Water has started to run through the Water Lanes again – after they temporarily ran dry.
The pedestrian walkway, near the old St Peter Port School had been at the centre of news reports over the past week, after it was revealed that a grid could be installed over part of the stream to enable cyclists to reach the new post 16 campus at Les Ozouets.
People walking through the lane on Thursday morning raised the alarm when they spotted the stream was running dry, with reports that fish were seen struggling in small puddles of water where they would usually swim freely.
Some people wondered if the stream had been dried out intentionally – by diverting its water source – to enable work to go ahead to install a metal grid across it.
However, on Thursday afternoon Guernsey Water revealed the answer to the mystery.
The utility had nothing to do with the work that had led to the stream running dry, but a spokesperson said they had wanted to let the public know what was going on.
The stream that runs through the Water Lanes passes through land at St Pierre Park Hotel, slightly further uphill, on the other side of the Rohais.
With Guernsey Energy doing some work in the area, a trench needed to be dug underneath the stream.
To prevent that trench filling up with water, sandbags had been placed further up stream, at St Pierre Park Hotel to divert the water into ponds.
The sandbags were removed on Thursday afternoon allowing the water to flow downstream again.
The mystery occurred hours before Education, Sport, and Culture bowed to public pressure and announced a temporary reprieve for the Water Lanes.
The committee had previously been told that it needed to improve pedestrian and cyclist access to the new Les Ozouets Campus, as part of a planning condition imposed by the Development and Planning Authority when it gave the green light for the building work now underway at the old St Peter Port School site.
ESC had been told it needed to come up with plans to improve the pedestrian and cyclists access within six months of the building work starting.
ESC has asked for an extra six months to look at other options, acknowledging the “strong public reaction” to its grid proposal.
A petition against that idea garnered more than 600 signatures in just a few days after being launched by the landlord of La Couture Inn.