A constituency you can understand more on foot
St Helier North stretches from First Tower in the west, up through Mont Cochon and Mont à l'Abbé, across to La Pouquelaye and beyond Trinity Hill in the east. It is home to families who have been here for generations alongside communities who came more recently, like myself, and built their lives here. It is a community with rich history and diversity.
This is where People, Place, and Prosperity are not campaign words, they are the daily experience of the streets we all walk.
From the children and young people at Centrepoint to Mont à l'Abbé, D'Auvergne, Haute Vallée, and First Tower schools: over 1,500 children and young people in total, spanning special education, primary, and secondary, more than one in every nine children in the whole of Jersey's education system, to the parents doing the school run, the businesses that serve us, the senior citizens who have watched this place grow, and the families holding this community together day by day.
What I want to take you on is St Helier North on foot, so you can slow down and understand it more deeply.
Walk from Haute Vallée to St John's Road, and you understand things no map can show. In the morning, you will see what the 650 students of Haute Vallée face on pavements so narrow you cannot pass a pushchair, let alone cycle safely to school. We talk about walking and cycling to school as if they are simply choices parents and children can make. But they are not choices on this route. The infrastructure does not allow them to be.
A father went cycling with his young son along this route. They could not do it at the normal school time, only at weekends, and even then with extra caution.
A senior gentleman in a wheelchair found himself on the ground because our pavements are not wide enough or level enough for him to move safely. A kind neighbour saw him and helped him, preventing what could have been a far more dangerous accident.
You see what safe bus access actually means for senior residents, the difference between independence and isolation. You notice the families who have chosen to raise children here without a green space, a playground, or even a safe dog-walking route within reach, in a part of town where our established parks are too far to walk to with a pushchair.
You see the road network too: the convergence at the top of St John's Road, the volume of traffic already passing through residential streets, and the additional pressure that will come as the new hospital at Overdale opens and Westmount Road absorbs the flow. This is our day-to-day life.
These are the daily realities of the people who live here, including my own family, the kind of realities that only become visible when you slow down enough to walk through them.
St Helier North is People, Place, and Prosperity in the space of a walk. Serve it well, and we show what the whole island can be.
For St Helier North, these are my 4 commitments.
1.Safer Roads
On the walk from Haute Vallée to St John's Road, I would push for a St Helier North School Routes Plan: specific pavements, specific crossings, a specific delivery date. A child walking to school should not have to share a narrow pavement with a pushchair and a passing van. A senior resident in a wheelchair should not have to depend on a passing neighbour to stay safe. Safety is the priority.
On the construction traffic that will reshape these streets once the Overdale contract is signed, and on the traffic that will follow when the hospital opens. I would not accept a briefing on opening day. I would ask for the mitigations now, and for quarterly public reporting that should have been promised already. The residential streets beyond Westmount Road will absorb what it cannot.
On bus access for senior residents, I would push for a review of routes, stops and shelters across the constituency, led by the people who actually use them. Consult, and then act.
2. Green Space
A community without places for its children, its dog walkers, and its older residents is a community slowly closing. I would work with the new Constable to identify underused land in St Helier North that can be recovered and reopened to families: a playground, a pocket park, a safe green walk. It does not need to be large. It needs to be within reach of a pushchair.
3. Community Space
On being your Deputy, I will hold a monthly drop-in surgery, rotating across the constituency. No appointment. Just turn up.
And beyond surgeries, we will celebrate what makes this place what it is, the local history, the diversity, the growth of each part of St Helier North, through food, music, and cultural activities that bring neighbours together.
Representation is not only about problems. It is also about celebrating what is already here.
4. Education for All
From Centre Point to Mont à l'Abbé, d'Auvergne, First Tower and Haute Vallée, this area educates over 1,500 children and young people, around one in every nine in Jersey's education system.
They deserve a Deputy who has walked their pavements, knows their teachers, and understands that good education is not only what happens in the classroom.
It is the safe route to the school gate, the green space at the end of the day, the childcare that lets a parent work, and the respect given to every child and young person regardless of their needs.
Education is the foundation, and the teachers, nurses and carers who make this community work should be able to afford to live here, and to be part of it.
