St Helier is an area of mainly low-cost housing but there are some areas in the high-cost bracket.

There is still evidence of well-proportioned and well laid-out Georgian terraces and pretty Victorian streets, but these fell on hard times in the 20th-century and were divided up into apartments, cheap housing and seaside boarding houses.

Now a much-contested waterside development area around the harbour is in the making, which will take this neglected area up market, with new hotels, office and apartment blocks and shopping arcades. Several new marinas have given the once drab harbour a new lease of life, but there still aren’t enough top-class chandlery and shopping facilities.

There is a new swimming pool, a small and newly restored opera house/theatre, an excellent arts centre, a small museum about life in Jersey and a maritime museum. Hotels are now being refurbished for a more discerning business and tourist market and two new top-quality hotels are now being built.