As the protest against the centre, currently under construction at the Esplanade, was coming to an end, the crowd spontaneously started chanting ‘Gorst resign’, saying that the Council of Ministers were not listening to their concerns.
And the organiser of the protest, former Deputy Sean Power, said that they may take their case to stop the development to the UK’s Privy Council.
Hundreds of Islanders marched from the Esplanade to the Royal Square to voice their opposition to the project, which is being overseen by the government-owned Jersey Development Company.
In June 2,000 people attended a similar protest against the finance centre, creating a so-called ring of defiance around the Esplanade car park – the proposed site for the development.
Yesterday afternoon Mr Power delivered a speech on the steps of the States Building branding the project an unnecessary risk of taxpayers’ money. There were also impromptu speeches by St Brelade Deputy Montfort Tadier and St John Deputy Tracey Vallois, who recently stood down from her role as Assistant Treasury Minister.
Addressing the crowd of about 700, Mr Power said: ‘The people in this building behind me are not listening. We need to send them a message today. They have got to listen to the fact that you people are not happy with the way your money is being spent. ‘That money is not being spent in a way that is in the best interests of the Island. We expect to be listened to and that is not happening.’
Throughout the protest, the crowd chanted ‘Enough is enough’ and ‘Stop wasting our money’.
Deputy Vallois said: ‘It is important to recognise that it is the right thing to stand up for what you believe in. There will be times when we will all have to work together to make sure things move forward in an appropriate way.
‘And to the Council of Ministers, I say stop being arrogant. They are all elected representatives and I would suggest that everybody stands up and makes their voice heard to make sure those people do actually represent you.’
Earlier this month an interim Scrutiny report said that the first building of the finance centre would yield a ‘weak’ £3 million profit, and that the wider scheme would not generate enough money to pay for the associated underground car Treasury Minister Alan Maclean has said that the ongoing controversy had caused three potential tenants to reject the site.
Speaking to the JEP, Mr Power said: ‘The Council of Ministers have not listened to Scrutiny. They have completely undermined the Scrutiny process. The next stage is that we are being advised legally to go to the Queen’s Privy Council. I don’t know how we would do that, but that is the advice we are receiving.’
This morning, Senator Maclean took to Twitter to respond to the protest, saying that the JDC was set up to ‘develop publicly owned land for the benefit of Islanders’. He said that the construction of each building would begin only when enough pre-lets had been legally signed to cover the cost of each building.
Currently, Swiss bank UBS are the only firm signed up to the scheme after agreeing to take about 16,000 sq ft of office space in one of the six proposed buildings.
