PLAN B
A community led vision for La Folie
©2025 Assemble
In summary
How we got here
We Don’t Just Consult Community — We Are Community
In 2024 we read that Ports of Jersey were looking for a partner to develop the site, so we started with a question: could La Folie be brought into community stewardship, be developed by a Community Land Trust, and deliver a scheme that reflected the needs and desires of the wider community.
We began by simply inviting people to a meeting in the Harbour Gallery courtyard to explore the idea of forming a CLT and making a proposal for La Folie. We didn’t have a spare seat. The interest was immediate and energetic. Next, we met again—this time at the Jersey Library—to define what a Jersey CLT could be. Together, we drafted our mission, aims, and objectives. Everyone was welcome to join.
Our community-led journey continued at the Regen Gathering, where a workshop with Jenny Andersson introduced us to regenerative design—a way to solve wider systemic problems by looking beyond just the site. We began thinking about how La Folie could respond to Jersey’s real social, economic and environmental needs.
From this, we gathered a broader perspective of La Folie and identified what people felt was lacking on the island. We took this information back to our meetings at the Library and turned our brainstorms into carefully agreed text.
Following that, we were exceptionally lucky to be joined by Assemble—an internationally respected group of architects and community developers—who brought their experience to the table. They visited us and ran a workshop, helping to translate our shared ideas into a legible vision that reflects what our community would like to see happen on this long-term derelict site.
Their role wasn’t to impose a design but to help us articulate what the island really wants from this space. What we’ve created is not a final design—it’s a shared community concept. A statement of intent from Jersey, for Jersey.
2025 — A Turning Point in the La Folie Story
In 2025, Ports of Jersey refined their vision for the La Folie site and launched a formal process to find a development partner to deliver a heritage-led, hospitality-focused hotel project, combining the historic La Folie buildings with a significant new hotel development.
It became clear to the Jersey CLT that the scale and commercial expectations of this plan would not align with our community-rooted approach. Ports sought traditional hotel developers with the financial capacity to deliver a large hospitality offering—up to 160 rooms—alongside regenerated public spaces and supporting infrastructure.
Rather than stepping aside, the Jersey CLT decided to offer a lower-risk Plan B—an alternative that could meet the heritage, environmental, and community aspirations of the island while responding more flexibly to the site’s constraints and planning sensitivities, is representative of public opinion and more compatible with long-term resilience and sustainability.
We formally submitted our expression of interest through the Ports’ open process and are now waiting to hear back.
Next Steps
We are now in the process of actively exploring partnerships—from development partners and financing to potential tenants—to test whether our Plan B has the local ingredients needed to succeed. The door remains open to collaboration, and the CLT remains committed to ensuring the future of La Folie serves the public good.
Quick links
Please feel welcome to Join the CLT and become part of this process.