Calls to protect hotels at St Brelade's Bay rejected on day three of the Bridging Island Plan debate

Members voted to add a completion date of December 2023 for an Improvement Plan for St Brelade's Bay. Credit: ITV Channel TV.

Calls to protect hotels and other visitor accommodation from being turned into housing or retail use at St Brelade's Bay were rejected on day three of the Bridging Island Plan debate.

The plan is the blueprint for planning policy for the next three years, and States Members are spending the week discussing how it should look.

There were calls to protect the visitor accommodation in the area ensuring that a hotel stay as a hotel for example, and is not sold for housing. But members voted to reject that extra protection.

Deputy Gregory Guida who voted against the amendment said rather than implementing a blanket block on changing a buildings use, they should just consider each individual application for a change of use carefully.

He said: "We have to understand that you cannot force a business to make money, if it can't, it can't and it won't and it will just not happen.

"So the only way this would work is if the government purchases hotels and then run it themselves at a loss, so that's the way it would work.

"As I mentioned in the assembly a hotel is the best, most lucrative use of real estate, so if you cannot make money out of a hotel it cannot be in that place, it just cannot be."

Senator Sam Mezec says places like St Brelade's Bay are what makes Jersey special and they need to be protected for everyone to use.

He said: "I'm really worried that as time goes by that we are going to lose a lot of special places along our coastline, that are open for tourists and visitors to enjoy and I'm worried if we don't safeguard tourism business premises in these places that over time, we will lose some to luxury mansions and I think that would be a really sad thing to happen to the island."St Brelade's Bay featured heavily today's debate (March 17) with members also voting to add a completion date of December 2023 for an Improvement Plan for St Brelade's Bay.

Members were worried that without an overarching plan, there could soon be some irreparable damage to its character.