Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Island Plan 2021-2030 Strategic Issues and Options Workshop 17 July 2019 St Helier

And lo and behold it is ordained that every 10 years Jersey shall have a new Island Plan.
In fact it won't be much different from the previous one or even the one before that and it won't address the ever increasing problems of the Island either - but its a ritual that must take place because we need to justify our capitalist voyage.
Of course there are no manufacturing industries in this little Island and these have virtually not existed since they built sailing ships on the beach.
Nowadays the diminishing Finance sector is the major employer but most of the talk at this workshop was really about preserving the agri-industry even if that means growing hemp aka cannabis.
Like the previous Plan (that had a picture of cows on its cover) this whole exercise is not really about the well-being of 106,000 people at all but is really about the 5,000 bovine beasts and ensuring that their pastures are not diminished. Some hope!

Today's workshop had about 26 male and 11 females attendees who stayed for the sarnies but the free food is evidently not enough to attract many reborn Suffragettes or others who clearly have much more important things to do. After all, who really can find the time (9.30 am until 3.30pm) to save the planet? Obviously men have at least double the female appetite on such occasions...

Linked here is a video of about 18 minutes of Planning officer Kevin Pilley explaining the mysteries of the current Island Plan and he certainly knows how to make a bland  subject boring.

I must admit to giving up before the final curtain although I did attend the evening discussions from 6pm where a similar futile effort to render Jersey's capitalism appear to be sustainable prevailed - although this was organised under Rob Duhamel's banner as Chair of the "Island Plan Public Interest Panel."

The Plan is fundamentally flawed - why do we waste our time discussing it?


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