The Co-op exists to serve, not to maximise profits

From Peter Roffey, president, the Channel Islands Co-operative Society Limited.

FOLLOWING considerable press coverage over the last few weeks, as a co-operative owned by and run on behalf of many thousands of Islanders, we feel it is only right to clarify the points raised in your letters and columns.

Some have suggested that when the planning panel finally determine our application, they should turn it down because of a States vote in the run-up to the hearing. In fact the panel is duty bound to discount that vote and consider the pros and cons of the application purely on its merits. To do otherwise would be a blatant abuse of process. Under Jersey’s planning procedures this decision is for the panel to make and nobody else.

We don’t know if opponents of this scheme lobbied States Members in the run up to that debate – we suspect they might have – but we were certainly given no formal opportunity to put our side of the case. Nor did we regard it as proper behaviour to lobby informally, in private, behind closed doors, knowing that the panel – not the States Assembly – are the properly constituted decision-making body.

To even suggest that an ad-hoc debate on an individual member’s proposition, during which the States weren’t remotely informed of our side of the story – nor ever sought that information – should carry weight in the panel’s deliberations would be to discredit the whole Jersey planning process. We remain confident that they won’t allow that to happen.

Moving on, some people have sought to portray the Channel Islands Co-op as some sort of ruthless developer, putting profit before heritage. That is complete nonsense. We are a co-op. We are owned by many thousands of ordinary Islanders. We exist to serve, not to maximize profits. Any surplus we make after reinvestment in the fabric of the business is simply handed back to our members.

This development will not make a profit. In fact it will make a loss. A plc would not even consider it. But as a business owned by the people we feel a duty to do the best we can by the community we serve.

It was Planning who came to us and invited us to bring forward a scheme to redevelop Charing Cross. Presumably this was because they realised there was a desperate need to regenerate this import corner of St Helier. We agree.

Twice now we have been encouraged at pre-application stage to submit plans. Twice we have spent substantial sums of our members’ funds to do so and twice our proposals have then been recommended for refusal. We can’t continue like this. While we are able to act differently to a commercial developer we are not mandated to simply squander our members’ funds.

This brings me on to the alternative put forward by heritage groups. We thank them for their interest. We encouraged them to come up with an alternative. We were genuinely looking for a solution which pleased everybody. Unfortunately – contrary to their own assertions – an independent valuation carried out at our request shows their scheme would lose our members more than £12m in shareholder value. We just can’t sanction that.

At several points during this protracted process it has felt as if we were pawns in a wider political game. How can it be possible for the planning officer’s report to become less sympathetic for this application than for the last one, despite the department welcoming the retention of two key buildings? It is neither rational nor consistent. If we have got caught up in some States factional in-fighting then the losers in that sorry charade will be our thousands of ordinary members. Once again we have to remain hopeful that the panel members will rise above such things and judge the application in a disinterested and objective way.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that while there is certainly a passionate lobby against the scheme which has been very vocal we are convinced that we enjoy overwhelming popular support. We respect and understand the views of the opponents, but just because they’ve conducted a high profile campaign doesn’t mean they speak for the people of Jersey. Our own research suggests quite the opposite. To be honest the response to our petition even surprised us. To achieve nearly 4,000 signatures in one week is an incredible endorsement of what we are trying to deliver for the community.