The recently disassembled ice rink at the Weighbridge will return for the next three winters after the structure received planning permission yesterday – but Fort Regent may be its home in the longer term.
The 8m-high, 1,350 m2 tent – which has attracted 22,000 visits this season – received retrospective approval from the Planning Committee on Thursday.
The permission comes with various conditions, the main one being that the marquee can only be erected between 1 October and 31 January, until 2029.
This four-month window had been reduced from an initial six-month request.
The application was retrospective, covering this winter too, because of an earlier “administrative planning fee payment error” by the applicant, Jersey Development Company.
The application had attracted 58 public comments, including 12 against, which came mainly from the pétanque community over the loss of the Weighbridge terrain.
The Government’s Historic Environment Team had also formally objected, based on concerns about the impact of the large white marquee on nearby listed and non-listed buildings and the wider town landscape.
Could Fort Regent be the ice rink’s new home?
JDC Chief Executive Officer Lee Henry told the committee – a group of politicians who sit to determine larger and more controversial applications – that the marquee was “very much a temporary solution” and JDC was looking for a more permanent home.
This is likely to be at Fort Regent, where JDC is overseeing its redevelopment into what it describes as a “vibrant, all-weather leisure destination” complete with cinema, bowling alley and concert hall.
Emphasising the need to find a better location, Mr Henry said that the marquee had “dodged two major storms”, which included it “being at its limit” during last week’s strong winds. It had not yet been erected in 2023 when Storm Ciarán hit.
The five members of the committee unanimously supported the application, all concluding that the community and economic benefits of the rink outweighed concerns about its impact on the pétanque area and wider townscape.
Ice hockey players “delighted”
Present at the meeting to support the application were members of the Jersey Stingrays Ice Hockey Club.
Afterwards, chairman Simon Soar said: “I’m absolutely delighted to see it approved. We started pushing ice hockey properly two years ago and, since then, we’ve grown to a community of hundreds, with 70 regular players across our juniors and seniors.
“We are now playing a French team in two weeks and that would not have happened without the support of JDC in putting an ice rink in place. There aren’t enough sports in winter for kids to do, and this provides a real base for the local community.”
