- States could sell off large capital assets to help solve projected £145 million deficit
- Treasury Minister has suggested cashing in on St Saviour’s Hospital and Environment Department building
- Sales could raise as much as £15 million for the States
- Should St Saviour’s Hospital be sold? Take part in our poll below
THE St Saviour’s Hospital site and the Environment Department building at South Hill could be sold by the States, the Treasury Minister has said.
The proposal is contained in the Council of Ministers’ Medium Term Financial Plan, which sets out a blueprint for the next three years. With an estimated ‘black hole’ of £145 million by 2019, the ministers want to capitalise on assets such as the site of the former Victorian mental health institution.
Treasury Minister Alan Maclean said: ‘St Saviour’s Hospital is barely utilised and is one site of a large number sites being considered as part of property rationalisation.’
The minister said that currently States departments were located across 23 different sites.
‘That is ludicrous – we will only improve productivity if we can reduce those sites substantially. It could go down to just a handful.
‘South Hill is one for potential redevelopment and the government occupying that does not make commercial sense.’
Asked how much the St Saviour site might be worth to the public purse, Senator Maclean said that would depend on what was done with the land, and what would be permitted in terms of heritage issues, although a figure of £15 million had previously been put on the two sites.
According to the latest financial plan, over the past three years Jersey Property Holdings have disposed of £13 million worth of property assets, either through direct sale or transfer to the States’ Jersey Development Company.
Both the St Saviour and South Hill sites have been cited for possible sell-offs by a succession of States political leaders. The Planning offices at South Hill were said to be earmarked for sale in 2007, 2009 and again in 2010, when then Environment Minister Freddie Cohen suggested luxury housing on the site. At the time it was valued at around £17.6m.
And the proposed sale of St Saviour’s Hospital to developers made front-page headlines in 2007, and again in 2012, when former Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf suggested the money should be used to build the Island’s new hospital.
Now the latest plan states that within the next three years it is hoped that the two assets will ‘either be disposed of or a decision to redevelop will be made’.
The consolidation of States offices will be a direct result of the reduction in the workforce which is currently being carried out across all departments. Earlier this year the 7,000 public-sector workers were issued with invitations to take up voluntary redundancy or voluntary severance. Last month the Treasury Minister confirmed that over 340 applications had been received, but this is unlikely to make up the £70 million of ‘people savings’ that the Council of Ministers say they need and Senator Maclean said that compulsory redundancy was almost certainly on the cards.
Proposals for office consolidation currently on the table include moving the Social Security operations currently in La Motte Street to Cyril Le Marquand House, with the addition of an extension to that 11-storey building.
According to the ministers, the reduction in the number of States office buildings will improve customer service and ‘enable greater collaboration, productivity and reduced operating costs’ across departments. The outline business case is due to be presented by next year, with development starting on-site in 2017.
