1,250 new homes planned for the Bridge area, says douzenier

Proposals to build eight new homes at the 'triangle field' in Braye Road could be the straw that broke the northerners' back, according to planning research by a douzenier. He has also produced the above illustration highlighting the impact of the developments and the effects of the new St Sampson's High School.

Rob Gill has calculated that there are now 19 sites totalling 1,252 properties in the pipeline and they are all in the area of the Bridge.

That, says the St Sampson's official in a Guernsey Press article, represents a 50% increase in dwellings in an area of less than a square mile and will lead to an equivalent rise in population and vehicle use.

At the same time, he argues, Environment and Infrastructure has failed to produce an Island Infrastructure Plan, despite being proposed by the States back in 2009. That means the impact of the proposed development is unknown and traffic junctions are already congested and over capacity.

Significant questions
Vale Senior Constable Richard Leale said Mr Gill's article raised a number of interesting questions, not least who was going to live in all the new houses. Feedback from an estate agent suggested the property market is extremely slow, and that homes people can afford and actually want to live in are not being built.

Mr Leale questioned what the northern deputies were doing to protect open areas in the Vale and Sampson's. With 12 representatives between the two parishes, that ought to be a significant lobby within the States, especially as they included the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister.

'Is it not the case that once a plan is written and produced it's already out of date?' said Mr Leale. 'The Island Development Plan needs to be challenged – something only our deputies can do.'

'To reiterate, all of these developments should be frozen until Leale's yard has been developed.'