The Windmills Hotel is situated on the escarpment above St Brelade’s Bay on a private lane off Mont Gras d’Eau. It has 40 rooms and two self-catering sea-view apartments.
If proposals submitted by Castletree Architectural Services for Mr B Morton are approved, the current four-storey building, which dates back to the 1960s and has been added to over the past 50 years, will be demolished.
The application is for a change of use of the site from holiday accommodation to residential in a development comprising a mix of two- and three-bedroom ‘high-end’ apartments over five storeys, with the ground and lower-ground floors set into the hillside below road level.
The details are described in Castletree’s application design statement.
‘The design has been developed through consultation with Planning and Building Services and in response to comments from the Jersey Architectural Commission and the St Brelade’s Bay Residents Association,’ the document reads.
‘The site enjoys stunning views to the south, and the new building aims to exploit this as the value is the width of the frontage and the views. There is also a real effort to minimise the impact on the neighbours.’
The design statement goes on to say that all the apartments would have private amenity spaces and the use of communal gardens. Plans for one of the ground-floor units includes a cinema room.
It also says it is not economically feasible for the Windmills Hotel to continue due to ‘the capital expenditure needed to meet current building standards and the hotel does not make the same return as it used to’.
