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A former tomato farmer is urging the Government to ease the rules about redeveloping derelict glasshouse sites after a 23-year battle with the planning department left his family with mounting debt and an uncertain future.
Kevin Hervé, who operated Les Tours Farm in St Clement for decades, said that current regulations are blocking efforts to redevelop these sites – which are posing safety risks.
It comes after the Government recently clarified rules for the redevelopment of derelict and redundant glasshouses, following a consultation earlier this year that indicated support for allowing some sites to be used differently.
Pictured: The Government recently clarified rules for the redevelopment of derelict and redundant glasshouses.
Mr Hervé's farm, which once supplied tomatoes to major UK supermarkets like Tesco and Waitrose, ceased operations in 2008 due to increased competition from larger European producers that led to the collapse of the local industry.
With no Government subsidies or support, Mr Hervé said his business, like many others on the island, could not compete.
"I went out of business," Mr Hervé explained. "And virtually every other island tomato grower also went out of business that year."
Pictured: Mr Hervé’s farm, which once supplied tomatoes to major UK supermarkets, ceased operations in 2008.
Since then, the glasshouses at Les Tours Farm have fallen into disrepair.
Mr Hervé's insurance company declared the structures unsafe for use in 2014 – which ended any possibility of renting them out.
In November, Storm Ciarán caused further damage to the site. St Clement was among the hardest-hit areas on the island when a tornado, believed to be the most powerful in the British Isles in 70 years, tore through the parish.
The extent of the damage has made Mr Hervé worry about safety risks to children who play nearby.
"If a child falls through that greenhouse and gets badly injured or even worse, who's responsible?" he asked.
"I don't want anybody injured, and they [the greenhouses] are dangerous."
Pictured: The glasshouses at Les Tours Farm have fallen into disrepair, especially after being further damaged by Storm Ciarán in November.
Despite spending hundreds-of-thousands of pounds on site maintenance and planning applications over the past 23 years, the Hervé family has faced repeated rejections from the planning department.
A recent application to develop the site into seven houses and storage units was rejected – despite the plans proposing to restore over half the site to agricultural use.
"The planning office didn't give us any advice or help at all," Mr Hervé said.
"We've spent three to four hundred thousand pounds so far, and it would take another million to get the site back to just soil.
"There's no money to do that."
Pictured: Mr Hervé has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on maintenance and planning applications to redevelop the site, but these efforts have been repeatedly rejected by the planning department.
Mr Hervé claimed that the current planning policies are not only inflexible, but also inconsistent.
He pointed out that while his application was rejected, other similar sites have been granted permission to build houses.
"They need to examine their own policy and talk to the people who have been in the industry for so long," he said.
"It's a big, long history of planning nonsense. They've not come up with any solution. They've come up with the same old nonsense."
The Government has recently taken steps to address the issue of derelict and redundant glasshouses.
Under the current Island Plan, commercial glasshouses are considered temporary structures that should be removed at the end of their economic life, with the land returned to farming.
Pictured: Although the Government recently updated the rules for redeveloping derelict glasshouses, Mr Hervé believes the criteria remain too restrictive and has called for more practical solutions.
However, earlier this year, the Government sought islanders' views on allowing some glasshouse sites to be redeveloped.
Following this consultation, officials have published more detailed assessment criteria for the redevelopment of these sites.
The supplementary planning guidance, published last month, allows for redevelopment of glasshouse sites only in "exceptional circumstances".
Mr Hervé says that his situation should qualify as exceptional and that the criteria remain too restrictive, saying that more needs to be done to find practical solutions for these derelict sites.
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