YEARS of underinvestment in the Island’s critical infrastructure has created “a significant risk” that cannot be corrected “overnight”, a Scrutiny panel has been told.
Speaking to the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Panel yesterday afternoon, Infrastructure Minister Jonathan Renouf said that budgets across several areas, including property maintenance and asset replacements, had essentially “flatlined” over the last four or five years.
“You can even go back further in some cases,” he continued.
“There’s an acknowledgement that we have not spent as much as we should do to maintain critical infrastructure and that remains a significant risk, there’s no getting away from that.”
But Deputy Renouf also highlighted that the government “cannot wave magic wands” and “correct for years and years and years of that investment profile overnight”.
“And it has to be factored in with other critical delivery projects for other departments,” he noted.
“But I do think that the risks sit around the fact that we have an ageing infrastructure, an ageing property estate,” Deputy Renouf added, pointing out that this sat across “all sorts of things” from sports facilities to specialist liquid waste equipment.
He told the panel that ministers were “very focused” on tackling the issue but said: “It isn’t the case that I can just walk into the Council of Ministers and say ‘look, there’s all these risks – you need to fund me’.”
Earlier in the hearing, Deputy Renouf described the previous States Assembly’s decision to approve the establishment of the Jersey Capital Investment Fund as “a key moment”.
The ring-fenced fund is intended to protect infrastructure investment from short-term budget pressures and ensure resources are allocated for maintaining and renewing public assets.
“It’s fair to say that the emphasis that put on long-term investment in infrastructure is something that will carry through into this government,” Deputy Renouf said yesterday.
“It would not make sense to go to all that trouble of creating a new mechanism, ring-fence funds, changing the law and all the rest of it, the public finances manual and so on, and then just say well we’ll forget about that now.
“It’s clearly a priority to drive that through, to operationalise, if you like, the Capital Investment Fund and to make sure that it is funded adequately.”
