Closed petition Protect the 18 Green Field sites identified in the Island Plan from development.
As part of the draft proposals to create more accommodation in the Island during the interim period 2022 - 2025 the Government of Jersey has identified 18 fields of prime agricultural land for the development of Affordable Housing. They are all listed in Appendix 1 of the Bridging Island Plan.
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An overheated housing market, unfettered access to it by overseas investors, housing shortages and a complete lack of control over immigration is entirely the fault of this and previous Governments to deal effectively with the inexorable population growth. Their solution, apparently while they consider more long-term structural changes, is to build their way out of the crisis using fields in the green zone that have been feeding the local population for generations. No, no, no.
This petition is closed All petitions run for 6 months
372 signatures
5,000
Ministers responded
This response was given on 22 June 2021
To help shape the Island Plan, islanders are encouraged to make representations about the draft bridging Island Plan, in writing, before 12 July 2021 at https://haveyoursay.gov.je/consult/islandplan/.
Read the response in full
The draft bridging Island Plan seeks to meet the island’s housing needs over a five-year planning period (from 2021 to the end of 2025). The draft plan seeks to meet the housing needs of the existing local population resulting from changes in the way people live, such as living longer and in smaller households; it seeks to help meet some of the shortfall in housing supply that arose over the period of the last plan, where higher levels of in-migration were greater than originally planned for; and also to meet the housing needs that will arise from the projected increases in population over the coming plan period. It seeks to make provision for approximately 4,150 homes of which approximately 1,500 will be developed as affordable homes.
The spatial strategy of the draft bridging Island Plan seeks to ensure that most of the island’s need for homes is met from within the island’s existing built-up area. A strategic analysis of the supply of land and housing, as well as the capacity of these sources to meet the demand for homes, has been undertaken in the development of the draft Island Plan. This identifies and sets out a range of sources of housing supply, as follows:
• homes under construction
• sites with outstanding planning permission
• capacity of the town
• Government of Jersey and arms-length bodies-owned sites
• ‘windfall’ development, outside of town
• extensions to the built-up area (rezoning)
The proposal to rezone land to help meet the need for homes would, as currently proposed, provide approximately 450 homes or about 11% of overall provision. All of the homes proposed to be developed on these sites would be affordable homes.
The sites that are proposed to be rezoned have been assessed, relative to a range of criteria as set out in the Housing land availability and assessment of sites report which has included consideration of their current use and their value to agriculture, as set out in appendix 1 of the draft bridging Island Plan. Not all of the sites are in current agricultural use and those that are are not all of prime agricultural value.
The process for preparing and approving a new Island Plan is set out in law. This includes and makes provision for islanders to be consulted on the policies and proposals of the draft island Plan, and for any comments made to be reviewed by an independent planning inspector, before the draft island Plan is considered, amended, debated and approved by the States Assembly.
The draft bridging Island Plan is presently the subject of consultation and islanders are invited to make their comments, in writing, on the policies and proposals of the draft plan before the consultation phase closes on 12 July 2021. Advice on how to do this is set out online at https://haveyoursay.gov.je/consult/islandplan/consultation/.
Making comments directly as part of the consultation phase of the draft plan preparation ensures that islanders’ views will be considered by the Minister for the Environment and independent planning inspectors before the States Assembly debate the draft Island Plan in March 2022.