Jersey Hemp given extra year to stay at Warwick Farm

Friday 07 October 2022

Jersey Hemp has been given an extra year to stay at Warwick Farm, although the plan remains to turn the site into a Country Park for St. Helier.

Infrastructure Minister Tom Binet has recently signed an order giving the homegrown business more time to find a new home.

His predecessor, now-Constable Kevin Lewis, decided to exercise a break-clause in Jersey Hemp’s lease with the Government last December.

This was to give the Government the option of moving the Jersey Bowling Club from its Westmount home to Warwick Farm, in light of plans to realign Westmount Road through JBC’s green and clubhouse in order to improve access to a planned new hospital at Overdale.

Plans were submitted in May to create a new home for the club at Warwick Farm.

Since then, the new Government has said that the £804.5m cost of the hospital, as proposed, is no longer realistic and it has launched a review into the project, led by Deputy Binet.

Pictured: Plans were submitted in May for a new Jersey Bowling Club at Warwick Farm.

That review will be published a week on Wednesday. Its findings are obviously unknown, but one possibility is that the £15m realignment of Westmount Road is shelved, although all decisions will ultimately be for the States Assembly to make.

Westmount Road and the Jersey Bowls Club is owned by the Parish of St. Helier, which has so far resisted Government attempts to purchase the land. A compulsory purchase order, signed by the last administration, is on ice pending the hospital review.

Jersey Hemp has been based at Warwick Farm since 2018, after the company’s parent company signed a nine-year lease with the Government. 

Despite the new hospital being the reason for the break clause being enacted last December, it is likely Jersey Hemp will have to eventually move, whatever transpires at Overdale.

This is because, just three months later, the Assembly decided to designate the former States nurseries as a site for a County Park. Members backed an amendment by St. Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft to set up a project board to deliver the country park at Warwick Farm by 2025.

Today, the Constable said he did not anticipate any delay in creating the park, but he backed the Government’s efforts to help Jersey Hemp find a new home.

Jersey Hemp has been approached for comment.