Control population before it’s too late

From Kat Keelan (née Milner).

TRAFFIC problems. Housing problems. Health problems (such as the mental health issues on the front page of the JEP a few days ago). Waiting lists for specialist doctors, waiting lists for housing, waiting lists for schooling, waiting lists for everything apart from waiting lists for immigration.

All these problems that we are now seeing – that everyone is seeing each morning as they get stuck in yet another traffic jam – are due to overpopulation. Overpopulation of a tiny Island, only nine miles by five, yet over 100,000 people in population. An Island bursting at the seams, and now seeming to be bursting in every tiny element of our infrastructure – housing, health, traffic, roads….

There are waiting lists for everything. Yet no waiting lists for immigration. People simply get off the ferry and come aboard. Coming in from many ports of Europe, they have no problem in joining friends and family here, setting up their own businesses such as childminding for those family and friends while they wait for six months until they are allowed on the social security system.

The government has no real idea how many people are living in this Island.

My husband recently spent four months getting his visa for Jersey – four months he had to spend in New Zealand away from me and his two children, one a baby and one of five. He speaks English as his first tongue, we had been married for five years, we were married in Jersey and one of our children was born in Jersey.

We had to pay money for the visa, had to go without a proper income for four months, and one person was left to look after the family (and look after a sick baby too) while he had to wait on the other side of the world. How can this be right when people from Europe can just get on a ferry and, as long as they have a passport, simply walk in?

They have no need for a job to be offered in advance. They have no interfering into family details, financial or medical. Yet people, for example, from one Commonwealth country have to go to extreme measures, even when the spouse is Jersey-born and one child is also.

It is crazy. But perhaps we can learn from this. Why doesn’t immigration use this UK method, (it is UK law not Jersey law that we had to deal with) for all immigrants to Jersey? Tougher entry controls rather than an open gate. If we crack down on immigration we can crack down on population control for once, properly and efficiently.

We don’t need more housing. We don’t need more banks. We don’t need more international foreign investors. What we do need is to focus on what we have here now. Focus on the people living here now. Focus on the people in need. Focus on our youngsters, give them the schooling that they need, give them access to medical care that they need now rather than having to be put on another waiting list. Focus on the number of cars we have on the Island. Focus on our environment. Focus on our population.

All elements of our daily life stem from population. Let’s shift our focus from economics to environment, and our concern from making more money to how we can use it wisely for our Island and its people.

Stop talking and act now on the issue that is vital to all of us living in Jersey – immigration and population.

Our Island is tiny we don’t want it to sink.