Ports and planners to work closer together
GUERNSEY Ports is to work more closely with planning to free a ‘bottleneck’ when it comes to commercial development at the harbours.
The undertaking was made by States’ Trading Supervisory Board president Peter Roffey during question time in the States yesterday, in response to a request from Development & Planning Authority member Sasha Kazantseva-Miller.
Off the back of a series of questions from Deputy John Gollop about recently announced increases in mooring fees, she objected to Deputy Roffey’s assertion that delays had been caused by the DPA, claiming there had not been a single such case.
‘The facilities are so terrible that it should be shameful for the ports,’ she said.
‘Shouldn’t STSB get together with planning and other committees and progress desperately – as a matter of priority – improvement to facilities.’
Deputy Roffey said he knew of at least two cases where major reconstruction of buildings around the ports were going to be funded by private investment if long-term leases were available, but this had been held up until plans for harbour action areas have been finalised.
He said he attempted to push through major commitments to ports development at the beginning of this States term but members voted down his board’s proposals.
He promised to the ports management team to senior planners to move this forward.
Deputy Kazantseva-Miller welcomed this but asked that there be involvement at political level too.
In response to further questions about poor facilities, Deputy Roffey reiterated STSB’s commitment to spending more on maintenance, but restated his view that the money had to come from user fees, rather than requiring taxpayers to subsidise the improvements.
This effective subsidy was currently £6m., he said.
‘There’s a perception that the harbour makes a profit. It does not. It makes a very small revenue surplus, which is absolutely nowhere near sufficient to fund the capital investment required in the harbours,’ he said.
Even after the current three-year programme of fee rises, owners of 20ft boats would be paying only half the amount being paid by those mooring in St Helier, he said.
