Islanders "still being pursued" over Foreshore encroachments

Monday 11 December 2017

Coastal property owners may still be being pursued over Foreshore encroachments even though no policy is in place, a politician has claimed.

Grouville Deputy Carolyn Labey says she’s concerned that some of her parishioners are still receiving letters from Jersey Property Holdings, asking them to pay a controversial ‘tax’ for impinging on a vague area of public-owned land.

In States Members' final meeting before Christmas, she’s set to demand answers as to when a promised policy will finally be brought forward.

Known as the ‘Foreshore’, the land is officially defined as the area between high tide and low tide. It used to be owned by the Queen, until she gifted it to the People of Jersey in 2015.

When sea walls was built around the island’s coast over a century ago, many believed this to be a land boundary and built their properties up to - and sometimes including - the wall.

Since that strip of land fell into public ownership, the States have been pursuing coastal homeowners for ‘compensation’ - often in the tens of thousands - for the metres of ‘Foreshore’ their gardens or properties might take up.

The moves, first revealed by Express, caused an uproar on social media. Many dubbed it the ‘Backdated Foreshore Infringement Tax’.

It also caused a stir amongst States Members, some of whom questioned the Infrastructure Minister back in September over the exact maps being used to define the Foreshore encroachments and why there was no official policy in place.

The Minister told Deputy Labey that one would be “forthcoming”. But now, three months later, she says there’s still no sign of the policy.

“I know that there are some parishioners that are still being written to by Property Holdings so (…) the department are still pursuing this line notwithstanding the fact that there’s no agreed policy. Admittedly the policy does not have to come to the states - the Minister can just do it - but I think it should come to the States because [the land] was gifted by the crown only a couple of years ago to the Public,” she told Express.

Pictured: Deputy Carolyn Labey, who is raising the issue of the Foreshore in the States this week. 

The Foreshore issue is the second of two issues she’ll be raising with Ministers this week. She’ll also be questioning the Chief Minister over why, three years after her proposition to bring more entities under the Freedom of Information (FOI) was approved by the States Assembly, still nothing appears to have been done.

In January this year, the Chief Minister promised that a review into bringing companies wholly or partly owned or majority funded by the States of Jersey would be completed during the first quarter of this year. The results of that review have never been published or discussed publicly, however.

Deputy Labey said that this - like the Foreshore issue - was an example of “disappointing” behaviour and backbenchers ideas being “shelved.”

“I’ve asked three times since that proposition [in 2014]. I just think it’s got to the stage where, who’s running the show? Here we have a States decision to bring these entities into the Freedom of Information law and here we are three years later with nothing done, nothing on the table, and I just think, why not? Who is holding this up? Is it the Ministers? Is it the civil servants that aren’t going along with the wishes of the Assembly and if not, why not?

“I just think the States Assembly is being undermined.”

 The Minister for Infrastructure and the Chief Minister will provide answers to Deputy Labey’s questions during today’s States Assembly meeting. You can watch it live here.