Route Orange apartment plan is approved after successful appeal

Saturday 22 April 2023

13 two-bedroom apartments will be built within the grounds of a single property in St. Brelade, after an initial refusal by the Planning Committee was overturned.

Dandara initially applied to knock down ‘Fair Acre’, which is towards the western end of Route Orange between Les Quennevais and La Moye, and replace it with flats last year.

This was rejected by the group of politicians in October, who concluded the development would be “dominant and intrusive, thereby unreasonably affecting the character and amenity of the area and the environment.”

The following month, the developer lodged an appeal, arguing that the committee had not paid “proper regard” to its supporting documents included with the application and they had “misunderstood” and “paid insufficient regard” to various policies of the Bridging Island Plan – which is essentially the rulebook against which all planning decisions are judged.

Pictured: The Bridging Island Plan confirmed Les Quennevais as the island's "secondary main urban centre". (Gary Grimshaw/Photoreportage)

The appeal was assessed by an independent inspector who ruled this month that the application did accord with enough policies of the BIP, including its identification of Les Quennevais as the island’s "secondary main urban centre".

The inspector concluded that the “existing house has no particular architectural or historic merit’, the number of apartments was “well within the capacity of the site” and they would be “set back some distance from the road, from which it would be well-screened by existing trees.”

The application was then approved by Assistant Environment Minister Hilary Jeune. Permission comes with an obligation for the developer to pay £33,250 to provide a bus shelter for town-bound buses and contribute towards two shelters to the east of the site.

Pictured: An appeal to overturn a refusal against the redevelopment of Melrose on Route Orange was thrown out by an independent inspector.

Meanwhile, an appeal against the refusal of another demolition and rebuild on Route Orange was rejected.

In late 2021, plans were submitted to knock down a large bungalow called Melrose and various outbuildings by the entrance to La Moye Golf Club and replace them with seven four-bedroom and four three-bedroom homes.

These were rejected by the Planning Committee last September, a decision that was recently upheld by an independent inspector, primarily on the basis that it would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of a neighbouring property.