Public Consultation could come for Eastern Sea Board ideas

Tuesday 29 May 2018

The President for Economic Development has outlined a number of ideas for the redevelopment of St Peter Port harbour and the island's Eastern Sea Board following the release of the new ED strategy.

Deputy Charles Parkinson was speaking at the Institute of Directors' monthly lunch last Friday, explaining the new strategy, and went into detail about some of the projects that Guernsey could see take place.

From harnessing tidal power, to reclaiming Belle Greve or more of North Beach, he also explained his plans for how these ideas would be filtered out and then delivered when decided upon.

Prioritising the Seafront Enhancement work was one of 20 action ideas produced in the new plan. While Deputy Parkinson said these were not targeted for 2020, but rather more long term plans.

"There are huge opportunities on our eastern sea board - the jewel in our crown - that we could really do more with," he said. "Belle Greve is going to be one of the centre points of any work, I think we need to test public opinion to ascertain to what extent they would support development there.

"Then there are also possibilities for the future of North Beach, if we could get the freight off of there it would open up a lot of room for work. We could sink it a level, for example."

One current issue Deputy Parkinson said was attached to the issue was that of a deepwater berth. The States have been looking into options for bringing oil into the island since its purchase of a tanker, but has yet to settle on any one idea.

Pictured: The Longue Hougue Waste Transfer Station is currently under construction to the north of Belle Greve, near where Deputy Parkinson spoke about the potential for a deepwater berth.

Again while discussing ideas, he spoke about the potential to have a deepwater berth installed to the north of Belle Greve, around the Longue Hogue, which would move industry out of St Peter Port.

"With that we could then build around the marina - the options would be endless," he said.

"I am hoping there would be some general consensus on what should be done, and I think that conversation with the public needs to be had. It should generate an enormous amount of interest either way."

One question raised by a member of the IoD was how this scale of project would be delivered before the end of the States term in 2020, when theoretically the entire process could start again.

Deputy Parkinson said it would have to be a matter of a collaborative approach: "There are less than 20 people in Economic Development who are working on policy development, so we are not going to make progress without having the community's input.

"Ideally we would develop a vehicle to work between the public and private sectors to work on something like this, and outside of a committee and States terms, to allow it to take the time it needs but keep the ball rolling."