States name final price for Les Quennevais fields

Wednesday 03 October 2018

After months of unsuccessful negotiations with owners of three fields crucial to the new Les Quennevais School project, the States have named the final price they’re willing to pay as £235,000 – one seventeenth of what the owners had demanded.

The Minister for Education, Senator Tracey Vallois, signed off the final offer yesterday, following warnings last month that waiting any longer to agree a price would delay building the new school by up to a year.

Despite States records showing a previous demand for £4million, the Minister has instead suggested a fraction of that sum: £235,000 (£15,000 per vergée and £58,900 “in respect of the reduction in value of retained land reduced by reason of severance from other land in the same ownership.”

If the offer is not accepted in eight days, the fields will be purchased without the owners’ consent and a compensation figure will be arranged by a Board of Abitrators.

Video: What the school is expected to look like once complete in 2020.

The final offer comes following negotiation difficulties that started in the first quarter of this year. 

Back in March, the then Minister for Infrastructure, Deputy Eddie Noel, explained that a forced sale was being considered as an option after the owners demanded £4million for the land – around 20 times the States’ original offer. He also reported that the offer had been caveated with requests relating to limiting usage of the fields.  

In an attempt to smooth things over in July, his successor, Deputy Kevin Lewis, lambasted the media for reporting on the previous fall-out, with States officials offering an alternative version of events: “The Minister wishes to make clear that (the owner) had not demanded £4 million, and that while a request was made to limit activity on the playing fields after 9.30pm on Sundays and Bank Holidays, this was not simply for the benefit of (the owners) but for all the nearby residents.”

Deputy Lewis added that it was hoped that the matter could now be resolved in a “spirit of cooperation, hopefully without the additional public expense of concluding a compulsory purchase.”

But this was unsuccessful and the 28-day process was initiated last month.

Express has contacted the field owners legal representative for comment.