PROGRESS tackling climate change will be ‘cancelled out’ if plans for a new hangar to house private jets are approved, a Reform Deputy has said.
The political party’s leader added that the application ‘flies in the face of our carbon-neutral agenda’.
Business jet operator and handling agent Gama Aviation recently announced it has submitted a planning application to construct a hangar and ‘fixed base operation’ on the site of the now-demolished cargo centre on the Airport’s south-eastern perimeter.
A statement said the new build would ‘deliver improved facilities for private passengers’.
Islanders soon took to social media to say that the announcement comes at a time when people are ‘going paperless’ at work, upping their recycling efforts, and swapping out their car for an electric vehicle or an e-bike – changes in lifestyle that the government is supporting in its Carbon Neutral Roadmap (which sets out steps the Island can take to reach net zero emissions by 2050).
Deputy Rob Ward, who was responsible for the proposal which secured the government’s commitment to carbon neutrality, said: ‘What we’re doing to attack climate change is being lost in decisions like this. The steps are becoming clouded and convoluted when they don’t need to be.
‘How can we call ourselves a responsible jurisdiction when we’re allowing and supporting one of the most polluting forms of travel? We are losing our way in how we’re addressing this issue with its schemes and decisions like this.’
He continued: ‘It seems completely contradictory to the ambitions we said we had to encourage people to change their behaviours. People need to be enabled to make the changes they need and to be led by government. This shows conflated leadership with contradictory ideas and that’s a shame.’
Deputy Ward added: ‘I’m sure the government could lead the way and stop something which goes completely contrary to our ambitions to stop climate change.
‘I don’t know whether this will raise revenue for the government, but we need to look very carefully at where it will do that and their role in the application.’
The party, he said, would also ‘look carefully’ at what action it can take.
‘There is a generation of young people who want to see us do better, and I don’t think we are.’
While Environment Minister Jonathan Renouf did not wish to speak further on the claims, as head of planning, he said that the Reform Jersey Deputy was ‘wrong’ because it was a ‘private application’.
Reform leader Deputy Sam Mezéc, said: ‘Despite the Environment Minister’s disingenuous response, the application to build a private jet hangar is officially supported by Ports of Jersey, which is a government-owned company.
‘If you’ll excuse the pun, it flies in the face of our carbon neutral agenda, and is a further demonstration of the badly thought through priorities this government has, that they haven’t vetoed support for the application.’
