Southwest St Helier Visioning Framework, Jersey – Jersey Development Company with Gillespies

Plans for this 11.5 ha waterfront site will deliver 1,000 new homes, including affordable housing, two GP practices, a dental practice, nursery, flexible work and community spaces as well as an art-house cinema and extensive leisure facilities. A new 400-space cycle hub and over 1,700 residential bike-parking spaces, will encourage low-carbon transport and support wellbeing.

Where is the project located 
St Helier Waterfront, Jersey, JE2
 
Who is the developer/client of the project?
Jersey Development Company

Describe the context of this project, its neighbourhood and people?

St Helier is the economic, social and cultural centre of Jersey, a town with a population of around 37,540 people. The town is built on low lying land, which is becoming increasingly vulnerable to flooding due to extreme storm events and rising sea levels. 

In the late 1970s, the reclamation of 56 acres of land from the sea to the south of the Esplanade in St Helier presented a long-term opportunity to create a new quarter for the town; thus the Waterfront was born. Over the years successive attempts have been made to realise the vision with mixed success, but a fundamental disconnect remains between the Waterfront and the town centre due to the La Route de La Libération, a highway that has significantly damaged the urban quality of the town.

St Helier’s future and growth relies on people wanting to live in and visit Jersey. An important factor influencing that choice is a well-connected and sustainable town where people and community matter – a great place to live, socialise and belong.

The proposals for the 11.5ha waterfront site builds on the island’s cultural significance and environmental aspirations. The project will transform the waterfront into a vibrant and highly sustainable mixed-use destination. Central to the project is the delivery of nearly 6.6 ha of public realm fusing history, landscape, architecture, art, food and culture. New urban connections are forged through the delivery of new coastal park amenities, leisure and play facilities, food and beverage offers and affordable housing.

 
Please describe your approach to this future place and its mix of uses. How will it function as a vibrant place? How does it knit into, and serve the needs of, the wider area?

The Southwest St Helier Visioning Framework will create a thriving and memorable multi-use urban space for all ages, treasured by residents and visitors alike. The project aspires to deliver civic generosity and a high-quality public realm that reflects St Helier’s character. 

The brief and design proposals have been truly community-driven, shaped through three stages of community engagement and extensive stakeholder consultation with public bodies such as Jersey Heritage and Jersey Sport. Community feedback has helped shape the spatial framework and the formation of five distinct character areas driven by use – residential, mixed-use, leisure, culture, commercial and gateway. Each zone has its own distinct identity and purpose, comprising a series of structured parcels referencing the existing historic town centre and its building typologies.

The Visioning Framework sets a benchmark in landscape-led urban planning, showcasing a human-centric environment that focuses on improving the quality of life of Islanders. A network of street typologies and public spaces shapes distinct journeys and moments, connecting the parcels and serving as a stage for local life. Ground floor duplex units offer a place for community gatherings, play opportunities or a place for a resident’s pot plants.

Four pavilions are distributed across the site, bringing life to the open spaces and serving the community’s day-to-day needs by accommodating purpose-built facilities such as a ferry ticket kiosk, changing facilities, and a series of cafés and public toilets. The pavilions are seen as architectural ’gems’, envisaged as single commissions that allow for a contemporary and playful architectural component.

 
What is the environmental impact of the project? How will the carbon use and material impact of the development be mitigated? What is the sustainability strategy? 

The Visioning Framework responds to Jersey’s aims for carbon neutrality by 2030 and has been designed to meet the highest standards of sustainable design and construction, including energy, water and waste saving measures together with open space and ecological enhancement measures. Gillespies used a sustainability framework to establish a set of performance indicators that will be used throughout the lifetime of all design and delivery stages. The team collaborated with local ecologists to refine the quality of emerging habitats and used the London Plan’s Urban Greening Factor calculator to benchmark the scheme. 

Environmental measures include raising the coastal sea wall and promenade levels, introducing secondary defence measures behind the sea wall to prevent flooding and the deployment of sustainable drainage systems in the form of bio-retention swales, rain gardens and above basement attenuation across the site. Furthermore, the incorporation of permeable paving, drought-tolerant planting, new habitats, bat and bird boxes and extensive tree planting along movement corridors will further add to the Frameworks’ sustainability credentials.

New facilities, including a 400-space cycle hub and over 1700 residential bike parking spaces, will encourage low-carbon transport and support well-being.

During construction, all site stone will be salvaged for reuse onsite to reduce waste. Materials will be sourced locally or obtained within Europe to reduce the scheme’s carbon footprint and no single-use plastic products, or construction packaging will be accepted in the development.

 
Describe the social impact of the project: How will this future place contribute to the economic, environmental and social wellbeing of its citizens?  Please provide any evidence or data.

This Framework is designed for the ‘Jersey way of life’; it’s for the hard working entrepreneurial spirit, a desire to promote and eat fine food, a place to run, walk, cycle and play amongst nature, a place to hide from that ‘howling’ south-westerly, a place to appreciate views of the historic forts and castles, an extension of town and a place to grow a sustainable legacy for the children of Jersey. 

The Framework will deliver 1000 new homes, including affordable housing.

Outdoor activities are inherently part of the Jersey DNA. A community-led ingredients list of public uses and appropriately scaled spaces were developed and include new parkland, play hubs, sports ‘rooms’, art and heritage trails, new squares and pedestrian streets for residents and locals.

The mix of ground floor land uses has been carefully crafted to serve the needs of the new residents as well as the existing wider community and visitors. The distribution includes:

•1024m² Social infrastructure - 2 GP practices, 1 dental practice, 1 nursery, flexible workspace and flexible community space

•2168m² Arts & Culture - Art-house cinema, flexible arts, culture & community space

•7352m² Leisure - 2 gyms, training pool, outdoor lido, kids zone with flumes, roller/ ice rink/ indoor skate/ bouldering centre

•1346m² Retail - 1 large convenience store and 6 smaller local retail units

•17025m² Office - including flexible workspace

An estimated 1,500 full-time jobs will be created once operational and add over £90 million in gross value to the Jersey Economy.