IT’S Throwback Thursday – where we look back on the news making the headlines on this day from a random year of our past.
Today it’s 24 March 2007, a day when the bus company had a very good reason for its services running late (all the drivers had walked off), and Battle of Flowers organisers were going for the safe option following a little bit of a scandal the previous year.
* BACK in the days when you could only pay your fare using cold, hard cash, Jersey’s bus service was run by a firm called Connex. But for a few hours in March 2007, the Island didn’t have a bus service at all – as drivers staged a wildcat strike in a dispute about overtime. Hundreds of people were left waiting at a stop for a bus that was never going to come after drivers walked out without giving notice. Transport Minister Guy de Faye, who was just as surprised as the rest of the Island, described the action as ‘extraordinary’.
* Dandara – a firm that was very much enjoying the building boom of the late noughties – had eyes on the old Westmount Quarry site next to the People’s Park. The company submitted plans for a nine-story development comprising 210 flats, a nursing home and 550 parking spaces. St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft backed the proposals, and, as anyone who has been up Westmount Hill will know, a revised planning application was eventually given the go-ahead.
*The Battle of Flowers organisers, who were heavily criticised in 2006 after spending £22,000 on bringing page-three model Jodie Marsh and X Factor runner-up Andy ‘The Singing Binman’ Abraham to the parade, were this year deciding to play it safe. They announced they were in talks to secure Jersey rugby star Kyran Bracken as the ‘celebrity guest’. And Mr Bracken himself seemed pretty keen, telling the JEP: ‘I’d love to do something like that. I went to a few Battles when I was younger – it was pretty wild.’
and just a few months later, this is what they got…
It was certainly an improvement on this… (Murray Norton’s face tells you all you need to know about the 2006 Battle)
* Gorey Harbour is a lovely little port set against one of the most stunning backdrops in Jersey and should be left well alone by developers. Right? Well, back in 2007, some members of the Gorey Boatowners Association were proposing creating a horseshoe-shaped marina on the southern side of the harbour wall which could accommodate anything between 200 and 500 boats and a load of parking spaces. The scheme never got off the ground and on the last check, the harbour was still small and lovely.
* And life in the States Assembly was a whole lot livelier than it is today. Back on 24 March 2007, the JEP reported that ‘personality politics’ was set to dominate the next sitting, with a vote of no confidence in the then Scrutiny chairman, the late Rob Duhamel, and a censure motion against Health Minister Stuart Syvret in relation to a letter he sent to a developer. The order paper also included debates on the ‘controversial’ proposed sale of the old JCG site (now flats) and what at the time must have been regarded as radical plans to create ‘credit-card-sized’ driving licences.
