Four by six miles of wall-to-wall suburbia

Without our permission, consent is being given to cover the green fields of our little island with rows of identikit housing.

Housing for which, as we read in a recent Guernsey Press, demand is dropping. Because so much has been built already.

What is being done here reminds me of the same back-room decision, made by people who know the price of everything but the value of nothing, to demolish St James for a car park/police station. Courageous individuals fought to save it, and it is now seen as the pride of our performing community.

These fields are not unique and beautiful architecture – they are more important than that. Once built over, they are lost to us forever. They are the green and pleasant landscape that makes Sarnia so beloved, the fields that nurture birds, insects and flowers, the green lung that shows us the passing of seasons and that make us so much more than just an undistinguished satellite of mainland suburbia. Take that away, and what lifestyle does Guernsey offer to draw the professionals we need to come – or stay – in an isolated concrete outpost of the UK? If built over, we will never get these fields back.

So how about a resolution – no more appropriation of Guernsey’s countryside until the Frossard car park has been filled with high-density housing. Car parking for civil servants is not more important than preserving Guernsey’s natural environment while there’s still some to preserve.

J LE PAGE