PLANNING policies are discouraging investment in visitor accommodation, it was claimed yesterday. The planning inquiry into proposed alterations to visitor accommodation policies took place at Les Cotils, with calls for greater flexibility the common theme.

Peter Ferbrache said he was speaking as an advocate with more than 25 years’ experience and someone with a beneficial interest in the hotel and tourism trade.

‘Flexibility would allow for expansion but flexibility and planning don’t go together in my experience,’ he said.

States’ policies relating to tourism and visitor accommodation had been too ‘pie in the sky’ and unrealistic. Government had not reacted promptly to a declining tourist market and it had been statist.

‘The application of some policies has left some people in financial ruin,’ he said.

Only two hotels in Guernsey had been purpose-built in the past 25 years and one of them – The Peninsula – was struggling. An application to get out of the industry had been denied.

He said Deputy John Gollop’s suggestion that people would look to make money by withdrawing from the sector was an insult to people such as the owners of the Peninsula.

He said it was unlikely that there would be demand for visitor new-build accommodation in the rural area and asked that the inquiry proceed on ‘sound information and core statistics’.

Advocate Roger Perrot said his client, CI Traders, generally supported Environment’s proposals but the department needed greater capability to react to market development.

His client was the owner of three substantial-size hotels and it was planning a 59-bedroom development on the former Guernsey Brewery site at Havelet.

Achieving the target occupancy level by removing bedstock would not produce a desirable outcome.

‘Uneconomical, unviable or substandard units ‘of visitor accommodation’ need to be given the possibility of realising value through alternative use,’ he said.

‘The Environment Department and Commerce and Employment are not experts on this and the people that are, are the ones who own hotels like my client.’

Principal planning officer Alistair Coates said the 2,700 bedstock figure quoted was actually bedrooms and bed numbers across the tourist sector currently stood at 6,084.

Advocate Perrot said that if Environment could take a narrow definition of something, it would and he could speak on behalf of many bitter clients.

‘I believe that what is missing is a vision for the future,’ he said.

‘The industry is in decline and it needs a leg-up.’

Deputy Gollop, who was speaking as an individual, said he regretted the loss of the core bedstock idea, which he said went against the States’ recently-adopted growth policy.