Senator Philip Ozouf said that he was prepared to help and look at bringing forward projects, including schemes to build and refurbish social housing.
Yesterday, Martin Holmes, the chairman of industry lobby group Jersey Construction Council, called for millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to be released to get developers back to work and kick-start the faltering economy.
Today, the Minister said that he was not unsympathetic to the construction industry. ‘They have certainly been affected longer than anticipated by the ongoing credit squeeze, he said
‘If we need to do more, the first thing to say is that Jersey has got much stronger public finances that any of our neighbours because we have taken difficult decisions on tax and spending. We are in a very solid financial situation which means that we have got the bandwidth to act.’
