There’s a whiff in St Aubin’s Bay, a hive of activity on the Waterfront, literally a hive of activity in town and the US military drop by. Richard Heath looks back on the month of June
THE government has spent more than a decade trying to build one hospital, so there may have been something of a collective eye-roll in June when ministers announced they were now going to build four. Or at least four new healthcare facilities.
In the latest development in a saga which, quite frankly, has taken up too many column inches in this newspaper, it was revealed that hospital facilities would be spread across the current site and Kensington Place; Overdale; St Saviour’s Hospital and the former Les Quennevais School. It all seemed rather ambitious. But at least it would be cheaper than the previous plans, right?
After all, in September last year Infrastructure Minister Tom Binet said the old scheme (that’s the Overdale one, in case you had lost track) was being pulled because research into a “more affordable and appropriate” scheme was essential. But after a whole lifetime of inflation had been shoehorned into the following eight months, Deputy Binet stood up in the States in June and announced that it was now “highly unlikely” that the new scheme would be cheaper than the Overdale project.
It wasn’t just hospitals that had shot up in price. Petrol, electricity, gas, water, houses, cars, that air fryer your friend keeps telling you to buy because hers has changed her life and she’ll never use the oven again, food, drink… you name it, it all cost a lot more than it did last year. In fact, if you hung around in a supermarket aisle for long enough, there was a fair chance the contents of your trolley would have doubled in value before you’d even made it to the checkout. And then the JCRA competition watchdog went and rubbed our noses in it when they issued a report showing that groceries cost 12% more than in the UK and 33% more than budget stores.
But at least the cost of seeing a doctor was on the way down. The government announced that because it was increasing its subsidy to GP practices, the price of an appointment would drop by £20.
And there was finally a buzz about town again. But only because a swarm of bees had tried to take up residence outside the former Topshop – and then returned the following day and attempted to stake a claim on the entrance to Clarks shoe shop. They were eventually carted away by a beekeeper and haven’t been seen since.
The bees’ nemesis – the Asian hornet – was busy making a home pretty much anywhere. The volunteer hunters were run off their feet at the start of summer as nests began to pop up across Jersey. It would turn out to be a record-breaking summer for the Island’s least favourite invasive species.
Talking of invasive species… Sea vomit – which can double in size in just over a week, turn marinas into a gooey mess and has an appearance only a mother could love – was discovered in the Harbour for the first time. Four small colonies of the organism, also known as carpet sea squirt, were found underneath pontoons, and some experts believe it is only a matter of time until it becomes established in our waters.
Following a pretty miserable spring, temperatures soared, and the month went on to become our hottest June since the famously baking summer of 1976. But anyone hoping that it was just the start of a long and hot holiday season would be disappointed, as the Island went straight into autumn in July. And it stayed there, until autumn officially started in September, when it went back to summer. It has been a somewhat confusing year of weather.
Thanks to the hot and dry weather, the Waterfront was full of life, too. As temperatures soared, the algae in the stagnant waters of AquaSpash’s long-closed outside bit was having the time of its life, turning the pool a dazzling bright green, which really complemented the array of skips, bins and scaffolding nearby. It was pretty much the only sign of life in what was once billed as a “world class” waterfront complex and which, following the sudden closure of Arcadia, Quest escape room and WYSIWYG bar and terrace, could more accurately be described as a “world-class ghost town”. And what did WYSIWYG stand for? “What You See Is What You Get”, which seemed like the perfect choice of name for the Waterfront as a whole.
There was though one place even less appealing to swimmers than AquaSplash’s algae pool – the sea. The government urged people not to take to the water in St Aubin’s Bay because it had inadvertently been pumped full of sewage. Signs were put up advising people to find somewhere else to swim, and walkers noticed that the bay had taken on a new aroma.
Jersey’s government announced that it had appointed a new chief executive – and that in time-honoured tradition, he may not be around too long… but only because he was an interim. After losing three CEOs in as many years, the government revealed that Dr Andrew McLaughlin, a senior executive at NatWest, was their new man and would be taking up the post in September. At the time of writing, he was still in position.
The States police asked parents to check that their children were not playing with old mobile phones – after being bombarded with 3,000 emergency calls from the same device within a month.
In shock news, Jersey Hemp announced that it had closed after being told by the Home Office that its CBD products were illegal – despite other unregulated brands of cannabis-based wellbeing goods from China and elsewhere remaining on sale in the UK.
And at the end of the month, the Island found itself caught up in the global effort to rescue the missing Titan submersible which disappeared during a dive to the world-famous wreck of Titanic. As passengers waited in departures for their flights to take off, just metres away military personnel were busy trying to load specialist search equipment onto a US Air Force C17 aircraft. But by the time it was secured on board, the crew were running too low on flying hours, which meant that the equipment had to be unloaded and the aircraft departed, minus the kit, at around 5pm. The efforts were all in vain, as it was believed the sub imploded, killing all on board, shortly into the dive days earlier.
