Monday 29 January 2024
The current Policy & Resources Committee has decided not to proceed with new key worker housing at Le Bordage Seath, the field in the grounds of the Princess Elizabeth Hospital, and is withdrawing the planning application submitted by the previous Committee.
The decision not to proceed at this time has been made for two main reasons. Firstly, without prejudging the planning process, the Committee's own view based on advice received, is the application is very unlikely to succeed. It has already seen an extraordinary number of representations made against it by members of the community. The development of the field could only be approved as an exception if it is demonstrated that there are no other suitable sites available. The Committee believes that, with other developments now progressing on main centre sites, two of which are on previously developed brown field sites, it is very likely that the application will not be successful under existing land use policy.
Those developments are a further reason for the Committee withdrawing the application and freeing up resources that can be more usefully deployed elsewhere. Since it was submitted, progress is now being made on proposals for other key worker housing sites in close proximity to the PEH, including the Domaine des Moulins (former CI Tyres) site on La Charroterie, Braye Lodge on Ruette Braye and the mixed tenure development at Les Oberlands. These are all main centre sites and, subject to planning approval, could deliver more than a hundred new units in total.
The Committee will continue to work with Health & Social Care, and other Committees, to find further options for additional key worker housing, focusing on sites that are practical to deliver, in the fastest possible timeframes.
Deputy Lyndon Trott, President of the Policy & Resources Committee said:
"The need for more housing as a whole is a top priority for this States, and that includes more key worker housing which is important to the recruitment and retention of our health professionals, who are themselves essential to our island.
But we need to develop the most appropriate sites and be realistic about what is deliverable. As other sites are now progressing, it is more difficult to argue that the development of the green field site at Bordage Seath is strategically important at this time, and it's clearly a site that faces a lot of public and political opposition too.
I would like to acknowledge the very good work carried out by the previous Policy & Resources Committee on enabling developments at other key sites near the hospital, which are more appropriate brown field and main centre sites and, if they are granted planning permission, I hope to see work begin on each of those soon.
I've also given an undertaking to the Committee for Health & Social Care that we will work with them to look at other options and identify what is practically possible."
