Just How Much More Grey Concrete And Black Tarmac Do We Want to Cover Our Island In?

Do you like horror stories?

Well it's bad news for you if you don't, because you're about to live in one.

Just read Sarah's manifesto.

She speaks about the Council of Ministers insane idea of allowing the population to increase by 700 a year.

700 a year!

And she appears to be the only standing member who is concerned by this number, particularly about where we're going to house them.

I'm not concerned. I'm absolutely bloody terrified.

Here's why:

1. The figure of 700 is a lie. It's a delusional wish. It's an arbitrary figure that the government has no strategy in place to enforce It's also nowhere near the real figure for annual immigration. If you look at official documents, you will see that from 2006-2016, population grew by 11,900 or an average of 1,190 a year. That's 490 more than the Council of Ministers figure or 70% more. So that doesn't mean we will need the 185 Les Marais blocks that so concern Sarah. It actually means 314 blocks. Now evenly distributed, that mean 26 blocks per parish. So where would you like your 26 put? Are you horrified yet? Well it gets worse
2. The people coming over here don't want to live in a Les Marais block. The bad news is that what they want is the Jersey dream of at least a semi-detached with a little garden in front and back, a garage they can convert into another room and room for at least 3 cars - one for daddy, one for mummy and one for the kid once they grow up - more if they have more kids. So it's not 314 Les Marais, it's 314 Clos du Corvez housing estates. The bad news is that a Clos du Corvez estate takes up at least twice the footprint as a Les Marais block. Every parish is going to look like St Clement. Are you horrified yet? Well it gets worse.
3. It's not just housing. Every additional house means additional utilities, additional sewage management, additional refuse removal, more cars, more car parking, more schools, a bigger hospital, and even more freight on the roads. That means more strain on our infrastructure and that means a much bigger civil service. And a bigger civil service means more taxes. How many extra civil servants do we need with each additional family? 1,2,3, 30? No one knows because everyone is too scared to ask. Are you horrifed yet? Well it gets worse.
4. What the hell are these extra people going to do over here? Do we have 1,190 jobs for them to fill? Well, as the first quarter of this year, we have 910 people Actively Seeking Work. So that would tend to suggest that we don't have the work for these new people. So is the figure next year going to be 2,000? .The only work seems to be in the civil service - so are we talking about increasing the civil service by 1,000 just to handle the extra population? Are you horrified yet?

And don't think you're going to escape it because your constable and deputies can vote to send it down to St Clement like you've done in the past because St Clement is almost full.

So what can be done?

You can demand the government set a limit on the population - and stick to it. To do that you must act now by voting out any candidate who is for more immigration. The bad news is that appears to be everyone on this stage apart from me and Sarah.

So maybe we should also act by placing a limit on building. At the moment, according to Gov.je, there were 3,103 empty properties in the island at the last census. For those interested in numbers that was 7% of the total number of proerties. So how about we set a limit that at any time, we cannot have more than 3,000 properties empty. And then drop that limit by 500 each year until we get to 500. So, we're not allowed to build any more until we have people staying in the ones we already have. We can run it on a simple waiting list. So a property developer will come along and say "I want to build 10 houses" and the states will say "No problem. We'll let you know when 10 spots become available and then you can build". "But I want to build now". "Well you can't. You'll have to wait"

"But Phil, what about the 1,000 needing homes on the waiting list". Well, compulsory buy the best 1,000 empty properties and then sell them on to the waiting list. Ooh look, problem solved and no new houses needed.

So I'd like to end by asking one simple question: when will the island be full enough of people? 200,000? 300,000? Half a million? When are we going to stop letting people flood in?