Fort Road fields are important agricultural land

It seemed to me that the cows are now getting thoroughly fed up with large amounts of their land, agricultural land, being taken with the approval of the current batch of planning officers for purposes other than farming and are now fighting back. They are reclaiming their territory.

Joking aside, however, it was bad enough that Les Blanches field, a piece of prime agricultural land, was changed to housing and now I see the Fort fields are in grave danger of being developed.

Unfortunately, I missed the application appearing in the Press, as did one or two others that I have spoken to and, as for a site notice, well there was no sign of that either. Had I spotted a site notice I would have made a point of finding somewhere to park and go and read it.

These are huge areas of agricultural land, a joy to see when driving along Fort Road and very productive for the tenant farmer.

Loss of agricultural land goes against the recommendations of the Dairy Review that was commissioned a little while ago. The authors warned that land was being lost to ‘other uses’ at a rapid rate and measures should be taken to prevent further erosion. So what has been done? Nothing.

Yes, there are vast tracts of agricultural priority areas in the New Island Plan, but look closely and you will see that many fields were already being used for ‘other purposes’, making a mockery of the

plan.

At the time of the inquiry I wrote to the planning inspector to ask that the Fort fields be made APAs and protected from development, but he would not agree with me, saying the area was not big enough. I would suggest that, in Guernsey terms, that land is a huge area.

I urge the political members of Development and Planning to see the situation for what it is and stop allowing good agricultural land to be developed like this.

JANINE LE SAUVAGE,

Meadow View, Les Hubits de Bas,

St Martin’s, GY4 6NB.