Following our recent submissions to the Planning Department and subsequent meeting with the Environment Minister, his Officers, the Applicant, and SOS members, we can now confirm that the Minister has added a condition to the planning consent relating to the first of six buildings (Building No 4) planned to replace the current Esplanade Car park with Jersey’s new ‘International Finance Centre’.
Before we began our campaign,
a large section of the historically important Georgian Sea Wall was destined to be destroyed and the raised promenade flattened.
SOS have received confirmation from the Principal Planner in charge of this development that this will now not happen, and that our submission has been accepted by the Environment Minister and the Planning Department.
The communication from the Planning Department includes the following statement:
“Following our productive meeting, the Minister has confirmed he saw merit in seeking to retain the maximum amount of the sea wall and promenade outside the building line, which, following discussion with the applicant we noted could total about 27m. The Minister noted final landscape works were already controlled by condition and required that the details of the retention of the majority of the retained sea wall, parapet and promenade are to be submitted by way of a further condition to require:
Prior to the commencement of development, drawings at no less than 1:100 scale shall be submitted to and agreed in writing by the Minister for Planning and Environment to show hard landscape treatments of the open areas to the north of the building hereby approved, to include the retention of the majority of the sea wall parapet, the sea wall face and the promenade, outside the building line and outside the key entrance points. All the approved works are to be completed in full prior to first occupation of the building hereby approved, and maintained in perpetuity thereafter.'”
Above: The section of the Esplanade Sea Wall and Promenade most of which will be now be saved and incorporated into the development.
But SOS now seek a moratorium on further development on the Esplanade Quarter.
The application for the second building (Building No 1) has now been lodged by the States of Jersey Development Company with Planning and the application details can be found on the Planning link here:
(If that link proves too slow, the main body of the objection can be viewed from our own link here:)
Following a week’s work with a new team, SOS just hit the 21 day deadline imposed by Planning, and on Tuesday 12th August 2103 we submitted our objection to the second of 6 office blocks which are planned to replace the Esplanade Car Park.
We are requesting an immediate moratorium on the development and that includes the first building no 4 passed by the Minister recently. Our grounds are those of exposing the public to potential financial risk by using their funds speculatively to build huge offices with as yet unspecified tenants. Also to pay for huge excavation work in contaminated land, including the construction of a 520 space underground car park.
There is an as yet unknown environmental health risk which the public could face when the huge excavations into known toxic fill happen. Our evidence has been gathered over 20 years and is in part presented in our documentation.
The Island Master Plan relating to the Waterfront has been changed ‘on the fly’ and is being changed almost daily from that approved by the States in 2008. What was agreed by them then is not what is planned now. No promised affordable housing, no wintergarden, no mix of retail or leisure, just cubes of ugly offices being built speculatively with your money.