecked the area both visually and proportionally to its walled harbour surroundings.

If you would just indulge me for a moment, the trouble I have with modern architecture is that everything is streamlined, flat surfaces and geometric shapes, without the fine detail that lends character and beauty to so many older buildings. So it is where you put it that's important.

People tend to feel comfortable with what they have grown up with in terms of the built surroundings.

Although it is not just a matter of aesthetics, it is also about the identity of a community, which has as part of it the shared relationship between people and the place where they live.

We should be building on what we have in a similar scale and style that maintains continuity and helps to focus the island's cultural history and its celebrated historical built identity. If you look back and see the beautiful Georgian and Victorian buildings that grace a large part of the town of St Peter Port, these are amazing buildings that were designed by architects who clearly had a passion and a flair for their work and an eye for proportion and detail, people who knew how to blend buildings into their surroundings.

We now seem to have architects designing for Guernsey who want to impose what might work in a large UK city on this tiny island, or you will get a period where every new building has a wavy roof, which is the latest fad. Or looking at what was proposed for a Jerbourg hotel, sketched by someone who might have designed shipping containers for a living but none of what gives people a sense of this building belonging in its rural setting.

I know it seems like I am constantly criticising architects but that is because the rest of us have to live with their vision for decades after they are gone, some of them back to their offices in the UK.

The buildings I refer to in Town, for instance, are often described as graceful, stylish and elegant, Victorian or Georgian townhouses with grand front entrances and perfect symmetry with neighbouring buildings.

Compare that with the bland soulless unimaginative boxes that are being churned out today for retail units and offices, with the depressing result that the richness of this community is being destroyed by those who would never have had the talent to design our historic community in the first place.

DEPUTY DAVE JONES,

Pilots Lodge,

Northside,

Vale,

GY3 5TS.