Monday 25 June 2018
The Development & Planning Authority has decided that the L'Ancresse anti-tank wall should not be added to the protected monuments list. The Authority considered the legislation and the criteria for protection and agreed that the L'Ancresse anti-tank wall did not qualify for this statutory protection.
Special Controls in relation to protected monuments are set out in section 29 of The Land Planning and Development (Guernsey) Law, 2005. Section 29 of the Law states:
"The Committee shall prepare, maintain and keep under review a list, to be known as "the protected monuments list", of such monuments, structures, artefacts, caves, ruins or remains (whether on or below the surface of any land) as in its opinion should, as a matter of public importance, be preserved by reason of their archaeological, historic, traditional, artistic or other special interest."
A monument can be protected as a result of its breadth of special interest, i.e. it could have a wide range of relatively low interest (archaeological, historic, traditional, artistic or other special interest), but the cumulative breadth of interest makes the monument worthy of protection. A monument can, however, also be protected because of a single special interest, but this would have to be, at least, of a very high interest to justify protection as a monument. This is because the Law imposes significant constraints on development and, therefore, a high bar has to be set to ensure protection for monuments is proportionate and properly reflects the special interest required for such statutory designation.
In reaching its decision, the Authority recognised that the anti-tank wall had a high historic interest, given its origins as a purpose-built occupation-era defensive structure. It also recognised that the wall has some group value in association with other fortifications at L'Ancresse and that its setting is relatively undisturbed by other development. However, in other relevant respects (archaeological, traditional, artistic) its interest is low and overall the Authority concluded that the level of interest was insufficiently special to justify protection of the anti-tank wall as a protected monument.
