What would make St Helier a more attractive place?
JEP reporter Rod McLoughlin asked a selection of Islanders what they think needs to be done to improve town.
Design spaces for people
Consultant, facilitator and founder of pilot, Public Voice: Common Ground, Sasha Gibb believes that a consultation she carried out which reached more than 2,100 Islanders points the way towards a “radical” approach.
“Based on the findings, I believe the biggest impact on the most people for the least expense would be to follow the lead of Paulista Ave, São Paulo, and start by closing historic St Helier to cars between 7am and 2pm every Sunday. Prioritise space for people,” she said.
Mrs Gibb pointed out that the pilot scheme revealed four key themes which recurred in comments made by Islanders of different ages – the need for green and wild space for the community; traffic and access issues; improved social infrastructure, including better public seating and free places to come together; and more entertainment, culture and community activity.
“We need to design spaces for people. The need for more free, green, community space was universal across interviews, surveys and discussions – for example, out of 1,380 survey respondents, 79% wanted more trees, 71% wanted more spaces to sit or walk with no agenda.
“The pilot delivered case studies and gathered community data at a pop-up park at Weighbridge Place – dwell-time increased five-fold after laying turf and designing a more people-friendly space. Over 99% of visitors said they wanted to see more spaces like this in St Helier,” she said.
More green space
The message from St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft is that town is already a “really attractive place” and he drew attention to the newly created public space outside the Jersey Arts Centre in Phillips Street as an example of a recent enhancement.
St Helier was, he said, “already punching above its weight”, with higher shop occupancy than the UK and entrepreneurs prepared to invest in new business opportunities but he repeated “two big issues” which remained priorities for him.
“The first is the lack of green space. St Helier doesn’t have a lot, which is why I want to see the Millennium Town Park extended.
“There is a need for more greening so it’s disappointing, for example, that there’s been no tree planting in front of the new flats on St Saviour’s Road,” he said.
His second issue is the lack of parking for town residents which has a knock-on effect if those residents are then forced to park in public car parks that might otherwise be available for visitors to St Helier.
“St Helier residents have as much of a right to the benefits of the motor car as anyone else and while they may be able to walk to work in town, they still need access to a car at the weekend and on holiday. Planning guidelines should require new units of accommodation to have one parking space per unit,” he said.
And Mr Crowcroft added a third suggestion: there should be more open air performance and artistic activity, adding that he was enjoying Kaarina Kaikkonen’s installation at Charing Cross, created using shirts donated by Islanders.
“The more public art, the better,” he said.
Multi-purpose spaces
ArtHouse Jersey director Tom Dingle, though responsible for a number of alfresco art initiatives, highlighted a need he said emerged in many conversations with Islanders – the need for free indoor community spaces. He gave the children’s play zone at the Fort and the Jersey Library as examples of “valued refuges for many people, especially on the days when the sun doesn’t shine”.
“We have been delighted to add Capital House into that mix where people can come and see a variety of art for free.
“I am always excited about visions for multi-purpose spaces where a gallery, mixed with a performance venue, cinema, library can all exist under one roof with inviting and flexible communal spaces for people to mix and enjoy,” Mr Dingle said.
But ahead of new capital projects that might take time to materialise, Mr Dingle offered an immediate solution prompted by artist Ian Rolls’ project to provide a temporary art gallery on the Waterfront.
“I would advocate putting empty units and shop spaces to good use, even on short term lets.
“Jersey Development Company lending the units in the Horizon development to the group exhibition led by Ian Rolls was a brilliant recent example, but there are plenty of privately-owned spaces that could, with very little investment, serve the public as meeting spaces, freelance working spaces or indeed artist studio spaces, which would add colour and interest to our streets whilst boosting the creative economy.
“Finally, I love the variety of initiatives that we already have in the public realm from visiting French markets, to mini festivals and temporary art installations but we could always go bigger and more bold.
“An example is the living wall around the Hettich scaffolding on King Street could be used as inspiration to make our car parks into thriving walls of vegetation rather than concrete palaces.”
Like the Constable, Mr Dingle had one more thing to add.
“Oh, and I think a tea trolley in the library would be marvellous,” he said.
