Another Guernsey field could be lost forever

This week we found out that yet another field has been earmarked for development. The field in question is almost directly opposite the hospital entrance, where I work as a nurse. The Oberlands Lane is very narrow and already under huge strain from traffic. Two bus routes use the lane, as well as ambulances transporting sick patients, often as emergency journeys. Commuters use it as a cut-through, as well as everyone attending hospital during the day. At times, the traffic is completely gridlocked, and vehicles are obliged to reverse back up Oberlands Lane to allow ambulances to enter the hospital safely. During my working hours at the hospital, I have often seen ambulances stuck in this traffic, their blue lights powerless to help them. The lane is too narrow for a pedestrian walkway, yet plenty of pedestrians are forced to run the gauntlet with the traffic, many of them children walking to and from school. I have seen pedestrians having to wait in private driveways for a safe gap in the traffic.

Therefore, you can imagine our shock and disbelief to hear that yet another field opposite the hospital entrance has been earmarked for nine houses to be built. The plans include four double storey and five triple storey houses, with parking spaces for 18 cars. How is this little Oberlands Lane going to cope?

The planning application states that no hedges or trees will be removed. This is untrue; they plan to remove the entire hedge along the width of the proposed development. Putting a bat box on each new house does not make them ‘environmentally friendly’. There is no regard for the nesting birds, hedgehogs and other small creatures that live in the hedge they are planning to remove and in the field, which they are planning to pave over.

They also state that this is not a flood area. This is again untrue. The corner by the hospital entrance floods every time we have heavy rain. Removing a field on that corner, and replacing it with non-permeable surfaces will only exacerbate the problem.

A development of this size should be in keeping with its surroundings. The Oberlands Lane is full of bungalows, some of which have been converted to one and a half storey properties. The proposed development will fill the field with double and triple storey houses that will overshadow and destroy the privacy of the surrounding properties. This proposed development smacks of another greedy landowner trying to get rich.

Planning for such a huge development in such a small rural area so close to the hospital should be refused. Are we just going to keep building on green fields until there are no fields left in Guernsey? There must be another way to cope with the housing shortage. There are derelict sites all over Guernsey. Shouldn’t we be developing these first?

JEAN EVANS

Editors footnote: Response from the Planning Services: Planning applications are published to allow the community to see what is proposed by a site owner and submit representations either in support or against the application. This takes place before any decision-making by the Planning Service. Therefore, the service is not able to comment at this stage.

Anyone wishing to submit a representation to the Planning Service will need to do so by 20 June 2022.