This Is Guernsey

By Nigel Baudains

Avant Garden owner Nick Martel moved his marquee to Sausmarez Manor after he was forced to remove it from the Town Markets in 2007. (0455647)

AVANT GARDEN’S advocate said he would challenge the decision in court if the company was refused permission to keep its marquee at Sausmarez Manor.

The business has been trading from the site since July 2007, but it is now applying for retrospective planning permission to do so.

‘In the event of rejection, I will be issuing appeal proceedings in the Royal Court,’ said Advocate Roger Perrot, in a letter accompanying the application.

Avant Garden has had trouble finding permanent premises for several years.

It initially traded at Route de L’Eglise, Castel, before moving to a shop in Le Pollet.

It later moved to Valnord Hill where its shop was destroyed by fire in May 2006.

From October of that year to February 2007, it traded from a temporary marquee at Les Cotils.

That summer it moved its marquee to the terrace at the Town Markets, but at the end of June the Environment Department closed it down after four weeks.

In his letter to the Environment Department’s planning section, Advocate Perrot said planning staff would be familiar with the Sausmarez Manor site, as initial correspondence on the matter had come from them rather than his client.

He said the type of business was retail, a type entirely consistent with those a person would expect to find at a tourist attraction, which Sausmarez Manor was.

Despite its name, Avant Garden was no longer a garden centre and its proprietor, Nick Martel, had used his considerable talents to put together an eclectic retail collection, said Advocate Perrot.

He wrote that tourists loved the marquee, which was discreetly placed and entirely unobjectionable, and the shop was a visitor attraction in its own right.

The Environment Department declined to comment on the application.

Article posted on 27th June, 2009 - 2.29pm