The three-storey staff accommodation block for Stock’s Hotel, currently under construction in Dixcart Valley. The hotel itself is to the left of the road in which the tractors are parked. (0874059)

ONE of the principal talking points in Sark recently has been the Development Control Committee’s approval of extension and modernisation plans for the Dixcart and La Moinerie hotels.

The committee’s press release announcing its decision was placed on shop noticeboards in the island – something that was fortunate from my point of view because I don’t appear to be on the mailing list for such pronouncements. Something I said, or wrote, perhaps?

That said, at least both developments can now go ahead and, as Tourism chairman and Planning vice-chairman Conseiller Sandra Williams said, they and the development and refurbishment of the Dixcart’s neighbouring property Stocks Hotel ‘can only be to the advantage of Sark tourism and businesses’ and are most welcome.

The committee stated that the Dixcart Hotel application aroused what was said to be a storm of protest, with the concern centring on the impact the separate accommodation blocks would have on the beautiful Dixcart Valley and the footpath approaches to the cliff path views above Dixcart Bay.

Any planning authority is always placed in a difficult position when considering applications in relation to the opposition they sometimes engender from people and Sark’s Development Control Committee is no exception.

For a start, such authorities have no way of determining whether such opposition is spontaneous or solicited. Every community has serial objectors and again Sark is no exception – quite the opposite, in fact, because most residents are known to each other. That makes it easy, for example, for serial objectors to encourage opposition and I know that telephone calls are made to encourage objections to some applications.

As they stand (and as I understand them), the rules regarding objections mean that applicants are not given sight of them unless the matter is brought before an appeals tribunal. That means, for instance, that the public are not aware of how many objections there were to the Dixcart Hotel development and how many were received to the Stocks Hotel plans.

In common with a fair number of other Sark residents, I have to say that I find it somewhat ironic that while development approval for a sizeable (by any standards, never mind Sark’s) refurbishment and development of Stock’s appeared to have been given almost on the nod, the application in relation to the Dixcart has dragged on for months. In fairness to the committee, its press release sought to clarify some of the reasons for this.

However, regarding the storm of protest about the Dixcart Hotel application, no one will ever be able to persuade me that the construction of a three-storey staff accommodation block for Stock’s, right at the head of that valley and where nothing stood before, does not have an adverse impact on that ‘beautiful Dixcart Valley’.

I don’t blame the committee – it has an obligation (moral if not legal) to take note of objections, although it’s likely that supporters don’t take the trouble to express their views – but I wonder how many of those who objected to the Dixcart development but not to that at Stock’s were more concerned with who were making the applications rather than what the applications related to?

Before I close, a word to the online critic who challenged my assessment of how many attended the builders’ bonfire. He or she gave the impression of not being a founder member of the Brecqhou Fan Club – something which obviously didn’t stop them putting their nose in a free trough of food and drink, I note.

* The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.