Kicked out over Xmas
Thursday 24th November 2011, 2:30PM GMT.
Atlantique proprietor Roy Smith, pictured with wife Kate and daughter Millie, 2, feels singled out after planners told him that his long-term winter residents must quit. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 1201501)
A HOTEL will have to evict its permanent residents during the Christmas period after Environment said it had breached planning laws.
But Atlantique leaseholder Roy Smith lashed out at the department, saying it was targeting him for accommodating people on six-month winter lets while leaving other hoteliers free to do the same.
He said that many hotels had to take in residents to survive – and did so with the backing of the tourism department.
Environment has demanded that the use of the hotel as a ‘lodging house or for permanent local market residential accommodation’ must cease by 12 January.
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I think Mr Smith has made a very fair point.
Rules should be applied to all involved equally. Unless there are facts that I am unaware of it sounds like discrimination.
That said it is understandable that they need to do it to survive. I wouldn’t want to the island to have even more hotels close down.
I honestly don’t see the harm in what they have done.
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Enviroment is right, we have to stop these loop holes which allow people to work around the housing laws. They should also stop open Market houses from being used as multiple lets ie several people , not related , living in unsuitable houses.
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I hope that the Environment will enforce the same for all the other local Hotels or at least explain why they have decided to bring this in now.
Oh yes I forgot the Environment don’t respond to letters in the Guernsey Press – or at all from what I can understand!!!
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HOUSING SHORTAGE – EMPTY HOTELS – PARK LANE FLATS – MMMM
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I live here, and I am very happy to be here.
Roy and Kate have been very welcoming to me and I can only thank them for opening there door to me in fact I have been planing on staying here for a very long time to come.
I am 55 and local and just returned from being away from my island home, (13 years) there is not a chance in hell that at my age I would get a morgage and the cost of renting a flat is so outrageous it really suits me to be here. I don’t plan to leave!
Roy and Kate are perfect landlords….I wish them well.
JB
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I seem to remember the Royal Hotel (to name one such place), had resident Guests all year round and nobody seemed to mind at all.. Also you could get a winter let at most chalet bungalow sites e g the one at Sandy Hook and the one by the Tomato Museum that was at St saviours.. It appearss to me that shold anybody attempt to keep his/her business afloat during the quiet months, they are not allowed to do so because which ever state department with another agenda wants to ruin the whole Island. I, for one am glad that I left and also I am very ashamed to admit it. but I am embarressed to tell anybody who asks me where I came from.
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When will Guernsey wake up to the plight of many people in the rich island of Guernsey who are homeless or paying ridiculous rents. For crying out loud let people live where they can. Look at your foreign population taking local jobs and living in cheap lodging houses. Sending money out of the island.
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No interest, I’m not a ‘local’.
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I think Mr Smith and Jenny, say it all really.
My wife, 3 children and i was in a states house, my wife was offered a new job with better money, we were then told we had to leave as we earnt to much. At very short notice also. Looking for a suitable place for our family of 5 was nearly impossible. The wage was to high for a states house yet not enough to rent in the private sector. We spoke to housing about this and the only advice we got was for my wife to cut down her hours so we didnt earn as much. In a way being punished for wanting to better ourselves.
After eventually finding a property where they allow children and pets, we have now been paying a small fortune to rent somewhere to fit us all for the last couple of months, and now we cant do it anymore, just aint got the money. So we will now also be moving into a winter let hoping that we will be able to save enough money to put towards eventually, buying our own house, dont even get me started on the house prices either.
Winter lets are the only option for some people, not to mention people who are in winter lets are also helping Guernsey by keeping the hotels ticking over during the winter season.
Cant see what is wrong with this, who looses out? People renting out properties at stupidly high prices. Nevermind.
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Jenny
whose jobs are the foreign population taking?
300 unemployed 4,000 guest workers. Rocket science it ain’t!
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kevin
4000 guest workers, not enough accomodation on the Island ! Rocket science it ain’t!
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What is it about Local businesses that the environment don’t like???? Especially in St. Saviours! First the Ritz then Griffins Grotto, Then a beauty Salon and now they want to close down a Hotel…..
Leave us locals alone Bullies, if you say this about one Hotel then you are going to have to do the same for all the others!
It seems the E.D is on a mission to make local businessmens lives more difficult than ever yet they are happy to let outsiders in to take over and abuse things like lvcr which now the uk have said oh they’re takin the P… so we will put a stop that, which in turn has a knock on effect to the small local businesses who are struggling to compete as it is.
Stay strong Roy and Kate. Knowing what we know now we wish We had we still may have had our shop!!!
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Now Now Simon!
The guest workers are here because Guernsey folk do not wish to do the jobs the guest workers are in and even if they did there are more jobs than locals to fill them.
accomodation is another matter if you restrict the amount of jobs available you’ll end up eventually with enough accomodation but you won’t find a single deputy who would want that.
I’m with jenny one this one let people live where they can.
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As a Guern looking back at my island from afar,seems nothing has changed, and no surprise to me to read the latest farce about the Hotel/lodging house sarga.Sadly in most small
communities we will allways encounter “petty minded”decisions that stem from so called
Government/states depts that, totaly show them selves up to not having that very basic and not so very common piece of inteligence namely, common sense! If the human race was to study that amazing thing called common sense,we would not need things like the madness of that other illness called Health and Safety.Correct me if i’m wrong,but was it not the same dept (enviroment) that recently forced business owners to take away A frame advertising boards,and in some casses the pathetic excuse was because the A frames blocked the view of Herm !! come on what is this madness ? it is the duty for all Gov/states depts to have diplomatic discussions with the public to try to achieve solutions on subjects no matter how big or small,and not to rub people up the wrong way,as no Government/states dept will gain any respect whats o ever for its petty minded
thinking,just look back at History.I to can remember the good old days in Guernsey,and when Hotels had all the year round Guests,some of those guests from all walks of life,but that was their choice to live like that,and many Hotels were happy to have them,as it kept things alive and ticking over for the good of all,(employment, income tax,social security, shops for shopping needs etc etc ).Problem now is that society is run and ruined by a “jobs for the boys” thinking,with most of them trying to justify their positions,in an overcrowded office which in truth dosn’t need half the people that work in it,and the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.The laugh is that in most casses, you need this so called magical thing called a CV to get into these kind of jobs,when all that’s needed is some kind of proof history of, “the above person has a good and proven track record of common sense”.So in the sad case of the Atlantique Hotel situation,I will say,Mr Smith and Jenny if you are able to,then stick to your guns!don,t let anyone grind you down,and in the even more sad case(the truth hurts), of those pathetic bleetings of ” its all the fault of the outsiders for the lack of jobs and accommodation”,hard truth is that in many casses if some of the locals were prepared to get off their back sides and do the jobs instead of spending hours in a pub or infront of the telly or worring if their dinner will be on the table on time,or the bus timetable is all wrong (walk !)then we wouldn’t need outsiders,so good for them if they want to work (and they do,with a smile), and keep our dear old sarnia cherie ticking over !Welcome to Guernsey,and thank goodness for you i say !
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Stand up and join the exodus.
Let us have the old guernsey back.
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Well said pbfalla, I also totally understand and agree with alot of the post on here.
I although on the other hand frequent the atlantique regularly each week as a local social drinker and I must say that it is the louts that are being put up here that is ruining it for all! The states are putting up down and outs and people just out of prison which results in the police having a sub station here and the poor old locals scared to go for a pint because of some of these drop outs.
The issue here is that if it was for winter lets for people who pay their way in society then fair enough. However it is not and it is going the same way as numerous other establishments that cant make it pay and is becoming a halfway house. These people need to get jobs to better themselves and improve their accomodation and in turn maybe people who genuinly need to rent as a winter let as a stop gap will continue to do so.
This is supposedly a hotel!
Regards,
vraic eater
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Charlie G,
Common Sense was locked away and quietly murdered years ago. It is really surprising how few seemed to notice, or actually cared at the time.
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