Why is it that the Council of Ministers did nothing?

From Deputy Daniel Wimberley.

PLÉMONT continues the sad story. The feelings of a large section of the public expressed in a huge petition and the Line in the Sand count for nothing when set against the interests of a billionaire developer. Jersey is for sale.

Trevor Hemmings ‘owns thousands of pubs, millions of square feet of industrial property, hotels, race courses, Littlewoods Pools, the Pontins holiday camps, betting businesses and dozens of steeple chasing horses’ (Observer, 7 January). In the Sunday Times Rich List of 2008 he was worth £1,030 million, a year later ‘just’ £300 million.

I have no objection to Mr Hemmings being successful in the building trade, starting from nothing, and making his first million. But let’s get things in perspective. Plémont is part of this Island’s heritage. Our stake in Plémont is greater than his. We don’t need to roll over and let our billionaire friend make another few million out of it.

The States reflected this public opinion when they voted by a large margin to support Ken Vibert’s proposition in 2006, which requested the Council of Ministers to ‘consider all options to preserve the land … and to recommend a preferred option to the States …’

Not for the first time, when told what to do by the States, the Council of Ministers did next to nothing. Why?

They were asked to consider all options. No effort was made to negotiate a lower price. Why not ask the public if they would support a law that Plémont could not be built on, which would of course reduce the land value to an affordable sum?

The figure of £14.7m as the price of the land put out by the developer has gone unchallenged and has, of course, had a major impact on public opinion. And yet the land has been officially valued for the States at £3m, its ‘current use value’.

The price of £3m changes the debate completely. How would the public have reacted if this sum had been out in the open? Yet this figure was published for the first time on the day of the debate. Everything points to the Council of Ministers acting in a way that ensured that the public was badly informed, in order to manipulate public opinion.

A cluster of Jersey farm houses, several in fact, is what the architects are promoting. Whoever heard of such a thing? A Jersey farm house stands typically on its own, a stylish and simple statement, in granite, of independence and solidarity. But a cluster of farmhouses? On a remote headland surrounded by gorse? It will look utterly incongruous, all wrong, as you cycle or drive up to the lovely beach and cliffs of Plémont, to be confronted with this piece of pastiche suburbia.

Underlying the Plémont issue is the ministers’ policy of increasing the population for ever. It ensures that there will be no corner of Jersey which will be spared the tide of development. It ensures perpetual conflict between the interests of the townspeople to enjoy some green or empty space in town and the need to preserve the countryside, a conflict entirely due to the mistaken policy of trying to cram a quart into a pint pot.

The issue is fundamentally one of the public interest versus the private interest of a billionaire property tycoon with no connection to Jersey. Sadly, the proposition was lost by just four votes, but it is the Council of Ministers who are to blame for years of inaction, refusal to follow States decisions, and misinformation of States Members and the public.