By Ben Shenton
IF you ever find yourself wandering down Dumaresq Street, you might spot a round blue plaque with my name on it. No, it’s not a memorial – I’m still very much alive – but recognition of a Jersey driven by pragmatism, not pipe dreams. In 2018, the Premier Inn opened in Jersey in a building built by the Channel Islands Coop – planned and constructed while I was the organisation’s president. Following the 2008 financial crash there was little construction going on and building costs were reasonable. It was before the government decided to create a construction bubble after they borrowed £250 million to invest in housing and spent it all at once.
When building a new hotel, the build costs are vitally important and ideally you want a clean site, so that modern construction techniques can be utilised to the full, with a modular design whereby the rooms are fitted together almost like Lego, with bathrooms preinstalled.
As a developer you do not want the expense of heritage assets and we had a problem with Charing Cross, as some of the buildings had onerous heritage listings. After doing the maths it was better to gift these buildings to the National Trust for £1, as we would never recover the restoration costs. We were retailers – not heritage landlords. Most agree the site is a great improvement on what was previously there. Dealing with Planning was the usual nightmare – the department seems to think “commerce” is a type of cheese, which is why, time after time, dealing with them is a recipe for disaster.
Charing Cross was a great location both for tourists looking for a short break and people coming over on business. The rooms were styled to offer value for money and be efficient for cleaning. To keep costs low you remove labour-intensive facilities, like hotel-room fridges that needs to be restocked, and you pay attention to every detail. If you want a full-service hotel with a restaurant open to non-residents, then footfall is important. The two most important factors are location and build costs. When booking a hotel, we all ask the same questions. Do I need a car? Is there a bus route? Can I pop back during the day without summiting Everest? Charing Cross ticked all the boxes – perfect for tourists and business travellers alike.
The States of Jersey have announced their intention to find investors to build not one, but two new hotels – presumably based on the “build it and they will come” school of economics. Sadly Jersey is now no longer full at the height of the summer. If I look for accommodation for three nights for two adults, at the end of August, using Booking.com, I get a choice of 52 properties, with prices ranging from £299 to £1,425. Therefore, the additional hotels will take business from the struggling existing market and exacerbate the current hospitality labour shortage.
Hotel accessibility is exceedingly important, unlike Napoleonic forts which are normally built in areas that offer the least accessibility. The concept of having a hotel at Fort Regent is a rather strange one inasmuch as it is commercially insane. Not only do you have heritage constraints, making building work costly, time-consuming and very expensive, but you also have accessibility issues (no bus route, steep hill, no passing trade, need a taxi after a night out in town, etc). Actually, the whole plan will require significant taxpayer subsidies until, like the cinema area at the Waterfront, it goes bust. Remember when they said the Aquasplash might make a profit (Constable Simon Crowcroft) and today it is losing millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Just as you don’t put a hotel in an inaccessible place, you don’t put a six-screen cinema there either. Yes we need more facilities for families etc, but you put them in the best-available, most convenient location at the best-possible price.
The hotel at La Folie has the same accessibility issues and significant construction issues. Modular modern construction will have to be combined with expensive heritage assets, working with a Planning Department that have yet to read their first Ladybird book on commerce and investment. Guests will be treated to the scent of mud, the view of a fuel farm and a scenic walk into town past a parade of commercial lorries. In the rain, with luggage, it’s less “boutique getaway” and more “urban endurance test”.
And, finally, we have the private development, the Airport hotel. It’s an interesting concept. Many years ago I used to use the Copthorne Gatwick Airport Hotel, five miles from Gatwick Airport. Basically every hotel in Jersey is an airport hotel, so there is little USP in opening an “airport hotel” – are you really going to check-out of The Grand Hotel, for example, on your last night just to be nearer the Airport? It would just be a Jersey hotel very convenient for the Airport. Still, of the three proposals, this one has legs – especially if it’s linked to the nearby sports facility. It’s not visionary, but at least it’s not delusional.
In previous pieces I’ve highlighted the importance of looking at the developing global trends and planning on the basis of what is needed in the future. Not only do we not do that, but we look to bring back a past long gone. If I am given advice I often ask, “have you personal experience of what you recommend, or have you just read about it”. This is why there is so much bad advice around; people who have no experience actually running a business or economy are giving advice and running government departments. It’s like taking driving lessons from someone who’s only ever read about cars.
Jersey can only stay wealthy if the government starts being smarter, stops throwing money away on wasted initiatives and grasps the productivity gains and cost savings that AI can bring. By all means build more hotels, when 52 have availability at the end of August (just what these hotels need, more competition), give more money to VisitJersey so they can waste it trying to encourage yesterday’s travellers, and dream about wind farms, bridges to France and tunnels to Guernsey – but stop wasting my time. For too long, too many have been fooled. It’s time for Jersey to wake up – before we find ourselves with a skyline full of empty hotels, a budget full of holes and significantly higher taxes.
Ben Shenton is a senior investment director. He is a former Senator, who held positions such as minister, chair of the Public Accounts Committee and chair of Scrutiny. He also assists a number of local charities on an honorary basis.
