From Margaret Holland Prior.
I READ with interest and concern the report on our first National Park (JEP, 25 November) to be created out of the dunes and ponds of St Ouen, St Peter and St Brelade.
We are so fortunate that although St Brelade is densely populated, it has some ten miles of marvellous coastline and 12 glorious bays and beaches. There are five Sites of Special Interest, including Les Blanches Banques, an area of about 100 hectares of international ecological importance, with eight different types of habitat, which would make up the southern end of the proposed National Park.
The wildness, remoteness and mystery of this place, along with the exceptionally high floral diversity and rarity of habitat, make this area so precious to us all, including the four-footed, winged, creeping, crawling and sliding residents of the sand dunes. I read, therefore, with alarm the words of Senator Cohen: ‘It is essential that we allow some development and progress in the area.’
I ask all of you to be vigilant – the purpose of a National Park is to safeguard the area for future generations, not to allow development, bit by little bit, nor by allowing locations within the national park to be redesignated.
Les Burins,
Rue du Crocquet,
St Brelade.
