Reason given for buying fields is meaningless

It is not the purchase per se that is the concern but the lack of a meaningful reason being given for the purchase. If they had been bought to protect them from future development, we would all (except the builders) be happy. However, the reason actually given is meaningless – it is ‘a strategic investment for the future’. In the future, this will allow the States to do (or try to do) what it wants with those three fields, just as it is now attempting to do with the field between the Duchess of Kent and the PEH.

As the report in the Press says, in private hands it would be very difficult for housing to be built on them as they are greenfield sites designated as ‘agricultural priority areas’. However, all that the States has to do is to play the Policy S5 card and prove that the development is strategically necessary in the public interest, and that can be a very debatable ‘truth’.

So, sometime in the future when the States has pulled its collective finger out with respect to developing the KE VII site (empty now for nine years with no planning done even though we have been crying out for housing all that time), do not be surprised when those three fields are included in the development plans and Policy S5 is invoked.

TONY LEE