Plan to reopen Sandy Park by school holidays

It's hoped Sandy Park in Grouville will be under parish control and reopen by the start of the school summer holidays.

The popular children's play area at Long Beach was closed on Tuesday, 9 June, by 'The Chef Tenants du Fief du Roi de Grouville' for maintenance work.

It will need to remain shut, when the parish acquires it, for upgrades.

The parish still hasn't bought it, despite a vote nearly a year ago to take ownership.

The government's Infrastructure department did have the lease, but gave it up after it expired in June 2025.

In a hastily-arranged parish assembly, Grouville parishioners agreed to take over its upkeep, backing the request for £9,000 to refurbish the equipment and fencing, and around £3,500 a year to maintain Sandy Park.

Concerns have been raised by some local residents about who has been responsible for the site since that vote, including the maintenance of the equipment's safety.

Constable Mark Labey said:

"We can't insure or maintain something that isn't ours. The States were still involved up to a certain period, I couldn't say when, and so the negotiations for the takeover have taken place ever since.

"They've been keeping an eye on it, as have we. We have the park inspected four times a year, we had that done initially so that we knew what we were getting ourselves in for, but the repairs are all very minor.

"I can't speak on behalf of the tenants or the receiver general, but from our point of view, we have some work to do. We have to make sure that all the recommendations from those reports are enacted so that when we do reopen it, everything is up to what I call the parish standard.

"The lease that the parish is embarking on, and the tenants is embarking on, is a 50-year lease. They want a longevity, a standardisation and a consistent tenant and a reliable tenant, and they regard us as said.

"The senior management team at Grouville is committing 12 and a half constables' terms to this lease, if you will, and that's a long, long time, so we must make sure that, not only the tenants are looked after as much as we can, and the parish is secure in what we sign when we go to court as that's a long, long period of time and it's committing the parish for five decades.

"We've had a programme in place for a very long time now of contractors to come in and do things like repair the fence, which isn't fit for purpose. We need to dig out one of the benches, we need to re-level the site, we need to do the maintenance on the equipment that the reports have mentioned to do. They're fairly minor.

"We need to make sure that our insurers are comfortable and happy that the park is in a good enough condition to reopen, and we're comfortable that we can do that in a fairly short shrift as long as the contractor that we've had earmarked to do this job is ready and available to start work almost immediately.

"The park will have to, sadly, stay closed and we do apologise for the inconvenience, until the parish is satisfied that it's ready and it's ready to reopen."