Don’t destroy Town seafront

However, I will start with the tourist information centre. Here we have an iconic and unique building, a joy for visitors and locals to visit. Light and airy, with clean toilets, masses of information about Guernsey and the other islands, and a pleasant seating area to sit and digest this information. It is easy for visitors to find and is accessible. It is, and should remain, the ‘flagship’ of Visit Guernsey. Some of the ideas being put forward would mean that this facility is lost to tourism. What is intended to happen to the information centre? Will it end up in a grotty wooden hut on the end of the Albert Pier?

As a member of the old Tourist Board, I remember us trying to obtain the slaughterhouse for a Victor Hugo Interpretation Centre, also home for the Asterix. We had no luck, of course. So my first thought for the information centre was to leave the ground floor as it is and on the first floor (and I seem to recall there is a lift already installed there) to create a Victor Hugo Interpretation Centre, complete with visual aids and virtual tours of the house. The house is getting very fragile these days and does not have access for people with mobility problems, so converting the first-floor offices would give those people a chance to enjoy the ‘Hugo experience’.

And with some very clever architectural design, the Asterix could be displayed in an appropriate building on the North Plantation, attached to the information centre.

Ideas for ‘enhancement’ down at La Vallette, in particular the kiosk, should take into account that, come spring and summer, the pools and little beach are heaving with families and youngsters having fun. That kiosk should remain a kiosk. Years ago I remember the late Deputy Bill Bell asking me about the facilities down there and, like some of those conducting this survey, he had never visited the area. He was suggesting putting a ‘prestigious restaurant’ in place of the kiosk. Once interested people started to visit the site and saw it for what it really is – a wild and windy area on some days, with the giant waves pounding right over the kiosk and smashing down doors to the toilets and changing room – they thought better of it. And no fancy restaurant would welcome in little Johnny in his wet bathers and dead crabs in his bucket to buy an ice cream.

And as for self-catering huts on that part of the bank that was not fenced off, then those conducting this survey need to visit the minutes of the old Environment Department to see why it was left as it is.

As I recall that small area was the only part to be considered stable enough at the time to not fence off. Of course, since then enhancement work has taken place and trees and undergrowth have been removed, so I would question its stability now.

Further along, the walk at the rear of the more formal gardens has been blocked off because work caused the cliff to become unstable and liable to rock falls. Lessons should have been learned by this.

La Vallette is the last remaining wild part of St Peter Port and long may it remain so.

JANINE LE SAUVAGE,

Meadow View,

Les Hubits de Bas,

St Martin’s, GY4 6NB.