Guernsey Harbours Local Planning Brief, States of Guernsey
A strategic policy document to enable positive change
The LPB will make the two main harbour areas on the island exceptional places to live, work, and play, alongside hosting important functional activities.
- Project Deliverables:
- Adopted Local Planning Brief
- Client:
- States of Guernsey, Development and Planning Authority
- Collaborators:
- Aspinall Verdi; Momentum Transport; Beckett Rankine; Expedition Engineering; Fisher Associates; Participatr
- Location:
- Guernsey
- Status:
- Adopted April 2024
Tibbalds were appointed by the States of Guernsey to make a formal amendment to their Island Development Plan - in the form of a Local Planning Brief - which covers the two main Harbour Action Areas of St Peter Port and St Sampson.
This framework sets out policies, guidance and strategic proposals for land use to enable positive resilient change to happen across the harbours over the next 10-15 years. It takes a comprehensive view of this future change and covers: land uses and maritime infrastructure; delivery of new development and commercial opportunities; flood risk and mitigation strategies; movement networks; public realm improvements; and climate resilience.
Purpose of the LPB
The purpose of the Local Planning Brief is to create new planning policy for the two Harbour Action areas on the island and is a requirement of the Island Development Plan. The documents itself is a strategic framework to guide growth and change across over the next decade and to allow key decisions to be made to support economic growth and people focussed activity whilst protecting the islands critical infrastructure. The Local Planning Brief has been put together to enable applicants and development management officers to be clear on what is expected across the two areas and to provide a framework for good decision making.
The harbours are incredibly important assets on the island and serve several critical functions. Primarily they are the principal locations for the import and export of freight and people, as well as other marine related industries (such as boat servicing and marine leisure functions). But they are also the focus of important visitor and placemaking functions with rich heritage, visitor attractions and historic buildings. Each harbour is part of one of the two main towns which together provide most of the commercial and employment functions on the island. St Peter Port in particular is a popular destinations for tourists.
The harbour action areas are also areas of critical infrastructure and subject to the impacts of climate change, particularly in relation to flooding, they are also key locations where fuel arrives on the island and is stored for future use and so are critical for a range of island wide functions. Plans had previously considered relocating the commercial port part of the harbours to a new location but as yet no decision has been made on this move. This meant that the Local Planning Brief needs to consider both how the harbours need to continue to work with the current port operations arrangements, with future climate change adaptions and in place and as they might be relocated in the future.
As a result, the Local Planning Brief needed to coordinate a wide range of issues and alternative futures whilst at the same time allowing the existing necessary operations to be maintained, and then within all this making space and opportunities for new uses, development opportunities and economic growth.
Delivering the LPB
To deliver the Local Planning Brief Tibbalds assembled a specialist consultant team with experience and understanding of the maritime related challenges relevant to the island and economy of Guernsey. Our work started with careful analysis of a wide range of existing evidence and previous documents as well as our own urban design and technical analysis, including a thorough mapping of how the harbours are used today both for formal land use and designated activities but also for more informal and incidental uses such as fishing, swimming and viewpoints. We looked at how the harbours work today, where there are clashes between different user groups and where things aren’t working as they could.
The team’s analysis of the harbours highlighted for example, the dominance of surface car parking, minimal greening, and the evolving nature of importing fuels and the impact this had on land use. A key issue around coastal flood defence was identified and Expedition’s work to set out the possible climate change impact in flooding terms across both harbours over the next 80 years really helped highlight this as an issue for many key stakeholders and local people.
The team’s holistic work across both harbours and a wide range of topics helped identify ‘resilience’ as a core theme across the new policy document, encouraging the harbours to become more resilient for people, infrastructure, the environment, and importantly port operations. The document also identifies encouraging investment into Guernsey as a key objective of the document, and by focussing on resilience as a key theme, the cyclical relationship between investment and infrastructure is established and promoted.
Alongside this technical analysis, Tibbalds led the community and stakeholder engagement across the project. This included in-person community engagement sessions across the two towns, and workshops with interested groups and stakeholders. We also frequently liaised with the Guernsey Development Agency, who will help deliver some of the forthcoming projects, and other local organisations and specialists. The engagement was instrumental in helping us to understand important issues for local people, and how they would like to see the harbours evolve – for example through celebrating heritage assets and the area’s history.
Tibbalds’ role
Our role on this project included:
- Leading the consultant team to create new planning policy that is coherent, well considered and robust
- Project and consultant team management
- Community and stakeholder engagement including workshops, exhibitions and website
- Place-based analysis of the two Harbour Action Areas
- Input into EIA Screening process
- Supporting the client team through key gateways, committee sign-offs and the Examination in Public
- Writing, justifying and explaining new planning policies for the Harbour Action Areas
- Graphic design, including engagement materials, diagrams and proposals maps
- Training for planning officers on how to use the Local Planning Brief
What does the LBP include?
The adopted Local Planning Brief combines policies, policy maps, and potential development scenarios, interspersed with precedent examples and case studies. This engagement and the robust evidence base underpins the recommendations and policies in the document, and an independent planning inspector found these to be sound in December 2024.
The overall vision is that:
“Both St Peter Port and St Sampson will be resilient, thriving working harbours into the long term which service the island and enable the broadest range of residents and visitors to: enjoy the waterside location; access shops and work in the towns; and move around safely and efficiently.”
This vision is supported by a series of objectives, which are grouped under six themes that then flow through the rest of the document and are used to organise the policies themselves.
The document puts in place 18 new planning policies organised across these themes covering issues such as safeguarding the port functions, reorganising fuel storage through decarbonisation, safeguarding marine related industries, waterfront enhancement, and supporting sustainable travel choice. With climate change threatening coastal infrastructure worldwide, the policy introduces new flood risk protections while identifying development opportunities suited to different risk zones.
The policy framework emerged from extensive stakeholder consultation involving States officers, the Guernsey Development Agency, the Ports Authority, and local communities. This collaborative approach ensured the final policies directly reflect real-world needs and constraints.
The adopted LPB was produced by a Tibbalds led team which included Expedition, Momentum, Aspinall Verdi, Beckett Rankine and Fisher Associates.
It now provides the policy foundation for positive development decisions while safeguarding Guernsey's harbour infrastructure against future climate challenges – a model that could influence similar island and coastal communities facing the dual pressures of development and climate resilience.
For more information please visit the States of Guernsey website.
The LPB can be downloaded here.