A dynamic discussion on the importance of infrastructure investment in driving economic growth in Guernsey. This event brings together experts from various sectors to share their insights on how infrastructure development can create jobs, attract investment, and improve the overall quality of life for Guernsey’s residents.
One of the ways in which I think about infrastructure is that it is to a place what a skeleton is to a body it’s what gives it its shape and its strength and it is what enables it to function effectively and it’s that focus on function which is so important because
Infrastructure doesn’t exist for its own sake it’s there to enable other things to happen um so that is why infrastructure is so critically important and of course when it comes to macro infrastructure the really big structures and Facilities that benefit so many people including the whole of society it obviously Falls
To it falls to governments to invest in that so if we want to function effectively as a society it follows that we have to invest in the right kinds of infrastructure um so why is it so difficult why is it so hard Diane said in her opening that
You know we have quite clearly underinvested in infrastructure and I don’t think people would argue with that well no one except me I will make a small caveat but I think we do some parts of investing in infrastructure very well I think historically we’ve done some very good things
Um I think our Harbors are a great case in point and I think on on some of the sort of slightly smaller or mundane scales we’ve got a couple of examples for example um uh our road infrastructure and our sea wall infrastructure not to be confused with non-sea defense infrastructure like landcrest anti-tank
Wall and the the wool Napoleonic wallet for Maine but we do have a very proactive approach to maintaining those critical bits of infrastructure and that proactive approach really pays off it pays off economically and it pays off in all the many other ways um that that infrastructure is important
And that brings us back back to why infrastructure is so difficult for governments to invest in and one of the reasons is when you’re talking about that big macro infrastructure that is multi-generational you know those structures that are built to span Generations it’s expensive for a start
And that’s a really difficult thing for politicians when taxpayers money is understandably very tight but there’s an inherent tension as well with the kind of generation spanning nature of macro infrastructure and the very much shorter term Horizons of political Cycles so you can understand why some policy some politicians really struggle looking
Beyond the Horizon of the next four years and understanding what the Next Generation and indeed Generations are going to need but we do in need indeed need to do that and our forebears did manage to do that very impressively so really I hope that that is one of the
Big themes that is going to come out of this afternoon I hope that we can get some excitement about the possibilities that investing in infrastructure can bring and remember that it’s all about that enabling function the payback isn’t of course always monetary and indeed it’s not even always economic you know
There are so many benefits to different types of infrastructure in Social and environmental ways as well um so it is absolutely critical now when I first tried to interval successfully brought an amendment to introduce a climate change policy to Guernsey um that was back in 2019 I think round
About then and I was talking about Greta turnberg don’t worry this does become a little bit more relevant uh she had a famous call to governments around the world to act like the house was on fire and very quickly very soon after I was making uh or just before I was making
That speech Notre Dame cathedral in Paris went up in flames and Greta timberg indeed found herself there and it I looked into Notre Dame and how it was built and one of the one of the phrases that Greta timberg used which really struck me at the time was this
Idea of Cathedral thinking because Notre Dame cathedral was it took 200 years to complete so the people who started on that project knew that they would never even see it finished and yet they were determined to put in the time the money and the effort to see that through for
The benefit of so many generations to come uh these days thankfully we can tend to get projects deliver a bit more quickly than that but I do think that we need to apply the same mentality I think we need to use 21st century Cathedral thinking we need to think big we need to
Think about what infrastructure can do for the island and all the things that that can enable looking to the Future and I think with specific reference to the bridge the bridge is a bit of infrastructure and actually the area of the bridge wouldn’t exist without the the foresight of the people who built
The infrastructure to actually make it into a very functional and very important area of the island so I’m greatly looking forward to today’s panel session and hope that we can come out of here with some enthusiasm for what is possible and not dwell too much on that
That classic problem I think in politics especially where we understand the cost of everything but the value of nothing I think we need to think beyond that and and really go big in terms of our infrastructure Horizons thank you [Applause] thank you thank you good morning um most of you
Know me I’m Rupert Dory I’m a former president of the Chamber of Commerce and until five years ago I chaired one of the largest London listed infrastructure companies so Lindsay I have to thank you for a tremendous introduction counter through infrastructure was really incredibly succinct and you’ve touched on a lot of
Really important points so thank you so before I introduce the panel I just want to just talk in sort of concept about info and just a little bit more detail in terms of what it is I mean by and large infrastructure our big physical assets usually they’re facilities that
Provide support for essential Public Services broadly speaking the sector’s compartmentalized into what I describe as social infrastructure which is things like hospitals and schools and so on things that by and large don’t have any income stream attached to it you can put things like roads in there as well ports
And airports in some instances depending on who the owners are and on the other side is the economic infrastructure which is probably what we’re more sort of concerned about which is the utilities which is the communications waste water and also also sort of Transport as well and these things typically do have
Income streams attached and that’s important because that opens up a whole other panoply of opportunities particularly in terms of things like financing and so on as well so basically infrastructure is the large physical assets they’re very Capital intensive they provide an essential service they’re not easily replicated
They have a positive economic impact and they typically last a very long term and long term is not just 10 years 20 years I’ve been involved in projects that have been contractually signed up for 125 years and an example of that would be the London super seal which is being
Built at the moment it started in about 2015 it’s due for completion next year it’s a tremendous project but as an example of very long-term thinking which transcends all of those things like economic Cycles political cycles and demographic cycles and you know clearly it’s probably one of the most
Aside from the obvious hs2 which is a complete debacle and so on it really is one of those projects that picks up where the Visionaries of the Victorian era left off and I just I just leave that with you because please think of infrastructure’s supplying very long-term benefits and not always
Necessarily the ones that are obvious from an economic perspective so I mean there’s a number of key features of infrastructure projects that that one needs to be appreciated you know firstly identifying a need um you know understanding what you’re trying what what problem you’re trying to solve and how you’re going to deliver
It how you’re going to spec it and also explain how you’re going to get value for money from this and or other other attendant benefits as well and also are these assumptions reasonable compared to alternatives um I mean the client side usually you know a government possibly or otherwise
Has to be absolutely clear in terms of how they want to achieve um their end objectives and you know typically they can do it themselves um or alternatively they can Farm it out to someone who has you know expertise in pulling together all the different threads and complexities of
Infrastructure development and you may well have heard of things like design build Finance operate and so on is is a plan that’s is a structure that’s well used in the UK and elsewhere and you know clearly no one needs technical expertise you would have clear objectives it’s important to probably avoid too
Much change of scope because that increases costs avoid over specking and avoid complexity and typically overall that is as a proxy very high levels of capex typically mean over High two high levels of complexity as well I mean the project developer would typically be sought by the client going out seeking
Proposals from various uh or invite rfps and so on from various suppliers and so on to to um to fulfill a you know the fulfill the optimal route towards achieving the end goals ensuring there’s a clear alignment of interest between project outcomes and and financial outcomes um if there are clear benefits for
Having or external experts and so on you know they typically one could say they have a stronger stronger Drive greater levels of expertise and they can offer that objectivity and arms length um uh sort of distance from from from the uh from from the project to all from the client itself
Um one aspect of uh infrastructure that is absolutely crucial for developing or achieving successful outcome is to have buy-in from the public as well this cannot be underestimated if you get the public behind you and they can see the clear benefits of what you’re trying to achieve then you’re a long way there
Which is absolutely crucial um I’m going to introduce the panel now and we are fortunate to have panelists from JT uh Guernsey electricity and from the Guernsey development agency so I’d like to invite them to come up here and I will introduce them individually just before I um introduce them I just want
To say a little bit about the financing and so on of infrastructure I mean broadly speaking there are a number of different sources and so on if one’s talking from a corporate point of view clearly you’ve got retained earnings uh from a large Corporate Point of View and governments and so on
Obviously one can access things like debt Capital markets and all its particular guises and clearly from a Guernsey perspective then clearly the Guernsey Bond and so on is just one example of that um Banks typically do a fair amount of infrastructure lending or typically not much longer than 10 years or so they
Don’t like to exercise their balance sheets too much and that introduces other areas of risk such as refinancing risk you know halfway done you know project cycle which is something which one typically wants to try and avoid more recently you’ve had the emergence of private debt providers these are
Basically non-banks these are things like insurance companies pension Funds annuity companies and also increasingly private Equity balance sheet lenders I’m going to talk to you here about the big Global ones like sort of brookfields Apollo’s kkr’s Carlisle and so on and so forth now those guys have vast balance
Sheets which they’re now putting into action and to provide some very competitive Finance outside sort of the banking outside sort of the banking market and they’re incredibly competitive as well um from a Guernsey concept a perspective one might want to look at opportunities that could arise from
Um the uh of the guernsey’s you know the international Stock Exchange here in Guernsey a creation of community bonds again I’m speculating here there’s an awful lot of downside potentially in doing that as well because these are not typically your regular savings type products and so on but so that one has
To tread with care and clearly um there’s also the Guernsey infrastructure fund which is managed by Ravenscroft as well which typically to date has tended to stick with property type Investments but has been looking for more core infrastructure type Investments which have been relatively hard to come by late and in a Guernsey
Cons in a Guernsey perspective scale is really important because infrastructure stuff is big and I’m talking big here in the con I’m just a con contextualize this if we were to put a new cable directly to France you know a nominal Apex would be around 100 million or so
That is a small project in the context of infrastructure investment from typical providers in the in the in the in the UK or elsewhere I mean typically a capital structure on this would probably attract three to five million of equity which is like a drop in the
Ocean for these guys and the rest would typically be done done with debt um clearly some of the stuff we’re going to be looking at and talking about would probably fall well below those sort of parameters we can also look at um other models that have been used locally as well I mean
For example um the the states of Guernsey has you’ll be aware that the slaughterhouse was a underused asset in the middle of some Peter Port which was doing nothing and they were approached by a local company Randalls to take it on spend money doing it up in concession
With a 25-year concession for right of use they spent the seven figure sums doing it up and after 25 years the ownership will go straight back to the uh all the benefits that investment will fall straight back to the states of Guernsey who will have got a totally refurbished
Fit for purpose asset again which they otherwise would not have done but it worked from a commercial perspective so looking at potential projects like that and reusing existing assets is something that is well worth looking at is something that we also need to consider as well
So at that broadly speaking sort of set the scenes of you know what infrastructure is about how it can operate what opportunities there are for putting in financing and so on but I’d like to lean on our panel members now and I’ll I’ll introduce them all um on
My immediate left here is Simon killed in Dar he is one of the three directors of the recently appointed Guernsey development agency uh charged with um looking at uh development opportunities in Guernsey next term is Dara McDermott who’s the JT’s managing director and uh and I’ll be talking to him presently
About what they’ve been doing in Jersey and finally Alan Bates who many of you already know who’s the managing director of guns electricity um the Lash of which is going to be brutal and particularly in the context of the recently approved electricity strategy which has set the direction for
Which currency is likely to go so if I can kick off with some JT I mean JT has recently undertaken a huge investment in its own fiber Network in Jersey um Sarah tells me that JT now has one of the fastest networks Broadband networks in the world
And uh and uh and it was one of the first jurisdictions in the world to do that and so I’d just like to ask him can you describe some of the lessons that you have learned from this extremely ambitious undertaking and give us some insights into the sort of
Problems that you faced in rolling out that investment you’ve got to press the mic I’m all over this technology thanks to Rupert uh I guess there’s a few things to to kick off with one is you know I was struck by Lindsay’s introduction because it’s spot on in
Terms of investment in infrastructure is the bones and it’s the things that enables that the body to functional and whatever else and and it’s crucially important that you pay appropriate attention to it and when we when we rolled out fiber in Jersey listen there was a whole load of reasons that it made
Sense but but crucial in there was you know that the company had a vision in terms of how this would benefit not only the company but really importantly the jurisdiction okay because incumbent operators like you know like like Allen’s like like JT they work well you
Know when people make use of them and if you’re gonna if you’re gonna make use of things you have to keep it up to date you have to continue to invest and that cycle of investment is really important but when outlining you know what to do and and division for that investment as
I say it was really important to make the decision but then we allowed the room to to get on and do it because rolling out these infrastructure Investments tart it’s really really hard and I’m not sitting here looking for sympathy but what I am saying is that it takes time
Um it takes effort it takes a lot of coordination um and and you have to have you have to have patience but but you also have to trust the people that are in place to do it so you know I have you know the chair
Of JT Muriel investe is in a room this afternoon and and she and the board rightly holds me and the executive to account for for Rolling these things out and getting them done and on our head be it okay and if we fail then we lose our
Jobs and if we succeed then we’re congratulated brilliant um but but that kind of trust of okay make the decision and then get on and execute is really really important um the the other kind of few things are you know back to that point on it’s it’s in the interest of the jurisdiction
Having good infrastructure whether it’s water telecommunications roads whatever the case electricity that’s what in my view and what’s shown in economic studies that’s which those jurisdictions that have those things well and those things right and continue to pay true care and attention to them they have a
They have a platform to succeed they have a real platform to succeed and then it’s over to you know Industries other Industries to make use of that that capability that functionality but on our side of the fence myself Alan the the others you know we kind of provided and
Then encourage others to make use of it um and and not let it sit there and and waste away the that that kind of that point on care and attention um is also appropriate because if I look at it from the other end of the telescope if you don’t make the appropriate Investments
You run out of Road okay and we’ve seen in the UK recently the the the concrete in schools crumbling and so on and so forth if we stop investing in electricity or telecommunications or water today you won’t know you won’t see it for years down the line okay but you
Will as I say run out of Road and to recover that you know you suffer War Services you suffer slower speeds you look you suffer a lack of coverage you you will suffer and that impacts the jurisdiction the economy and the ability to to get on and Thrive so so there are
A few kind of opening remarks I would make uh Rupert I can I can talk all day by the way um I’m getting that feeling um but but there are a few kind of opening positions that I would I would set out to try and contextualize you’re
Going to get a lot of challenges and uncertainties that develop um whether any in particular which you had to dig your heels in and uh and on certain decisions you know clearly with some of the obstacles that you face whether they’re political or technical or financial
Um a lot of some of the obstacles were just customer experience and by the way we made mistakes you know when you’re rolling out uh you know it was you know a 60 million pound program of work we a lot we we made mistakes but that’s where
You know did we make the same mistake twice no um so learning and getting on um is is a really important thing so so there’s a little bit back to that point around patience trust that we’re doing the right thing um and and patience to let us get let us
Get it done and and then hold us to hold us to account so what were the sort of key strategic decisions that you had to make to ensure successful rollout oh the key strategic decision um was uh and this is for the for the kind of the rollout in in Jersey in
Particular because we’re you know we’re kind of government owned by the uh sorry 100 government owned in in Jersey we wanted to make sure that this wasn’t seen to be a JT thing that we were doing to the jurisdiction so we wanted to make
Sure there was a a joint buy-in a new is this in your opening remarks it was a joint buy under this was in the this is for the greater good okay um and and then when we you know we’ve had long discussions with the um with the government in Guernsey in
Relation to you rolling out fiber here was absolutely crucial in our in in our view and we’ve been saying that for many years and we’re delighted as the um Deputy enter in the economic development uh committee signed that off um a few years ago now because it is the
Right thing and what we were saying at that time sorry was do you know what um sure as the incumbent operator are probably the best people to roll this out but if they don’t someone has to and we’re happy to step in so so so so there
Are the kind of few remarks on that point so having done all this work and delivered it successfully overcome a lot of issues and so on what are you seeing are the principal benefits of that you’ve achieved from an economic perspective or an island from an island-wide perspective are your
Expectations being realized uh no is a is a very short answer um um well I I think it at one level it takes um you know I was I was critical um in a recent speech uh to to uh the Chamber of Commerce in Jersey where I
Made the point that we’ve got the fastest speeds in the world and it’s not just me that’s saying it it’s it’s it’s a recorded fact um but I was saying with the fastest speeds in the world and what we’re seeing is people um you know people buying more stuff on
Amazon and watching more Netflix and that’s not going to move the needle you know you you gotta you we’re not we’re not experts in other Industries um but we can help and facilitate and what we need is those other Industries to start taking advantage of that
Um and government you know what I see government in in Guernsey and Jersey do now we start to push those boundaries and those challenges and I think it’s up to Industry to stand up and see what the opportunity is and then deliver upon it so is a great example of however being the
Skeleton yes and uh once the once the core structure is in place it’s up to others to take up the running and deliver their side as well yes enablement is utterly crucial yes and you know clearly I mean one can speculate what sort of Industries might
Follow but I mean I’ve heard you know AI gets banded around a lot these days it’s often clearly connectivity and particularly extremely fast connectivity is a crucial part of that so yeah you know one can speculate on on how that might develop um so I mean now that you’ve
Fulfilled your side with full um fiber coverage and so on um what other strategic initiatives are you considering to try and sort of roll out or perpetuate the success of the delivery of your first Sage well there’s um part of it is you know we’re on a channel on a network
Um so so the work we’re doing uh in Guernsey and across the Channel Islands is as you say about making use of that so so in a few weeks time you know we recently um signed a contract with Eric sent an 85 million pound contract to invest in a
Brand new mobile network across the Channel Islands and what we’re doing and this is the learning from what we didn’t do with Fiverr perhaps what we’re doing is we’re bringing Ericsson um experts across to present the end of theaters in Guernsey and present the industry leaders in Jersey and just show
What can be done you know just to wet the appetite so to speak and get people thinking more broadly on you know not just you know not just faster speeds to do the same thing we’re doing now um but but how how much to change other Industries and that’s down to other
Industry leaders back to that point on making use and enabling States company and so on can you talk a little bit about how you approach the financing of the investment at home as well and I know I know from past conversations with you and so on you’ve had experience of borrowing from direct
Vendors such as insurance companies pensions can you just talk through some of the um some of the sources of finance that you used aside from sort of retained earning well for the road out of fiber essentially um and and again as I said earlier it
Was back to making sure this wasn’t a JT project being done to the jurisdiction that it was there was there was buy-in and part of that was evidenced in in the financing where you know we had a there was a wave of um a waving of JT dividend
For for a number of years um now you know it all it costs what it costs and it had to be funded um so the funding mechanism was was almost just a way of seeking our rubber stamping or or evidencing that buy-in from from government as well so it
Played a slightly different role than might normally be the case in a in in a funding decision thank you see I mean that’s a great example of investment that has taken place that the projects have been managed and delivered and so on and clearly the full benefits have yet to be realized
Um I mean moving on to Alan here as well I mean clearly the recent Passover electricity strategy set took a new Direction in terms of you know where energy markets are going and energy infrastructure as well and um so I mean I just invite Alan just to talk a little
Bit about the um the capex challenges that you face and post the approval of the electricity strategy and how you will use that to manage the energy transition take drawing on your experience of uh of you know where you might finance that from I mean obviously
The states of Guernsey is well known for being somewhat short of pocket at the moment and so on yet you have these gigantic challenges to face I mean can you give us some sort of insight into how you’re going to manage that process well let’s start off with the
Electricity strategy so uh approved last month really really good result um but we’re not starting from a great place so I keep saying to everyone they’re actually getting the policy letter through was actually the easy bit um the difficult bit is actually going to be doing something with it uh so
Where are we starting from we’re starting from a point where we’ve mentioned it under investment and there’s a fear we’re going to say the same thing today but we have quite substantially under invested in the electricity system in Guernsey over the last decades uh we can’t change that now
But we are starting to see that even for provision today service so we’ve seen more customer minutes lost as in cable thoughts we’re seeing more customers we can’t connect because there’s not enough capacity in the grid um we’re seeing the power station having to run more in the winter now because
The demand’s increasing so it’s not the great not the greatest place to start but at least we understand that so I think there’s a there’s a certain a challenge in terms of catching up you know catching up in terms of investment before we even start thinking of growth um
But when we get into that we are going to have to become a bit braver as an island in terms of making investment decisions there is no risk-free investment decision there will always be risks around Investments what we need to be become much better at is being agile
And flexible and managing those risks more appropriately I think then we can crack on you know we’ve got lots to spend uh certainly we’ve identified a couple of hundred million just to do low carbon capacity and security supply for the island so this is just investment in the grid the power station further
Interconnection before you even get on to you know really investing more local Renewables uh the question on funding it has come up quite a lot recently funding the energy transition particularly around it’s an extra 1.7 billion more than we’re going to spend anyway we’re going to spend this money
Um you know we’re going to spend a couple of a couple of billion pounds by 2050. even if we do nothing so what we should be focusing on is how do we spend that money really effectively and how do we spend it wisely as an island so so
It’s not about are we going to spend it it’s on what and when and I think the key here is really understanding if we’re going to fund it how we can make that a for most affordable for the island because generally most of these infrastructure projects are on the
Border have been unaffordable for small communities particularly so it’s about how can we fund it in the most appropriate way I then come into the question of whether it’s a taxpayer I wish it was the taxpayer paying for it but the energy policy was very clear in
2020 for us it’s particularly going to be the energy consumer or so that’s the the existing electricity customers or the energy market and in terms of whether it is Affordable or not affordable we’re currently going to now carry out the sort of financial modeling to work that out once we know that we
Can then look at what the sources of funding will be approaching issues like this you know the future procurement and you know delivery of some of these complex projects and what sort of time scale do you expect so so there’s been a couple of issues yeah well certainly obviously
Um brexit and UK Ukraine war hasn’t helped um the procurement Market at all you know what we’ve basically found is everything is much much more expensive and everything takes a lot longer to be procured so there’s some real challenges now and I heard the other day you know
The first slot even if we wanted to order a new subsea cable today the first available slot is 2029. the first label production slot and that’s because the market is really red hot now in terms of offshore wind you know all the cabling that’s required there and you know the
The capacity within the markets just got to improve so there’s going to be some real procurement challenges another example just a simple grid Transformer uh it used to be delivered in about 14 weeks now takes about 52 weeks to be delivered and it’s about twice the price
It was five years ago and these are Big challenges you know so when we were talking about um just even the you know sort of Baseline catching up capital investment it’s a lot more than it was five years ago so there are some real challenges and do you um are there any
Concerns that you have on a sort of channel line in context or guerns in particular over does any prioritive advantages or disadvantages doing infrastructure on an island such as Guernsey is concerned so I think for all the infrastructure companies obviously economy of scale is one of our biggest issues and you
Mentioned earlier the the cable project uh being quite small in terms of big asset Investments at 100 million but the complexity is exactly the same as whether it’s a 100 million pound cable project or a two billion pound cable project so economy scale is always a big issue for us
Um again resourcing now is becoming more of a problem for the islands in terms of getting the right skills and competencies into the islands Who deliver these types of projects so yeah there are challenges but I think there’s there’s lots of opportunities we should be quite Nimble and quick as an island
You know we should be able to do things really really quickly to take opportunities in the market or with technology and that’s probably an area we need to focus on I know when Lindsay myself always talk there’s always a natural focus on where electricity comes
From but as an island we need to be much better at how we use it and how we use it wisely so demand side management for us is a big area we need to start thinking about because that’s where we could be really ahead of the curve as an
Island we can really deliver a quick change or big changes quite quickly by understanding how we use electricity yeah I mean the electricity strategy throws up a lot of sort of collateral type issues in terms of potential projects and development opportunities I mean one of those obviously is retiring a lot of
Your old diesel engines on which are way out of date and which Blue Moon and which spew up nasty stuff and so on and obviously they’re well past their sell by date and the implication of that is that there’s you’re going to need a lot less space I suspect assuming your new
Cable is put in and you can adopt the end policy instead of n minus two and you know that creates many collateral economic benefits not least from um uh from alternative development opportunities and what is essentially very valuable space water side um development space and so on which um
Is indirectly a consequence of the of the electricity strategy but which is also a sort of useful segue assignment to talk about what sort of opportunities can be created instant Samsungs in particular as a result of these developments now um Simon has a has a bit of background
In uh in you know property financing development in the UK um he’s also been the partner in one of the big UK legal firms um specifically in respect of uh you know properties and development opportunities and so on um he has been mandated along with two other sort of co-directors to explore
Development opportunities uh or Guernsey particularly on others better known as East Coast development and so on and clearly they’ve only been in place for three or four months or so they have been busy people though and they are they have sketched out a number of ideas
On which they would like to sort of to flesh out and clearly part of that process is eliciting sort of feedback and so on from from the likes of yourself to help them fine-tune and hone their ideas both in terms of their delivery ability to realize avenues for
Development and opportunity as well and I just wonder by way of um of introduction so whether I could invite Simon just to reveal some of the opportunities that we may be looking at Guernsey developed agency enhancing our Island is our strap line not building all over it
But how to make the most of our assets how to make this a better place how to drive the economy businesses and economies are not very good at standing still they need to move forward and that’s what we’re about we’re trying to help and enhance what’s going on here
We we are very keen to make sure we make a great success of it we don’t want to it up because we want to remain living here and um so there is a lot of pressure on that buy-in was the word uh mentioned earlier and completely get that
One of the first things we did was speak to Jersey development company so our counterpart in Jersey and ask them you’ve been going five years now what is it you know now that you wished you had known on day one the answer was speak to the people
And that’s why we’ve been spending so much time uh speaking to as many people as we can and for this this is a great opportunity for me to hear from you about the sort of things that you want to see here I would make the point we’ve actually been we’re
A new birth we’ve only been running just under three months we’re not yet three months old I think we’ve achieved a reasonable amount in that time so audience participation time I’m going to ask you some questions and if you’d be kind enough please to raise your hand if it’s applicable to you
I’m only be talking about Samsung a lot of other things we’re going to be doing but this is this is a bridge Anson Samson so hands up please if you’ve been to Saint Samson’s throat sorry been through since Samsung’s in the past seven days yeah okay yeah it’s a pretty good show
That’s uh two-thirds of the people have been through since Samson’s okay how many people in the past seven days have stopped in Saint Samson’s yeah okay not so many who’s eaten or drunk something instant Samson in the past seven days so if your hand goes up very quickly and you’re
Alone it’s only four three and a half four five six people okay who has bought something instant Samson in the past seven days yeah not many not many [Laughter] who’s been to Vale castle in the last three months three people all people three months the whole of the summer
Four people have been to Vale Castle do you believe we have sufficient sight of the water at Saint Samson there are 11 400 square meters of space around the harbor on dry land occupied by boats 11 000 or 100 square meters I’ve got the maths if it wants to check them afterwards
Do you feel you get an adequate sight of the water when you go to Saint Samson Anza who thinks it’s good one person good excellent Brave man two John excellent okay so most of you think you would like to see actually it’s not quite the same you’d like to see
You think you’re not getting sufficient sight of water Griffith’s yard it’s covered with Builders scaffolding Builders materials and our much loved and cherished yellow poo loris that’s a good use of such Prime land which has beautiful views over the islands hands on anyone love that one thinks good you’re a builder sir well
Done excellent do you feel I’ll be Marine industry which is important to this island deserves a little support to allow them to contribute even more than they do at present to our economy yeah yeah not many more hands going out good good who believes no changes are required instant Samson good nobody
Who believes we can do better instant Sampson well done good good okay so the idea is to see what we can do to enhance regenerate Saint Samson from what it is at the moment to make it something even better I actually really like Saint Samson you go up and look at the bridge
And you look at the quality of the water it is superb very clear it’s got that lovely lovely color but we want it to be more than a place you just drive through somewhere you want to visit somewhere you want to eat somewhere you want to drink somewhere
You want to stay to live to work and to invest that’s the AIM how are we going to do it where do we start there are two key things we’ve got to do first of all one we’ve got to reduce the blast zones there are four
Blast zones and we would like to remove three of those people don’t like investing if they might get blown up and they also don’t like investing if they’re going to get wet heat and all other bits wet so we need to find a way of enhancing the flood defenses there
And the thinking was let’s have a look at BlackRock and if you look on the North side you’ll see a lot of granite sticking through at low tide how about putting a new Harbor wall out there using the space inside as a greater area to keep ships maybe some bigger boats
Pleasure craft than we have at the moment uh and let’s put on some gates at the entrance to stop flooding in extremely bad weather and also to keep a sill to keep all the water blowing out so that the boats don’t hit the bottom more boats more Revenue
College of further education I think has got a place here a marine engineers those who want to learn the industry on this island have to go to the College of further education which is a great place and I’m not in any way knocking it at all
But to learn about boats you have to learn about automobiles because that’s the course that we run it’s a small liners right but for the boat bit you have to go to Bournemouth how about we have an extra class that deals with boats and we get people from Bournemouth some Marlow cherberg England
To come over here and see what a great place this is and have their course on Marine out here let’s not just spend our money overseas long hoog all those boats 11 400 square meters why didn’t we put them on dry racks in Long Hogue keep them out the way clear the area
Around the wonderful Harbor and the water area and there’s an urgent need for light Industrial level one to two thousand square foot sheds with a little mezzanine office we need about 20 of those they don’t give a good return but the island needs them we’ve got people sharing space because they’re so desperate
So we need to do something about that to help the island economy traffic I can’t imagine you enjoy the slow trundle through the bridge trying not to knock people over that really rather strange parking area why don’t we put a bridge across from the south side to the north
Paths past the clock tower on the seaside why don’t we put that it’s only it’s shorter distance than this the length of the room probably the gentleman with the um camera plus 50 percent that’s it not a big step to take so we have the traffic going across there and then cutting North
Not going around the bridge and we’re not suggesting we should stop traffic going to the bridge people need to go there to shop old people particularly want to park their cars get out by their their goods get back in their cars but we can do a lot to make
It a lot better place we can make it a little cul-de-sac so you can come around from the south side and you stop at the North parked there but you can’t drive through so it’s not a drive-through place along the bridge and then we need some more car parking
So let’s put that how about putting that by the high increases maybe a multi-story car park so we keep the traffic off the bridge and we make the bridge something that looks pretty good Slimline rather like the Millennium Bridge or the otherwise known as the wobbly bridge in London
Which I was involved with I have to say it was the best free tourist attraction you could get thousands of people going across in the early days trying to see how much they can make it what we’ll try and avoid the wobble because it needs to take articulated lorries
Body Tan both ways and of course the cycle track and a footpath but we can find a way of making that work restaurants cafes bars we’ve cleared all the junk off the side and helps to enhance the Marine industry to purpose-built area better than doing what they need to do
Why can’t we have some restaurants cafes bars people can sit out they can walk around the Waterway and enjoy it that’s part of the gross national happiness that the bhutanese king talks about equally important for buy-in Guernsey electric fantastic news about the second interconnector there will be some space we hope in due
Course which will be freed up why don’t we use some of that to help build residential why don’t we have three-sided Georgian squares a couple of those not close to the front but it’s not going to be like a ghetto some of the South and France Southern French tower blocks we’re thinking of
Three-sided grass in the middle open space open to the water so that people can see the water my friend Rex over there is very keen on trying to solve as a whole load of other people what happens to older people they want to trade down they want to
Leave their family house their four or five bedroom house they really want to go to a one or a two bedroom house what accommodation is which is good for someone who is old it’s on one floor all the appropriate supporting facilities to go with it and the reason they don’t
Move is there’s nowhere to go to they can’t find anywhere they want to go yeah so um let’s put one of the blocks for older people with some support facilities behind not a nursing home but just so there’s someone on hand to come and help out absence bosom let’s do something with
That shall we how about a restaurant a bit of public realm area you go back to what was done a lot of development agencies people like London docklands development agency they were challenged for being autocratic but they were very good at design design good design doesn’t generally cost so let’s have good design
Let’s have lots of public realm Bell Castle why don’t we have that as a place a go-to area people will go there rather than having the chain across saying don’t go every village in France has somewhere for the kids to go and play free roundabout swing we don’t have it
Other than Shoei Beach so why didn’t we have that here why didn’t we make it some fun for the kids why didn’t we have a water maze in Saint Samson possibly at the bottom of vale Castle summer again in some beautiful so the kids can go and have some fun how do
We get there the shuttle a little bus that goes up and down up and down continually sheep eco-friendly people will only get out of their cars if we can find a quicker alternative you’ve got to be quicker than the cars and that obviously has loads and loads
Of challenges we can spend all day on that so trying to reduce explosions flooding stop through traffic areas to walk drink and drive enjoy the Harbor housing does it sound a bit better than it is at the moment good great okay so I think the answer is
Since Samsung I think we feel presents it’s a real gem but together and it is a community effort that’s needed here uh we can give it a little clean and really get it to start to Sparkle [Applause] I told you it was a big subject and obviously we’re overrunning a little
Bit but obviously this has just given you a taste of the sort of opportunities that may exist in Saint Samson’s in terms of its context be support in terms of place to live in terms of development opportunities all of which I’ve Simon has told us is early days but I just
Wonder if we’ve got a short time now for a little bit of q a and then I’ll invite Bobbi to say a few words who are our sponsors today so um if anyone has any questions specifically on infrastructure or about the Samsung development objectives in particular please feel free to go ahead
And there’s a roving mic which Rachel will bring around chains a question for Alan really um we heard from everyone about the co-development work with with Jersey and to the point about skills um to what extent can pulling skills with jersey with regards to the a energy transition strategy helped deliver
Um and I’d be interested in your thoughts on a scale from sort of shared literally shared labor to um sort of shared corporate models for delivering it as well yeah it was a really interesting uh conversation in the state debate around that sort of collaboration or cooperation across the islands and there
Are some challenges in achieving that but I think we’re all coming to terms with the fact that resourcing is a massive issue as we move forward and the competence of that resourcing as well uh and even now we’re having to look further afield to get like HP design
Engineers I know Jersey have exactly the same issue you know traditionally we’d always expect them to come from the UK there isn’t enough in the UK so I think that is a big issue but I think some of the opportunities around um technology development as well across
The island you know where it’s not one Island’s not quite big enough to do it on its own but there’s opportunities for you join together and certainly the um the channel line transmission grid an example of that so I think there’s lots of opportunities to work together I
Don’t think that’s just limited to Jersey as well I think there’s opportunities to work with Albany ordinary are quite well advanced in terms of some of their implementation of Renewables and you know they’re thinking around Renewables and smart grids you know they’re probably slightly ahead of
Guernsey in fact in terms of the smart grid so there’s opportunities across all the islands hi this is directed at Simon I loved your um picture of providing more facilities for children and the community at large I was worried about your grass in the middle of the Georgian squares and I’m
Coming to trees especially with climate change coming across Us in Leaps and Bounds France and you mentioned France has these wonderful in every pretty much every town these little squares with that are surrounded by trees that provide a canopy for the community to eat under play Under gather under so I
Would really encourage you to include that in your plans absolutely uh as as well as clean eco-friendly designs and it indeed going further schools in France tend to have a canopy for the kids to play underneath to keep them out of the Sun question for you Simon well not a
Question actually an observation using the analogy that Lindsay made about skeletons and infrastructure and so on well I think Guernsey was going to his doctor he might suggest a couple of new hips and then maybe a knee how do you how are you finding uh encouraging investment in various
Properties that the states have given that the level of lease is probably 25 years maximum if I was investing seven figures live Randalls did I probably wouldn’t even go anywhere near it so for a return on my investment how do you get over there as a development agency
I think the answer to that is possibly different in different parts of the island for Saint Samson it needs a Rebrand people to understand why it’s necessary to sensible to invest there at the moment it doesn’t look so good so a whole rebranding operation is going to be
Necessary to persuade people that’s the right place to go and spend their money some beautiful it’s gonna be a lot easier I think um your question about 25-year leases I’m trying to work out can you can you clarify exactly what you meant by that you’re saying seven figures
If you’re spending seven figures or more in some cases on a particular project look at the slaughterhouse you know frankly they’ve spent seven figures they’ve got it for 25 years and then the states of Guernsey gets it back at the end beautifully renovated I think that’s
A little unfair as an entrepreneur and a businessman I wouldn’t do it so I think the answer to that isn’t it yeah people only take risk if they obtain profit and there needs to be an appropriate split of profit I wonder whether we use enough um mechanisms like overage payments where
You set out what is the base case what does the private sector expect that it’s going to receive from this investment and make a payment on the basis of that strike the deal on the basis of that but if there’s one hates the private sector do really well and they share a
Proportion of that good luck with the GDA so yeah completely open-minded to splitting the spoils in an appropriate and Fair Way okay one other question to Ellen do you see any future maybe some sort of Allegiance with Jersey electricity all the islands have got sub-scale utilities you know I think even in
Europe they sort of don’t even think you’re a proper utility so you’ve got at least a hundred thousand customers so even if we added every customer across the whole of the channel lines I don’t think we’d top out a hundred thousand so I do think in the future There’s an opportunity for
Definitely that collaborative work in piece and you know James mentioned corporate structures you know there might be a corporate structure in the future that will allow the owners to work more closely together I do think though one of the challenges of that is that we need to be able to ring fence
Infrastructure transport health education those types of areas so they can never be used politically potentially as levers against each other so I think there is a there’s a sort of constitutional piece around that as well would you like to have a comment yeah for me I mean it’s interesting You Touch
Under kind of politics at the end um trying to take the politics out of it in you know to my mind is actually part of the answer and just getting people to work more together you know um we run we run a Channel Island Network um and and actually not although we’re
Owned by uh the the the States of uh Jersey where you know with an independent board of directors who were interested in just getting stuff done you know rolling out networks serving customer requirements and actually the less politicians have to do with that in my view the better and and put the
Owners on you know uh Business Leaders uh to get on with stuff well actually that seems like we’re kind of running over time a little bit so I just wanted to say a few words by the way sort of something else before we hand over to Bob and uh just
Contextually with guernsey’s gdps people take 3 billion or so most by most reasonable metrics you know infrastructure spend should be around about two two and a half percent three percent of GDP that equates to about a stabilized investment rate of about 75 million plus a year without waiting
Below we have under investigated and under invested for years so I mean the message is stop procrastinating we need to we need to take action um the also from a public perspective don’t get too stuck in the detail you need to focus on the big picture the long-term benefits and finally public engagement
Is absolutely crucial to carry these sort of initiatives through and for those who are sort of keen on the finance side of stuff there is never a right time to invest in infrastructure I mean you could you could look back just after the GF Global financial crisis and
Say that would have been brilliant because money was pouring out of everywhere with quantitative easing interest rates of plummeting and then you know you can look back to sort of pre-covered it’s fine and then it wasn’t because you want to stop doing something because covert happened right now the
Macro environment has changed and interest rates have gone through the roof but the reality is you’re looking Beyond next year you’re looking Beyond five years ten years much further than that so the reality is just get over it you have to deliver we have to do something and
Your support in initiating these sorts of uh projects is going to be absolutely crucial and obviously very enthused by the the opportunities at St Samson’s it’s a to be a fantastic place it’s been hopelessly under under invested for ages and the opportunity for connectivity with some people watching the
Opportunities for development in some Samson’s which would represent a stunning Sea Side outlook for a town which you know in a jersey context of the equivalents and tobins or or gaureans are we know how nice those are it would be wonderful to have something similar here and it’s something that I
Think would benefit a huge amount of people in Guernsey and I think it’s something which we should all get behind