Planners to decide whether to get rid of big health and safety risk on the New North Quay

Sunday 17 January 2016

It hasn’t been in action for more than 20 years but it will be up to planning officers to decide whether to get rid of a seven tonne health and safety risk on St Helier’s New North Quay.

Ports of Jersey says Crane 13 is in a bad state, full of asbestos and even if it could be restored it won’t be up to the job of their other more powerful and modern cranes.

They say it’s become a costly job inspecting and maintaining the big crane that was been on the Quay since 1949. They’ve had to set up an exclusion zone around it to keep the area safe and that’s restricting their day-to-day operations.

Ports of Jersey’s Group Operations Director Stephen Driscoll said: “It is unfortunate that the only realistic option open to us now is to dismantle Crane 13 as the health and safety concerns are significant and will only get greater over time. Additionally, it no longer meets modern operational regulations and as such there is no justification for the considerable financial investment required to fund either of the other options.”

Over the last two years they've looked into whether to dismantle and scrap the crane, refurbish it or restore and install on another site away from any operational areas.

Refurbishing it would be costly and would destroy many of its historic features and it still wouldn't be able to handle any freight goods and moving it is likely to cost over £250k. Ports of Jersey have worked with both Planning and Jersey Heritage to try and find a solution to keep the crane but neither have been able to come up with an alternative site or the funds to finance moving it and they say the health and safety concerns now dictate that without an alternative option, the crane must be dismantled. 

If they get the go-ahead from Planning, they’ll get rid of the asbestos before dismantling the rest of the crane.