Preliminary work on Town Park to start

21 August 2007

Work is to start on creating St Helier ’s Town Park now that funding has been established through the Capital Programme. The Transport and Technical Services Department (TTS) will now undertake a feasibility study into the proposals made in the EDAW St Helier Regeneration Project.

The EDAW consultants published their work earlier this year and showed how the whole of the town area could be improved to provide better facilities for residents, businesses and shoppers. Significantly, for those who have been hoping for a new area of public space on the old Gas Works site in Bath Street , the proposals made specific recommendations for a Town Park.

Although initial plans were to construct an underground car park below the Town Park, the costs proved to be too high. EDAW was therefore asked to look at opportunities for the best use of the site. The proposal was for a park on the Gas Place site with a separate multi-storey car park to be built on Anne Court. This new car park would not only replace the lost spaces from the current long-stay car park at Gas Place but also the Minden Place short-stay shoppers’ car park.

TTS Chief Officer John Richardson said: ‘The EDAW work gave us detailed information which showed how we could create a new public space which will be a great benefit to the people who live in, or visit, this part of town. My department will now set to work on turning the plans into reality – we expect by 2011’

The feasibility study should be complete by the end of October and will provide accurate costs to plan the way forward.