New plans for airport hotel still 'too intimidating'

Plans to build a hotel and conference centre near Jersey Airport have been resubmitted.

The £55m project, put forward by Strive Health Club in St Peter last summer and later rejected by the island's planning committee, has now been downscaled.

Previously set to include 179 bedrooms, 124 parking spaces, a spa and a swimming pool, it will now have five stories instead of six, 24 fewer suites and a smaller physical footprint.

Strive Health Club's managing director Ben Harvey said they had decided on a revised application rather than an appeal. But St Brelade Deputy Jonathan Renouf said the new plans were still "too big for what is predominantly a rural location" and called them "too intimidating".

Harvey added the club had been working hard "as one team" with the government on trying to make the new plans a reality.

Renouf, who had urged his political colleagues to reject the application in 2025, told BBC Radio Jersey on Monday: "We're talking about a green zone area here, where the bar for new buildings is already quite high.

"The original application would have been taller than La Corbière lighthouse, and this new submission is only smaller than that by a few feet.

"You've only got to look at the flood lights at the rugby club just up the road to get an idea of how high it would be - you'd pretty much have to crane your neck to see the top of it."

He said while Jersey "absolutely needs new tourist developments", he downplayed the building being pitched as "an airport hotel that visiting sports teams could stay in".

"Town itself is only 20 minutes away and that's always been enough in the past," said Renouf.

He added the lack of submitted visuals for a structure "potentially visible from many miles away" had also done nothing to alter his perception of the plans as being "too intimidating".

Back in November, all seven members of the planning committee - three of which voted in favour of the plans - agreed with the principle of a hotel on the site but were concerned about its size and scale.

Members also noted the application breached 21 policies in the Bridging Island Plan - the document that dictates how each area of land in Jersey can be used.

In voting, the majority of committee members also echoed the views of Jersey's planning department, which had recommended the application be refused.

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