A SCRUTINY panel is seeking to amend the Budget to ensure greater transparency around the funding for the redevelopment of Fort Regent.
The Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel’s proposed amendment to the government’s nearly £1.3 billion spending plans for 2025 to 2028 is the latest in a series of changes that Members have been putting forward this week.
Politicians are due to start debating the Budget and the amendments – of which there are now nearly 30 lodged – on Monday 25 November.
The panel has sought to “correct the omission” of the Fort Regent redevelopment project from these major spending plans with the request that it should have its own “head of expenditure” with an allocation of £0.
This, the panel says, would ensure that “all work carried out and monies spent on the site are subject to the proper level of ministerial and States Assembly oversight” and that funding for any expenditure on Fort Regent is “transparently represented” in the Budget 2025 to 2028.
It also asks that ministers work with Jersey Development Company to identify the appropriate funding and source for funding of feasibility work before 31 March 2025.
This summer, plans to redevelop the much-loved but long-neglected site took a major step forward when Infrastructure Minister Andy Jehan revealed in a letter to the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel that he was no longer taking full responsibility for the work, saying that he was instead “working with” the States-owned JDC to refine proposals.
The Constable of St John also told the JEP that he hoped to have planning permission for the project “in place” before the end of this term of office in mid-2026.
Several months previously, Mr Jehan told the same panel that he had seen “exciting” £80 million proposals for the site, which included a permanent skate park, play areas and visitor facilities.
However, the panel said the current omission of the project from the Budget left it “concerned” that “significant expenditure could take place on a publicly owned asset by a States-owned entity but without clarity on how projects will be prioritised or funded beyond design stage”.
Panellists argued that other major capital projects were usually allocated a head of expenditure and explained the decision to put £0 under that head was so that the minister would develop the budget.
The panel’s report continued: “While the panel accepts that the budget required for the project is currently not decided, it is clear that feasibility work is being done by an external partner and so money is being spent now and over the lifetime of this proposed Budget.
“Fort Regent is a significant public asset of community importance and its redevelopment and the necessary funding should be subject to a high level of public engagement, ministerial oversight and robust scrutiny.
“In bringing this amendment, the panel is seeking to ensure that a community-led focus is established and maintained from feasibility to completion of work.”
Most sports clubs have already relocated from the site, which has been in limbo for several years after proposals lodged by former Chief Minister John Le Fondré’s government were scrapped by Deputy Kristina Moore’s Council of Ministers for being “infeasible in the current economic climate”.
Those plans – which were to take shape over ten years – featured proposals for a multi-purpose venue for conferences, sporting events and concerts, alongside a hotel, cinema, ten-pin-bowling alley and casino.
