Vaz owner refuses to stop rebuild
Thursday 26th February 2009, 2:30PM GMT.
Carpenter Luke Cant at work on the roof of The Vazon Bay Hotel yesterday despite no permission having being given for its redevelopment. Owner Hadrian Wakeham said he has yet to hear from Environment but that getting the hotel ready for summer was imperative. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0726110)
THE owner of former Vazon Bay Hotel has promised to flout island planning laws and continue redeveloping the building – despite not having permission to do so.
Hadrian Wakeham, who bought the ‘Vaz’ for more than £1m. last July, appeared in the Magistrate’s Court for breaking island development laws after he started work on transforming it into a five-star apart-hotel without the relevant permits.
He pleaded guilty and was fined £500 for the offence but yesterday said that he would continue to push ahead with the redevelopment – despite the lack of permission – because it was vital that the business was running by the summer
‘I broke the law and accepted my punishment,’ he said. ‘Despite Environment receiving the application in late October we have still not heard a dicky-bird. We haven’t stopped the work after the court case because we had to get cracking if we’re going to make it for the summer. It’s absolutely imperative that we get it open for the summer.’
The Environment Department said that it would not comment on individual cases where there was a current ‘live’ application.
The department could confirm, as a matter of public record, that an application for a permit to undertake works at the Vazon Bay Hotel had been lodged on 24 December 2008.
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Come on Environment Department – there’s a world recession in case you lot hadn’t noticed. Let Mr Wakeham get on with his development and let him create much needed jobs. It’s good to see investment of this kind during these hard times.
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Very best of luck Vaz Bay Hotel. The amount of planning laws is appalling and wholly unneccessary. People only want to improve their properties and know better than anyone else what to do to do so.
The IDC are like the GFSC a total waste of peoples time and effort with zero benefit from their petty, time consuming and opressive beauracracy. People are perfectly sound and sensible 99% of the time which makes the IDC and GFSC a waste of space 99% of the time
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Let’s see how far he gets with his new hotel development, particularly once it’s finished and he tries to get a licence so his guests can have a nice bottle of vino or a cocktail. Nice hotel, nice view, luxury, etc but bring your own booze. Still waters run deep. However, I’m in total support of the developer because with the States lack of support for anything entrepreurial, he’s bound to get bogged down in petty bureacracy and give up once he’s totally frustrated and/or run out of money. Lighten up Guernsey States just a little.
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So it’s one rule for business people and another for householders. Can you imagine anyone getting away with a £500 for knocking their house around to a considerable extent, telling the Environment department to get stuffed when the work is discovered, then going on the front page of the press to say “I don’t care what the law is or what I’m told, I’m doing it anyway”.
If this person is an informed businessman he would have realised at the time that he bought the place that planning decisions take time. Surely any Advocate would have told him this if he’d have asked?
He ought to be made to put it back as it was, and reopen the VB public bar whilst he’s at it!!
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While planners arent my favourite drinking partners surely he suffers from NPD doing this?
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Surely this developer is trying to boost Guernsey’s tourism? Why are the planning department so slow at everything for goodness sake. This hotel needs to be ready for the summer season. It is already being advertised and if people turn up and the place is half built what will happen then. Headlines in the national papers saying what a useless island we are.
Why does it take so long? How many staff does the planning department have? It took us 8 months to get planning permission for a tiny extension that is at the back of our house, well away from the road and no complaints from the neighbours etc. It is ridiculous.
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Environment would be better off using their resources to actually review and pass Mr Wakeham’s applications – at least then he can have the place finished and up and running for the summer.
If they could then bring retrospective actions for the work carried out up to the applications being granted that should be up to them but at least give the man a chance to benefit the island through his investment!
Good luck Waves!
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