18 April 2008
Planning and Environment Minister Senator Freddie Cohen has released, for consultation, a White Paper and new supplementary planning guidance to encourage the regeneration of St Helier. The new draft guidance sets out how the Minister could be more flexible in the future when dealing with planning applications that will breathe new life into St Helier’s buildings and sites with potential for redevelopment and re-use.
The new draft guidelines are just part of the work that is coming from the St Helier Development and Regeneration Strategy that is sponsored by the Council of Ministers and the Connétable of St Helier to promote and encourage the regeneration of the town.
“It is critical that the vibrancy and life of the whole of St Helier – not just the Waterfront - is maintained and enhanced” said Senator Cohen “and we are keen to encourage people to want to come and live in a town that can offer many benefits, amenities and opportunities. By encouraging more, good quality development in the heart of the town, we can provide places for people to live as well as ensuring that parts of the town do not stagnate. There are some key development opportunities in the town that can help the process of regeneration and the flexibility in these guidelines will also enable commercial premises to be more easily converted to residential use” he added.
The new draft guidance identifies a number of sites where planning standards could be reduced to encourage higher levels of design and development. It also sets out new, more flexible guidelines for parking and the provision of external amenity space.
A draft policy is included in the guidance to enable and encourage the re-use of commercial buildings in the heart of the town in anticipation of a number of office buildings becoming vacant as tenants migrate to new premises on the Waterfront.
The guidelines are in draft and have been issued in the form of a White Paper to give people an opportunity to comment on all aspects of its content. The consultation period will last for eight weeks, ending on 13 June 2008.
White Paper - New development guidelines for the town Adobe PDF
(66Kb) (opens in a new window)
Draft Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) Adobe PDF
(103Kb) (opens in a new window)
Regeneration of St Helier - Drawing No 1 Adobe PDF
(2357Kb) (opens in a new window)
Regeneration of St Helier - Drawing No 2 Adobe PDF
(2365Kb) (opens in a new window)
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