Tuesday 23 September 2008

Another hotel going?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOZPtEDHEV4

This is a video of St Brelade's Hotel. A lovely hotel, run by the son of the late owner, and always full of flowers in the summer months. My great-grandfather use to drink there - and I am told drank away a not inconsiderable amount of farmland!

Since the owner died, the hotel ownership has passed to three children, one of whom runs it as manager, and the other two live in the UK. The one over here would like to buy the others out, and has made a very reasonable offer - but, of course, it cannot compete with what the developers (always waiting in the wings) are prepared to offer, for developing the building as luxury flats, or for demolishing and putting something else in its place. Either way, the hotel will be gone for good, and as old postcards show, it has been in the bay for many years.

It is a pity we can't have a "sea zone", like the green zones, to protect hotels close to the sea, always popular for tourists, especially in a bay like this. Once gone, they won't return, and countless ones - the Bryn-Y-More along the La Haule to Beaumont road is another - they won't be back again. The St Brelade's Bay hotel is commercially viable - but worth more if developed and sold as housing. What a shame that would be!

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