DPA starting to look as though they see their job as ‘paving paradise’
‘WHY the aggro?’ That rather disingenuous question asked by ‘shocked and disappointed’ developer of the Fort Road fields, Mr Asked-not-to-be-named, is clear to anyone who loves Guernsey. Another much-loved landscape has been taken from us, yet again by faceless planners in closed committee meetings, ignoring residents’ objections entirely. Guernsey may be small – even insignificant to those international financiers who fund these ‘developments’ – but it’s all we’ve got, with its quirky crooked lanes, patchwork of meadows, unregulated richness of habitats, wildlife and natural diversity. As Horace Camp recently celebrated/mourned in the Guernsey Press in his resonant article, ‘What is wrong with the Guernsey way?’
The Fort Road site was a green lung, a continuation of the wildflower meadow established across the road by the States in 2017. As Peter Frankland’s drone shot from above shows, what has been left by the heavy earth-moving equipment looks like the ground has been razed in preparation for an industrial estate. No expense spared. (There are parallels – that gracious old lady, the Bella Luce, stands roofless and neglected in a wasteland of rubble... raising suspicions that the plan might be to encourage sufficient decay to get knock-down permission and a profitable redevelopment of the site. Ditto the Auberge at Jerbourg. ‘Big money’ wins, Guernsey residents lose another much-loved landmark.)
It’s no coincidence that all the letters in the same Press that covered the Fort Road ‘aggro’ (since when has peaceful and justifiable protest qualified as aggression?) concern the Grande Mare pylons. Another switch of planning permission behind closed doors. Is it any wonder that a groundswell of objections is gathering force? If members of the planning authority no longer realise that they are there to serve the people who pay their salaries, don’t be surprised if there’s a pushback from those who are deeply concerned for their environment and aghast at what is being allowed to blight it.
Shocked and disappointed? I think that’s the very least we feel when we see the damage being permitted to the remaining precious green spaces of Guernsey.
The DPA is starting to look as though they see their job, in the words of Joni Mitchell, to ‘Pave Paradise, put up a parking lot’.
We can’t let them get away with it yet again. This is a battle for Guernsey’s soul.
J LE PAGE