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Jersey’s neighbouring island has been given the green light to a cannabis product business to develop a disused vinery site.
Guernsey's Celebrated Ltd has had its planning application granted meaning it can now put up a new building on the Douit Vinery site, which it says will be used as a "processing and packing area for distribution".
While the company has still not confirmed what it plans to grow in the vinery, it is considered likely it will be the island's first cannabis farm.
As things stand, a second application is still pending with the Development and Planning Authority which would see a number of high security measures put in place, including a full perimeter chain linked and barbed wire fence, security cameras and a gate.
Celebrated Ltd opened its first store in August last year - the Original Alternative - selling legal cannabis-based products.
Pictured: The application for some the erection of the building on the site has been approved, but the second application with much of the security equipment and fencing has not yet been approved or declined.
It is technically legal to grow certain types and relations of cannabis on the island, subject to licensing from the Health and Social Care Department. However, no one is sure exactly what Celebrated Ltd's plan is at the moment, and the firm has declined to say what it intends on growing, packing and distributing.
Nine representations were made against the application, based on the potential impact on traffic levels in the small lane leaving to the vinery site - the Douit Lane - as well as noise pollution and an effect on the nearby housing. But it was argued the application does fit in with the Island Development Plan, which encourages making use of vineries horticulturally wherever possible. This vinery is particularly fitting as the current glass houses are still usable.
When it comes to the legality of cannabis, an Alderney company has already looked at the possibility of growing Hemp on the island. But the laws could be changing in the near future, as the States are set to look further at medicinal cannabis options, and also to review the justice framework on how criminalised the class B drug is. It could be that the Vale vinery will be used to grow a product like hemp - an industry just starting in Jersey as well as Alderney - or it could be being prepared ahead of any impending changes.
Meanwhile in Jersey, Warwick Farm-based Jersey Hemp has been cultivating and growing industrial hemp – a relative of the cannabis plant – to create products such as cooking and CBD Oil.
When Express approached Celebrated Ltd in December 2018 to talk about the plans for the vinery, the company's Director, Tina Bolding, said she didn't want to comment until all of the applications were approved or declined. She did, however, suggest Hemp was not what they were going to be looking at.
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