Population growth - Chief Minister says long term plan to be revealed next year

Thursday 10 November 2016

With Jersey's population growing at around 1,500 people a year, Chief Minister Ian Gorst today said a long term policy plan will be announced before next summer's States recess.

The Chief Minister appeared before the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel today and was asked about a recent States report which showed that population growth is continuing, despite policies intended to keep it in check.

Deputy Keith Lewis asked: "Do you, Chief Minister, believe you have a realistic population policy in place? Following a recent statistics unit report, the population of Jersey will grow to 160,000 by 2065 if current migration levels from the last three years carry on." 

The Chief Minister said: "We are looking at how we can be even more robust in the delivery of that population policy because we recognise that for a number of members of our community, population is an important factor and we are always trying to balance the value of immigrants, be they economic or social, coming to the Island. 

"The statistics unit work to provide a projection and you could take any number and say you are going to have that number for the next however many years, and this is the total number of the population.

"We are currently working on a long term plan for bringing more information than we have ever done before and we will bring that to the States next year, before the summer recess, for the States to decide what it would like our population policy to be in the future. 

"We will look again at the balance of delivering economic growth and protecting and preserving our scarce resources, in particular what we need and what we enjoy about Jersey. They are difficult equations, but we have to bring these two together with as much up to date information as we can."