Long-term goal needed on population total
THANK you to Gloria Dudley-Owen and Graham Guille for continuing to care about the island's population, and for their communication skills, which I would love to have. They are in a small minority who care about our future generations. There have been a small number of occasions when the States has decided to limit the population, only to forget it when it immediately rose higher (they hardly could be described of the quality of Winston Churchill). Whatever figure would be chosen, it doesn't matter if it goes temporarily higher or lower, as long as that number is a long-term goal. Personally, I would choose a number with which the island could feed and look after itself (bearing in mind that in 1944/5, many of the 35,000 people living on the island would have died without outside assistance). Others would choose a number close to that existing today.
In order to achieve a long-term population total, there would have to be a certain average number of babies born in any year (and knowing life expectancy that number could easily be worked out). If the number born in a year was notably above or below the number, then different actions could be carried out.
Education would be one area where a steady number of children coming through each year would be desired, instead of constantly closing down schools, then providing new external classes for those schools left.
This leaves migration as a problem which could upset that number, possibly with certain jobs being unable to be filled. Nursing is always dragged into this question, and one helpful answer would be to raise those wages (and improve working practices) to the point where there are sufficient people applying.
The number of people of working age who would have to support those who are older or younger is one worry which politicians drag out, and always quote the elderly. They don't take into account the high cost of children before they get to working age. There are ways to help get over the concerns about the number of working people.
We need to look at how the island is coping now with ever more people. Large houses are knocked down and replaced with a number of smaller ones. Houses are divided into flats. Some houses are surrounded by others, to both sides and to the rear.
There is ever more pressure on people, and gradually any green spaces are disappearing, which is a factor in the increasing number of people having some kind of mental concern. Yet there is still a shortage of houses which drives the prices up for youngsters who wish to start a family. If anyone has a choice of two houses, then the price comes down, but if two families are after a house, then the price will go up.
There are still those who don't agree that humans are causing climate change and the sea level to rise. The worse local effects of sea level rise certainly won't happen in my lifetime, but those generations after mine will surely be affected by a problem which they did not cause. There have been recent press articles which show how much land would be lost depending on how much higher the temperature will go (but in the distant future, so why should we worry; sod the kids). Because governments are so slow to act against the corporations which control them, this temperature rise is sure to happen at some time in a few generations, and where will those people living in the low-lying areas go to live?
Will those living in the higher parishes be able or willing to take them all in?
DAVID WYLIE,
La Chanterelle,
Ruette des Fries, Castel.
