Town Park

The States of Jersey approved the principal of a Town Park being created upon the ex-Gas Works site and Talman car park in 2000.  It would be remiss if we did not raise questions on this decision in light of the current financial climate and the knock on effect that the creation of the Town Park now has on other near by sites, particularly the overall expenditure that will be incurred.

The complete project costs could be viewed as follows:

New Town Park    £  9.0 m
Construction of new multi-storey car park £23.0 m
Replacement of displaced housing  £12.5 m
      £44.5 m

Demolition of Minden Place car park and redevelopment of site not included.

Apart from the planning and traffic issues in creating such a large car park in a largely residential area, it is the full costs of the combined project which are of particular concern.   The figure of £44.5 million, may well increase depending upon uncertain ground conditions at Ann Court evidenced by the current condition of the buildings upon the site, (probably caused by some sub-structural problems) and of course the remediation programme for the Town Park site; the current plan is not to remove all of the contaminated material from the site, only a proportion of it.

The estimated £44.5 million does not include the land or site values, which would be a major consideration for private developers.

Gas Place car park, say    £  1.0 m
Talman site (purchase price 1998)   £  4.3 m
Salisbury Crescent (required for displaced housing) £  2.0 m
Ann Court, say     £ 10.0 m
Write off value for Minden Place   £  1.2 m
TOTAL      £18.5 m

Therefore the full project appraisal could be circa £63.0 million.

Although the social and economic benefit is difficult to quantify, Price Waterhouse Coopers stated in a report that the estimated economic benefit would be well over £100 million. Perhaps they should be asked to review their document and further advice, as it is difficult to see how this will be achieved.  There is also the future running costs of the Park to consider as the estimate from 2011 is £340k p.a., will St Helier rate payers be expected to foot the bill?

Much reference is made to the EDAW report which initially suggested the construction of a car park at Ann Court, however, to the best of our knowledge the report has not been adopted although many of the recommendations are put forward in the Island Plan Review: Strategic Options Paper (July 2008).  It would be reasonable to assume that Ann Court was not put forward for redevelopment in isolation so is there some cherry picking going on here? Furthermore, the Planning Minister has now stated that he will be appointing UK architects to Master Plan this sector of town. We are therefore not sure if all projects will be put on hold until the results of the Master Plan are known.

This brings us full circle to where this update started, the States made a decision 9 years ago to create a Town Park in a far better financial climate and without all of the bolt-on extras that now form the complete project. The public/businesses need assurance that this is now viable in its current context.  St Helier is fortunate to be a seaside town that already has some very fine beaches and parks, so perhaps it would not be too much of a hardship to prevaricate a little longer to ensure that project funding can be fully justified, especially as the contract to create the Town Park will be let to a UK company.