Skate park plans backed after appeal

Plans for a new skate park are "well thought out" and will give young people even more facilities, the planning minister has said.

The plans for the park in St Helier, Jersey, at the reversing bays at South Hill were reviewed by an independent inspector after an appeal challenged the original decision.

The former planning committee approved the plans in March, which included a moveable skatepark equipment, acoustic fencing, an accessible toilet and baby changing facility and CCTV.

Infrastructure and Environment said, once the Fort Regent site was redeveloped, which is planned for 2029, the skate equipment would be moved there and the remaining site would be turned into a cycle park.

The independent inspector concluded "none of the substantive grounds of appeal justified overturning the original decision and recommended that planning permission should be granted".

Senator Mark Boleat agreed with the inspector that the appeal was not justified.

He said: "The planning system has got to look at every factor that's relevant - the planning committee did that, the inspectors done that, and their conclusion was that the scheme should go ahead.

"Any development is going to have some adverse effect on some people and a very beneficial effect on others, and the task of the planning system is to reconcile those."

Follow BBC Jersey on X and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.