STATES OF JERSEY COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY INTO FIELDS 848, 851 AND 853, BEL ROYAL, ST. LAWRENCE: FINAL REPORT Presented to the States on 19th September 2008 by the Committee of Inquiry into Fields 848, 851 and 853, Bel Royal, St. Lawrence STATES GREFFE TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary and Recommendations.................................................. 3 Executive Summary............................................................................ 3 Recommendations............................................................................... 7 Section 1 – Introduction............................................................................... 9 The decision to establish a Committee of Inquiry................................... 9 Membership....................................................................................... 10 Terms of Reference............................................................................ 10 Methodology....................................................................................... 11 The Site............................................................................................. 12 Background Information...................................................................... 13 Section 2 – Prezoning/Rezoning of the Site................................................... 15 Background........................................................................................ 15 Was the rezoning process efficient?..................................................... 17 Did the States Members have sufficient information to enable them to make an informed decision in relation to the sites?................................. 19 Should rezoning be a decision of States Members as a body?................. 21 Views of the parishioners.................................................................... 23 The Feasibility Study........................................................................... 25 Could the process be improved?........................................................... 29 Additional Comments.......................................................................... 31 Section 3 – The Development Brief and the period between 2002 and December 2004.......................................................................................... 33 The Development Brief....................................................................... 33 Early 2003 – May 2004....................................................................... 33 The remainder of 2004........................................................................ 37 Should there be development briefs and if so, what should they contain?. 37 Comments.......................................................................................... 38 Recommendations on the Development Brief process........................... 43 The noise issue during the period from rezoning to the end of 2004......... 44 Comments/Recommendations.............................................................. 47 Section 4 – The Effectiveness of the Consideration of the Application by the Planning Department from January 2005 onwards......................................... 48 Background........................................................................................ 48 Density.............................................................................................. 52 Consultation........................................................................................ 53 Size of Site/Encroachments................................................................. 54 Delays/Noise issue.............................................................................. 56 General.............................................................................................. 59 Environmental Impact Assessment....................................................... 60 Conditions attached to the permit/Planning Obligation Agreement........... 60 Section 5 – Impact on the Infrastructure of the west of the Island.................. 63 Traffic............................................................................................... 63 Drainage/Flooding............................................................................... 67 Conclusions........................................................................................ 71 Education........................................................................................... 72 Trees................................................................................................. 74 Section 6 – Miscellaneous matters................................................................ 77 Sheltered Housing............................................................................... 77 First-Time Buyer Eligibility.................................................................. 77 WITNESSES INTERVIEWED BY THE COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY 79 WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS/COMMENTS RECEIVED BY THE COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY............................................................... 80 RELEVANT LAW.............................................................................. 81 TABLE OF APPENDICES.................................................................. 82 STATES OF JERSEY COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY FIELDS 848, 851 AND 853, BEL ROYAL, ST LAWRENCE Executive Summary and Recommendations Executive Summary Section 2 – Prezoning rezoning of the Site The process by which the Bel Royal site (the Site) and other Category A sites were rezoned was less than efficient. It appears that there was a stark mismatch between the processes selected for development of the Island Plan 2002 and the level of funding allocated to facilitate those processes. The degree of consideration given to the selection of sites for rezoning and to the full implications of rezoning those sites was not sufficient. In particular, public consultation on the Category A sites identified in the Island Plan 2002 was less than effective. In relation to the Site, it is clear that prior to July 2002 the parishioners of St. Lawrence were generally aware of the possibility that the Site was being considered for rezoning; however, they appeared to be unaware either of the scale of the potential development or of the impact that the rezoning decision would have. A majority of parishioners thought that the whole Site would be considered unsuitable for housing due to flooding issues, which had been evidenced over many years. They clearly did not anticipate that the States would decide to rezone the land; yet once the land had been rezoned, as night follows day, planning permission was going to be given for development of the Site. There was some scope for improvement in the content, and the circulation, of the Feasibility Study (FS) for the Site. Comments from consultees were arbitrarily drawn, with no specific criteria used in the selection of the scale. Environmental Health were not provided with a copy of the FS and were therefore not given an opportunity to reflect on their earlier ‘no comment’ response, which was clearly flawed. The former issue did not seriously affect the content and purpose of the FS; however, the latter omission was unfortunate in that it compounded the initial (and fundamental) error by Environmental Health, who failed to advise Planning and Environment of the potential noise issue arising from the nearby Jersey Steel premises. The then Planning and Environment Committee did not implement the parish impact assessments recommended by Professor McAuslan. It is the view of the Committee that this recommendation should have been implemented. Although the Committee has found evidence that the underlying rationale for conducting such assessments may have been at least partially taken on board, and that several sites from the then draft Island Plan were withdrawn as a result, it also found evidence that this recommendation was not fully implemented due to resource and time constraints. The latter is regrettable. The relevance of the indicative yield numbers for each Category A site in the Island Plan 2002 was not raised during the States debate. This subsequently resulted in a number of States Members feeling that they had been misled or ‘bamboozled’. Relevant States Members may wish to reflect on why their respective contributions to that debate failed to flush out such a key issue before the decision to rezone was made. The Committee is pleased to note the view of the current Minister for Planning and Environment that the rezoning process can be improved. It endorses his proposals in this regard; however, it was most surprised to learn that in late May 2008 the Minister had elected to lodge ‘au Greffe’ a proposition to rezone approximately 58.5 additional vergées of land for lifelong dwellings (for people over 55 years of age) and for first-time buyers, without having first implemented the envisaged improvement in procedures (Projet No. P.75/2008 refers). This proposition was lodged some 6 years after the debate on the Island Plan 2002. The fact that the Planning and Environment Department (the Planning Department) and its political leaders had not been able in that time to reflect on the process adopted prior to 2002, and to improve upon it significantly prior to the lodging of that proposition in 2008, again lends weight to the Committee’s view that the Planning Department is fundamentally under- resourced. If the States wants an effective planning process which runs smoothly and efficiently, then it should be prepared to pay for it at the