Each case submitted to the fund could be worth up to £5m, had to meet a ‘timely, targeted and temporary’ objective and was required to be completed by the end of the year.
Despite giving out £30m across two tranches to over 45 cases, the fund has been criticised by politicians who say that many projects do not meet the fund’s requirements and will not be completed by the end of the year.
However, Treasury Minister Susie Pinel said that ‘more than half’ of the 47 projects are due to be completed before 2022.
In the first tranche of funding, £22m was granted to a total of 30 projects, with the Opera House and Arts Centre receiving more than £2m each and the Springfield and Oakfield sports centres being allocated £5m.
The Jersey Opera House, which was given £2.2m to completely refurbish its facility, has been warned that they will not be able to operate until September next year.
Members of the Opera House are due to meet with the project manager in January 2022 to discuss the start of the works.
Over £3m was given to build a new sports hall at Oakfield Sports Centre – which would house some clubs moved from Fort Regent.
However, planning permission for the project was recently refused due to concerns around parking, as well as the design and size of the proposed building.
Many clubs operating at Fort Regent have said they are now ‘in the dark’ about what their next move will be.
A further £6.8m was released in the second tranche of the fund.
Some of the projects awarded funding included a new gorilla enclosure at Durrell, a school sports centre for Beaulieu pupils, as well as a disability surf centre, set to be run by ocean therapy charity Healing Waves, which recently began construction in St Ouen’s Bay after planning was approved, and is expected to be completed by summer 2022.
The unspent £20m from the fund is set to be held back after Deputy Pinel accepted that the recovery in Jersey had been ‘quite strong’, so there was no case for further stimulus at this time.
