Ministers face hammering over Waterfront report

Monday 02 November 2015

Ministers face a hostile grilling in the States tomorrow after an independent report which slated the viability and profitability of the States’ Esplanade office plan.

Chief Minister Ian Gorst is due to face 15 minutes of questions without notice - although he is in China on an education trip, and a stand-in will field the questions on his behalf - and Treasury Minister Alan Maclean faces questions about why his department’s estimates for the profitability of the scheme vary so wildly with Friday’s report by consultants EY.

That report – commissioned by a Scrutiny panel – predicted much lower profits for the first buildings, and called on the States to rethink the whole six-office block project after the first two buildings are finished.

They also cast serious doubts over whether ministers’ grand plans to build yet more offices over a sunken road and provide open space and car parking will ever really happen.

The States of Jersey Development Company say that the JIFC will ultimately comprise six office buildings with underground parking, and an underground car park with 520 spaces beneath a public park. Although the project has been in the planning stage for eight years, work has only recently started on the first of the buildings.

Although the Council of Ministers and the States-owned development company running the project have been adamant that the scheme is both viable and profitable, Friday’s report by EY has cast serious doubt over whether there is a real need for that much office space – given the amount that private sector developers have built in the last few years, and the amount that is likely to be built over the next few years.

Deputy Hilton’s question – which was tabled before the report came out last week – asks Senator Maclean how his own department’s profit projections for the scheme recently increased to more than £90 million in the days before the EY report was published.

Her question asks: “How does the Minister justify an increase of approximately £50,000,000 in projected profits in relation to the Jersey International Finance Centre compared to earlier forecasts?”