Driving-range infrastructure has created a long-term scar on our west coast

To date a relatively small number of golfers have enjoyed their chosen recreation and everyone else has been able to benefit from the overall charm of the area. An amiable accord that came about through considered and sympathetic planning considerations forty years ago.

Fast forward to 2022/2023 and I cannot understand how our planning authority has concluded that the driving-range element of the proposals put forward by Pula Investments Ltd could have been approved.

Long stretches of netting suspended from pylons (some as high as 30 metres) were always going to be a major blot on such a beautiful area. There were obvious implications for neighbours too. Not just a few nearby either. Those located above and around the bay would also be clearly affected by this particular element of the plan.

It beggars belief that this could have been allowed to proceed.

My heart goes out to the many households located in the semi-circle around Vazon. Our planners have inflicted a detrimental life-changing decision upon them to accommodate a relatively small group of sporting enthusiasts under the guise of increased tourism and financial benefit to the island.

Is this facility really going to attract so many extra visitors to the island so as to justify a long term scar on our beautiful west coast?

The planting of trees to mitigate the visual impact of the netting structure will be of little comfort to those near neighbours whose outlook will be materially obscured by the finished netted structure.

I acknowledge that plans were available for the public to inspect and voice opinion on before the planning decision was made. However people are busy, plans are difficult to visualise.

The site owners produced an excellent ‘fly over’ video to show the public how the finished site was going to look. The video is still available to view. All overhead ‘fly past views’ do not appear to show the stretch of pylons that have now been erected. Perhaps with hindsight I was naive, but this communication was a comfort to me that the proposals were visually benign and that co-existence between golf and nature would be largely unchanged.

The public entrusts the States Development and Planning Authority and their parish douzaines to look after their interests. I do not understand how between them this matter has been allowed to get this far. I have lost confidence in both and I feel that the Guernsey public and parishioners have been let down.

A review of public consultation processes and procedures is required to make it easier for islanders to pick up on controversial elements of planning applications before something like this happens again somewhere else. If the impact of the driving range infrastructure had not been so well stage-managed, the public objections and representations would have been numerous, judging by the reactions we are now seeing.

If, as stated in their video, the site owners really do care about ‘protecting the environment, flora and fauna of the west coast’ they will work with our planners to find a way to accommodate a driving range on the site without pylons and preserve the co-existence between sport and our west coast environment that has existed up until now.

JASON LE RAY

Chanpetre

La Route Des Domaines

St Saviour’s