Car park at Ouaisne Bay contract

​​​Request 737558320 

The Public of the Island took a 21 year lease of the gravel car park at Ouaisne Bay from the Dame of the Commune de Bas du Fief et Seigneurie de Noirmont, Hope May Dixon nee de Gruchy, by contract passed before Court on 24.09.1965 including a right to renew the lease for a further 21 years to eventually expire on 24.06.2007 (assuming the option to renew was validly exercised in writing).  

Given this contract lease has long since expired (and no other has been passed before the Royal Court with Mrs. Dixon's successors Seigneurs/Dames), please advise on what contractual basis the States of Jersey/Public of the Island now occupies the land as a car park, boat park, cafeteria and toilet block?    

I wish to ascertain the nature and extent of the present lease (by which I mean is the occupation of the land dealt with by a "paper" lease of 9 years or less or covered by some other written arrangements) and what is the termination date of any lease/licence arrangement when presumably the land would revert to the control of the present Seigneur. 

Response  

The 42-Year Contract Headlease of commune land for the creation of “Ouaisne Car Park” commenced on 24 June 1965 and was passed in the Royal Court on 24 September 1965.    

The headlease expired on 23 June 2007 and is being held over under the terms of the previous headlease with prior agreement from the previous Seigneur de Noirmont.  

There are ongoing discussions with the current Seigneur de Noirmont to formalise a future headlease agreement.  

The terms of the original headlease are exempt under Article 23 (Accessible by other means) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 since the information is available at the Public Registry.  

The Public Registry is at Judicial Greffe, Royal Court House, Royal Square, St. Helier, JE1 1JG or at Jersey Archive, Clarence Road, St Helier, JE2 4JY.  The Public Registry can be searched by anybody for free or public registry staff can perform searches for a fee.  Details of office hours and any fees may be found on the following web page on the www.gov.je​ site:  

https://www.gov.je/Government/NonexecLegal/JudicialGreffe/Sections/PublicRegistry/Pages/RegistryServices.aspx ​  

Article applied  

Article 23 - Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.​​​