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From: Roger Hotmail
Sent: 16 January 2015 12:59
To: John Le Fondre
Subject: Esplanade Finance Centre
Dear Deputy Le Fondre,
Enquiry into the Esplanade Finance Centre
In the real world, where investors can loose money, the factors taken into consideration would be as follows:
- Cost: No detailed projections for cost of construction have been seen by the States let alone the public for this project. Still to be quantified is the cost of removing contaminated soil from the site; remember the cancellation of the project to dig trenches to commemorate the start of the First World War abandoned because of the contamination?
- Return: No rent projections have yet been seen.
- Demand: the finance industry is currently shrinking and there is no evidence that new entrants are unable to set up shop in Jersey because of lack of office space. There is a lot of office space currently available for rental. In fact, rentals are currently declining.
- An established, well funded property company (C Le Masurier Limited) have detailed planning permission for 280,000 sq ft of grade A commercial office space and a two acre site which could be developed without disrupting existing parking arrangements and, importantly, without the involvement of taxpayers' money.
With all these factors in mind, investors in the "real" world would shelve the project until market conditions improve.
However, the Jersey Development Company (JDC) does not live in the "real" world. It can call upon a bottomless pit of taxpayer' money. Neither Mr. Lee Henry nor Mr. Mark Boleat, the Chief Executives of JDC, have any money they can personally loose by the project going forward. In fact, the opposite. If the project does not go forward, questions will likely be asked as to why a reported £4million has been spent and why such a large amount of this was spent off the Island. Answers to these questions may well cost these gentlemen their current well-remunerated positions – witness the exasperation expressed by Mark Boleat (JEP 10/1) at yet, as he sees it, another enquiry into the project by a committee to be headed by Deputy Le Fondre.
The purpose of funds raised by taxation is not to do what the taxpaying private sector is able and willing to do for itself. The States must let the private sector take risks (and losses). The States will take 20% of all profit without risk.
Yours sincerely,
Roger M. Bale