Sandy Park Report

​​​Request ​​849029138

In April and May of 2024 The Department of Infrastructure stated its intention to replace the ageing play equipment in the children's playground at Longbeach know colloquially as "Sandy Park". 

To this end they announced a consultation exercise with local parents and children. The lead officer and engineer for this project was a Mr Toby Herold-Howes. 

At a pop up meeting in the playground local residents enquired why the Department was intending to replace the equipment and were told by Mr Herold-Howes that the Department had commissioned a report from a specialist firm of UK consultants which had concluded that the current play equipment had "reached the end of its useful life" and that it should be replaced. 

This was definitely a report from UK consultants not local consultants. I believe it was also this report that the Constable of Grouville referred to at the meeting to discuss the Parish taking over the running of the park, held on 19th June 2025, when he dismissed its contents saying words to the effect that he didn't want to be told what to do by people from the UK, again emphasising that there was an existing report from a specialist UK firm.

So I emphasise it is the report that the Department of Infrastructure commissioned at some point before April/May 2024 from a UK consultancy firm, on which they based their then decision to replace the play equipment at Sandy Park.

I have made application for a copy of this report before under an FOI request and was sent a report done by a local firm. 

It is the report that Mr Herold-Howes told us about that he said was done by a UK specialist Consultancy that I want.

Response 

The information requested is exempt under Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as the report is accessible on www.gov.je within the previous Freedom of Information response linked below. 

Sandy Park Report​

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.​