THE Infrastructure Minister has defended the number of roadworks that took place this summer against accusations that the ‘massive disruption’ was neither ‘strategic’ nor ‘coordinated’.
Appearing before Scrutiny this week, Infrastructure Minister Andy Jehan said that the works – which including closing sections of St Clement’s Coast Road and the bottom of Trinity Hill – was justified because there was a 20% reduction in traffic during the school holidays.
He was responding to a question from Deputy David Warr, who asked: “One of the big issues this summer has been the huge level of roadworks, which has caused massive disruption. I would not describe the digging up of the roads that took place this summer as as either ‘strategic’ or ‘coordinated’.
“How do you justify that level of disruption in the Island at the height of the season?
Mr Jehan replied: “I remember when we had hire cars and the public queuing at the Shell Garden halfway up St Aubin’s Hill to get into town; that doesn’t happen these days.
“The work on St Clement’s Coast Road was planned for over five years and there was lots of dialogue. I went to public meetings to get feedback and the Constable was really complimentary of the interaction with the team, the quality of the work and he understood that the work had to be done.
“That work was scheduled to offer the least disruption as possible.”
He added: “We didn’t want to close Trinity Road for as long as we did but when you find a void underneath the road, you have to fill it properly. That work had been delayed because of the work at Rouge Boullion.
“My first thoughts before I visited Trinity Road was that you could keep a lane open but when you saw the width of the crack, you couldn’t open the road, not even for pedestrians.”
Mr Jehan said that taking together the 500 miles of sewers his department maintained, and the extensive networks of the utilities, “there will be more roadworks, not less roadworks in the near future.”
He added: “The issue is you have to upgrade your infrastructure. Leaving it and it failing causes more disruption, just as it did in Trinity Road because we found voids there and that took far longer to fix than the planned works.
“It won’t be much comfort [to the public] but I do hope they take comfort from the fact that we are addressing these issues which have been left for far too long.”
Mr Jehan said that his department’s £8m annual spend on roads, in an ideal world, would be doubled to £16m and he hoped that more money would be forthcoming from the new Jersey Capital Investment Fund, which the Government wants to establish next year.
He also ruled out compensation for businesses affected by road closures.
