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STATES OF JERSEY Environment Scrutiny Panel Speed Limits Review TUESDAY, 8th MARCH 2011
Panel:
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman) Deputy D. Wimberley Deputy S. Power
Senator A. Breckon
Witnesses:
Senator P. Routier, Assistant Minister for Economic Development Director of Tourism
Development Manager
In Attendance: Scrutiny Officer
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman):
Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We will start the meeting or continue our meeting because we have been on the go since nine this morning with various groups. I understand your Department has some concerns about Green Lanes. Could you explain them to us, please.
Director of Tourism.
Yes, indeed. We are most concerned that we could lose a Green Lane network as a result of this speed limit proposition, principally because I think if the designation of 15 miles per hour were to be changed to 20 miles per hour, we believe that the whole concept of Green Lanes would be lost. From a Tourism perspective, that would be seriously damaging to our visitor environment and to the opportunity that we have of attracting people to Jersey. I think in the paper that we produced for this meeting we actually did some Google searching just to indicate the sheer amount of interest there is externally in the Green Lane system. I checked it again this morning and there were 202,000 entries on Google in response to Green Lanes in Jersey. So that is an indication I think of the --
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman): Is that daily, weekly?
Director of Tourism:
That is -- the system changes at any one moment in time. I mean, the chances are if you went in this afternoon later, you would end up with 201,000, 187,000. It is because there is a sort of algorithm going on in there that actually finds the links, but it is an extremely important issue for us. It is one that we have developed. The Green Lane system is something that we have developed and marketed very strongly for the last 17 years and obviously we would be very much -- very disappointed if we were to lose this opportunity.
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman): Right. Any questions?
Deputy D. Wimberley.
Plenty, where do we start?
Going slightly to one side, then, from Green Lanes, we have just had the Minister for Home Affairs in with a cohort of officers, and one of the things they said, and one of the things that we heard was that there is a proposal to go from 40 to 30 on all roads without a central line. Now, you might think this is not relevant to the discussion, but it is because the police take on this was that that was basically unenforceable unless it was signed. You are talking about 170 miles of country roads. So I just wonder and I know it is off Green Lanes, but just straight off the cuff, how does that prospect of 170 miles worth of every road having to be signed with a 30 strike you?
Senator P. Routier:
You are quite right that, when you opened up by saying that is off track from what we are here to talk about. We are here to talk about --
Deputy D. Wimberley:
With respect, 15 is a marketing tool and it has an effect on people's experience, but the real case is that it is a fantastic marketing tool and a unique selling point and all of these things, as well as changing behaviour. I accept that. So I am just throwing
that -- whilst I think about it -- but it is an important point that came out of the previous hearing. You are looking at signing for an additional 170 miles of country roads. How does that strike you?
Director of Tourism:
I would be totally confused by that, I have to say. My initial reaction to it, because, and it is completely different to what we are talking about here where we are marketing a piece of Jersey, albeit 50 miles of roads, for their tranquility and beauty and desirability. I rather suspect that the 170-miles that you are talking about would not fall into that category. They would not be necessarily a tourism product offering. They would be a way of policing Jersey's road system. What we are trying to do is to work within that niche which has been created so successfully over a long period of time to try and make sure that we provide the best possible access to people using these lanes in a kind of a benign and desirable way. I think the problem we have at the moment is that if we lose that and we simply become -- and they simply become lanes or roads and in the proposition I think you will see that they talk about the
20 miles an hour being that which would also apply to housing estates and other urban areas. Well, Green Lanes frankly are not part of housing estates or urban areas. They are a special entity and each in their own right. I think that is what we are
trying to achieve. The 170-miles that may or may not be designated similarly I think would be a completely different issue.
Senator P. Routier:
I think I am getting to what you are trying to get an answer to. I cannot imagine people would decide to come to Jersey because Jersey had some 30-mile an hour driving areas. I mean they do come to Jersey because we have got Green Lanes and
good walking and good cycling, and they are 15 miles an hour, but I cannot imagine we want to advertise the fact that come to Jersey because you can drive at 30 miles an hour in these other roads. That does not make any sense to us or to me
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman):
Can I help the debate. I think what the Deputy was trying to put across to you, the sheer impact of the amount of these signs, you are going to see around the Island on tourism. That is what he was trying to put across.
Deputy D. Wimberley:
And they have a statutory size. They cannot be less than
Director of Tourism:
So you are suggesting that the whole Island, or at least half of the Island would be covered in these road signs?
Development Manager:
I think the original concept of Green Lanes came and was borne out of the Tree Advisory Council about protection. It was about trying to avoid cars using these roads. It was about protecting the natural environment, about the hedge rows and banks, which are very unique to Jersey. We were involved some years ago in a project - the filming of Under the Greenwood Tree' which was based on Thomas Hardy. They did not use Dorset, where the story was set, but Jersey because we still have those high banks and those very beautiful and unique countryside spaces. There are two issues. There is the issue of getting rid of the Green Lane sign because you do that by increasing the speed limit and it becomes a very different proposition for people to experience. But, also, if the police are talking about putting up 30 miles an hour signs over 170 miles, then the whole countryside is ruined. The look and feel and the visual impact. I mean, the reason why people come to Jersey is -- some come to just walk. We know that for a fact from our market research, but the principal reason why they come to Jersey is because of the natural beauty of the countryside. That is why they come. That is what we offer. So you have the two issues. You have the visual impairment of the countryside, as well as the --
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman):
Therefore, what action has been taken by EDD over recent years to ensure that Green Lanes become part of the law? Because currently there is nothing in the law covering Green Lanes. All it says is the speed limit in certain roads will be 15, 20, 30,
et cetera. There is no -- it has not been protected like the name Jersey. What action, if anything, has your Department taken, or is your Department taking to protect that name and therefore everything that goes with it?
Senator P. Routier.
I personally am unaware of what has happened in the past, but if you are suggesting that is something that we should bring into legislation, that is probably something I could support, but I do not know.
Director of Tourism.
I have to say that it never really occurred to us that this would become a problem. It is one of that he is things -- perhaps it is a red bus that we have not seen coming down the road, but, to be honest with you, we have always perceived until this latest report and proposition appeared, there was never a previous suggestion of any threat to the Green Lane system and obviously outside of the Green Lane system it is not our territory. We are not interested in speed limits per se. We are only interested in protecting a particular product. So I think probably perhaps we have been short changing the system by not supporting it more strongly in terms of protecting it with legislation, but we have attacked the problem from the other direction, which is about marketing and about ensuring that they are well publicised
Development Manager:
Sorry, to refer to that issue, when we first discussed Green Lanes, I was very involved with St. Peter and the then Constable of St. Peter about how we could introduce the concept of sort of a safer environment for walkers and cyclists and horse riders and the only way we could do it after talking to the Crown Officers at that time and the then Public Works Committee was to create the speed limit which was enshrined in the Road Traffic Law. There was never any discussion then or since about any other means of protection. It was always thus. It was the same with the cycle network because even though the tourism and development fund and the tourism investment fund initially funded the entire cycle network, so over one million pounds, the only way we could enshrine that network was through the Road Traffic Law and again it was taking cognisance of what happened everywhere else. The officers at TTS were very involved in that process and what we had to do was to look in Europe and see what the road sign was and what the protocols were about cycling. So, again, we were advised at that time that that the only way we could way mark the cycle network was to have it enshrined in road traffic legislation
Deputy D. Wimberley:
Is the signage of the road traffic of the cycle network actually in the legislation?
Development Manager:
Yes. In fact, at one point, because talking about the issues of signs they are not particularly attractive. Road traffic signs in an urban context are okay. In a rural environment, they stick out like a sore thumb. At one time we did create a new sign way marking system for the cycle network, which were granite markers and wooden finger posts and we had Jersey pottery inserts to try and make it much more acceptable in the countryside and this was approved, actually, by the Crown Officers. It went to the Crown Officers for their view, but a funding issue meant that it was never implemented. So I think over the years we have tried to do more than just market the concept of Green Lanes. We have actively tried to grow the walking product. One of the points I think we made in our paper is that unlike the UK where you have a right to roam, we have got a very finite resource over here for people who walk, who cycle, who drive cars. We are all sharing the same resource and that is problematic. There is only so much we can do with the land resources that we have got
Deputy S. Power:
Can I come back to you on the actual report and proposition itself. When it was lodged in November, how much consultation was there between TTS and EDD or Tourism with regard to this being lodged in its present format?
Director of Tourism:
We met as a management team with officers from the Department. No politicians were present at that time but we certainly met and we had a lengthy exchange with the current Chief Officer and the traffic officers and actually came away from that
meeting believing that we had had a very good hearing, but we were -- thereafter we were quite surprised when the report and proposition had not changed at all since we had originally seen it
Development Manager:
There was not any consultation before that.
Deputy D. Wimberley:
You say there was no consultation, yet there was advertising done by the Working Group. You did not pick it up at the time in 2008?
Director of Tourism:
I think it was later than that that we picked it up. I think it was probably 2009 that this meeting took place
Deputy D. Wimberley:
Because the review was carried out in 2008 and it sat on the Minister's desk for many months. Given that when the review was originally set off, did the Connétable of
St. John 's that was chairing it -- did they not get in touch with all the Departments?
Director of Tourism: No
Deputy D. Wimberley:
Obviously, your Department did not pick it up in the press releases
Director of Tourism: We did not pick it up
Deputy S. Power: s
So I am clear in my own mind to the -- to you as the professionals within tourism, you did not see any red flags as to a review of speed limits on the Island-- would affect --
Director of Tourism:
Not at that early stage, no. We did not see it in that context, to be honest with you. We did not -- I suppose it was only later when we realised that Green Lanes formed part of that study that we started to take an interest and at that time we arranged to meet with the officers, including the Chief Officer of TTS but I cannot remember the exact date of that now, but my -- I believe it was in the latter end of 2009. I think it was around that time
Deputy S. Power:
That would make sense. May I ask a specific question about marketing within the EU and specifically Germany. As you market the Island at the moment and the walking tour part of that is obviously an important part of the market, the speed limit at the moment is 15, which converts to 24 or 25 KPH, and 20 miles an hour would convert to 30, 31, or 32, if my arithmetic is right. I understand from friends of mine in Denmark that -- I asked them this question, is that, once you get -- the 50 KPH is our 30 -- once you get into the 30s, they to use that in some countries as a walking, cycling, horse riding type designation. So I am wondering in terms of your knowledge of the continental market, how much of a difference will be to if from 24,
25 KPH to 30, 32 in terms of impact, because they are calculating in KPH
Director of Tourism:
That is a very difficult question for us to answer, because, to be honest, we have not done that specific study and I do not have scientific evidence to present to you, but certainly the anecdotal evidence that we have is that the German visitors in particular like the way the system works at this point in time. I am not entirely sure Jersey is exactly comparable with other places. The lanes here tend to be much narrower. There are many more twists and turns than you find in many other walking destinations so I am not sure if there is an exact comparison. Of course, the issue is if people are driving faster than they should too because people continue to drive slightly ahead and some people perhaps drive slightly ahead of the speed limit and if we had a speed limit of 20, perhaps they would be doing 25, as opposed to now they are doing 20, when they should be doing 15. I think there is always that relationship, whichever way you look at it
Deputy S. Power,
The answer to that, as the Constable of St. John indicated this morning, is that in the Green Lane abuse and speed limit abuse, the worst offenders are residents of the Green Lanes.
Director of Tourism:
I am not surprised. I think, having spoken about this earlier with the team, when the Green Lanes were initially established, the level which they settled on at 15 was sort of influenced a bit by medical opinion about people walking and you are less likely to get killed at 15 then you are at 20. I think that was quite a strong influence in the setting of 15 at that stage because the priority for those lanes is for people to walk. It is not for a car. It is literally as a recreational lane and to discourage cars from using those lanes. That is what it is all about. It is actually so the priority is for the people to walk and to cycle and get on their horses and the car is a secondary issue. That is the whole ethos of it.
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman):
So, since 1992, 94, when lanes were introduced, what work has Tourism done to integrate Parish to Parish the Green Lanes, i.e., with the Parishes, if any? When I look at my map, and I look at Green Lanes, they are a bit in St. Clement s and a bit here and there, but they do not meet up anywhere. What work is being done or has been done or is being done, if any?
Development Manager:
If I may answer that, it is interesting -- I was very involved from the beginning and I remember distinctly spending considerable months working with all the Parishes going to meet individual Connétable s to speak to their Parish secretaries and we even funded, bizarrely, the signage in St. Mary to make it happen. I lived in Trinity at the time and only recently moved to another Parish and I spent many an hour debating the objective of Green Lanes with the Constable and some Parishes accepted it and thought it was a fantastic idea and others loathed the idea. In fact, there is one road half of which is in St. John and is a Green Lane and, you will probably know the lane I am talking about by Betty May Fashions, the other half of the lane is in Trinity and is not and I think the challenge for us, bearing in mind we had no legal enforcement or authority, was to try and work with the Parishes to promote the benefits, rather than the negatives. We had some success because some Parishes really did not want to have the Green Lane network and ended up having them but bizarrely we still have one or two Parishes that do not have them. I suppose the second thing that happened was then we created the cycle network. The Green Lanes came first and then the cycle network followed and that was a way of trying to link the network as it stood with links to attractions.
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman):
So nothing has happened since the very first attempts within, shall we say 1996 when everything was more or less in place. You may have added one additional Parish, but you have not been out and sold it to the Parishes as a good tourism instrument?
Development Manager:
I think we wrote the original report and proposition that went the States. It was presented by the Tourism Committee of the day.
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman): Of which I was a Member.
Development Manager:
Yes. We got States' backing, but from then on it is just been a matter of carrying on marketing the activity and carrying on trying to -- what we have done, for example, we have developed walking festivals and we have developed guided walking. Even now, we spend some £15,000 on guided walking. That is without the cost of things like the walking festivals we do, and we have recently, for example, developed a walk for Connex, which links in the Green Lanes in St. Laurence that is part of their yellow route 26. Now, we have -- so, you know, it is very difficult to sometimes engage with the Parishes in this way, but what we can do is to carry on bit by bit working away at it and I think that the recent Connex walk is a good example of where we have carried on trying to fight the fight for the Green Lanes and to get people to use them.
Deputy P. Rondel (Chairman):
Minister, would there not be merit in picking up one or two ideas, given we now know that nothing is in law with reference to Green Lanes? Going out there and bringing a proposition to the House, yourselves, for your Minister, to increase the Green Lanes, the State, the Green Lanes, and do something about it, instead of just being reactive, as you are? You wait for it to happen and then, all of a sudden, you are caught wrong footed. To me, it seems rather odd when there has been a review months before and you were a part of it and it was not until the law has actually been drafted that you have a scenario that we are having to pull this in, but if we had not, you would have been fighting this on the floor of the chamber, which is rather difficult.
Senator P.F. Routier:
I think you make a fair point but I think the department did try, and had meetings with officers before it got to this stage and, unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears for whatever reason. We do not know why that happened. You picked up earlier about the points that nothing has happened since the original setting up of the Green Lanes but the value of the existing Green Lanes is tremendous for the Island. Even if they may not link up. People go to those Green Lanes even if they are dotted around the Island and they benefit from them and they use them exceptionally well. I take your point about if we need to bring a proposition to the States to get a proper status for the Green Lanes that may be the way we have to go certainly. You could say we have been caught on the back foot but we thought the Green Lanes were there and not being challenged. It is only since this has been lodged that we now find it has been challenged.
Director of Tourism:
I think we would accept that challenge, Chairman.
Senator P.F. Routier:
Yes, and with your support I would take that forward.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
I have got a variety of questions that follow on from one another. I am interested in what the Development Manager said about guided walking, £15,000 a year, and an unspecified amount on walking customers. So it seems to me that the focus in a way has moved, despite what the Minister has just said, away from the Green Lanes per se to a wider brush on walking. I think walking is now proposed seriously as a Jersey activity and people listen to their friends and so on. So, in that context, I just want to put to you what the Minister for Home Affairs just said to us, which was that he would be absolutely opposed to keeping it at 15. He says the 15 to 20 is self- explanatory on the grounds that 15 is too low, that everybody breaks it systematically, therefore you have got a law that nobody adheres to, accept Daniel when he is watching his speedometer and thinking: "Can I do 15 up my road."
Senator P.F. Routier:
Is that the speedo on your bike? [Laughter]
The Deputy of St. Mary :
Not up the hill to my house. The comment about if you set it at 20 then you will get better compliance, even taking into account the 2 miles extra that people add on anyway. But the 20 is enforceable and you can say 20 means 20, whereas with 15 you just cannot. Any comments? That is a starter.
Development Manager:
I think it is interesting that the Minister for Home Affairs talked about everybody but he was talking about everybody in a car. That is the fundamental point. Our job is not to police cars, our job is to encourage or create reasons for people to visit to add to our economy. Tourism brings in some £250 million to this economy and our market research is saying that a third of those visitors come here to walk. So it is a completely different proposition. We cannot comment on policing but I do think that that point is valid, that he is talking about everybody in a car.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
I am not questioning the value of the marketing point and I am not questioning the value of the experience, but I am questioning the nature of the speed limit in making it safe and comfortable for people to be in a lane walking or wherever they want, with their dog or with their children or whatever. One of the things you said earlier was the only way to protect these roads was to have a limit. I just put it to you that there are other ways of protecting those roads, protecting those people, giving them a special experience, which you could market without the roundels, without the 15, which are now being proposed to go to 20.
[14:45]
Can you imagine such a thing before I bowl you a possible answer? Would there be ways of achieving that safety and comfort without necessarily the limit?
Development Manager:
Over the years there have been lots of different issues mooted and I must confirm that we were part of the Sustainable Transport Policy project. I have worked with the officers at Transport and Technical Services on that policy for some years. In Holland you have different ways of managing transport systems. You have access only to vehicular transport at particular times of the day. So, for example, I do not know what they are called but you have traffic systems in place where you can talk into an intercom and the traffic bollards disappear into the ground. There are different ways ... we did talk at one time with a project group from TTS about having no vehicular access to some of these lanes, only to people who lived on them. The original proposition was that the Green Lanes were quite specific. There was actually a whole list of the lanes that should have been designated. Most of them did not have any residential uses. They were very quiet, very country lanes, probably went past a farm but that was about it. I think there are lots of other reasonable things we could do. You could have no access to vehicles, you could have a different kind of road surfacing, you know there has been discussion over the years about not having any tarmac, or having a different kind of road surface which would impede vehicles, having cobbles or raised mounds or a different kind of road surfacing entirely.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
It is very interesting and I am glad that you have looked around at those kinds of alternatives. The thing that has bothered me about this whole debate is my awareness that if I am going around a blind corner or if I see a horse rider coming towards me then 15 is inappropriate, it is too fast, so is 20. The appropriate speed is 3 or 5 or whatever is the appropriate speed. That made me realise that speed limits was not the way to go. So I put it to you about liability, switch the liability as a means of ... you see, you say here: "Priority to people not the car." That means absolutely nothing, it is just a very nice phrase. I know what it means as a local but it is basically a nice phrase, and so what about switching liability which gives that phrase some meaning. It says the pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders have priority, they really do, and if you hit one ...
Development Manager:
That would be the ideal. I think we seized the opportunity when the Constable of St. Peter , back then, put the system in place. We did not design or implement it. We worked with them to make this happen because, at the time, it seemed the best option to develop an increased walking product. In fact it sort of became something we did not really realise it was going to be. It sort of evolved over the years and as more Parishes took it on board therefore the idea of a network became a reality. I think in an ideal world ... you know, I have had conversations with officers from Transport and Technical Services about all of these different issues. There is a school of thought that you should not have any road traffic furniture at all, you should not have yellow lines. In some parts of Scandinavia you do not have any anything ...
Male Speaker: In Holland.
Development Manager:
In Holland, yes. Deputy Power, you mentioned before about the German market, well I think the difference with some parts of Europe is they do not have the same kind of car culture that we have. They are very much more into a cycle culture, into a walking culture and they have the room to separate the 2. You can travel through Europe and you will have very, very clearly defined walking and cycling paths which we just do not have.
The Deputy of St. Mary : Yes, so it has to be shared use.
Development Manager: It is all shared use.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
It has to be a shared use solution. They were referred to as naked streets by some previous people; there is nothing so you are scared into being safe.
Senator P.F. Routier:
I think one of the things that I am concerned about with all of this is that the message that would go out to tourists that ... I think the Director of Tourism said to me earlier today that there has already been a bit of media coverage outside the Island, that we
are considering changing our 15 mile an hour Green Lane to an increased speed limit. That has been a negative message that has gone out, which is very disappointing really. We are known for our Green Lanes and our good walking and all the rest of it, but there is this message gone out that we are thinking about increasing to 20 miles per hour.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
Which is why I started my remarks by talking about maybe it is time to move on. We have established the walking festivals, it is a big deal now the walking festivals and the guided walks and so on, so maybe it is time to shift up a gear, go for a slightly more ambitious scheme - as the Chairman was saying - for Green Lanes, take away the clutter, change the liability and you would still have something to market. You would have something very special. You would have the most beautiful lanes in Europe which are safe because if anybody touches you they are liable. That exists in Germany and Holland in different forms already.
Development Manager:
That is a very good culture change and we do have the ... absolutely the passion is there to make these things happen. It has been a very slow process to get the Green Lanes, to implement a cycle network. It is interesting, is it not, that it was the Jersey Tourism Department who implemented that. I think that says quite a lot. But we have to work with the Parishes, we have to work with Transport and Technical Services because they have the legal responsibility for those roads and ...
The Deputy of St. John :
I can accept what you are saying here but where Tourism have fallen down since 1994 or 1996, whenever it was, is not following it up because I see things and immediately I make a note, gateway. Why after 5 or 10 years did you not come forward to the States to improve on what you had already have, i.e. you want less and less traffic in these roads, why have you not put at the entrance of these systems a gateway? Whether it is a pair of green bollards or whatever, just so you have got room for a vehicle to go through but then move on ... you should have improved on what you have got because all you have done is passed it: "Okay, it is going to look after itself now, it is written in the road for 15 miles an hour" which is basically not within the law but nothing has been ... you have left it to other people ... if Tourism were running with it in the first instance why do they wait until now when they are under threat before doing anything? I personally, if I were you, if you would take a little bit of advice, I would go away from here today and I would put a report and proposition in, or go out and speak to the Minister, ask him to pull this, and amend it with something sensible, something that can happen. Because there are things in here which I am not at all happy with, but that is just me, and it will come out in our report. I think if you want to do something, Minister, you should be going in and amending this in some way. Getting around the table with TTS and Home Affairs and seeing what is achievable and come back and let us have something that we can all sign up to in the Chamber.
Senator P.F. Routier:
I am certainly encouraged by the words of yourself and your Panel that there is a recognition that the value of our walking lanes, whatever we call them, our Green Lanes, and we perhaps will go away and do a bit more and come up with something to enhance that. We have to have a bit of reality of where we are with anything we set up with getting additional funds for doing these things in this current climate. That is the worry we have. We have this challenge at the present time which we hope we can see off in the States, but to take it to the next step, I agree that we should do some work but we have to recognise that getting funds for doing anything could be a bit of a challenge for us as well.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
Can I say that I am not at all sure the problem is funds. I think the problem is getting agreement to implement. So if you were talking about an expansion to Green Lanes network, so for example that they joined up, it is possibly a step too far politically, which is why it might be wise to step sideways and change the scheme so that it becomes easier to accept but still a goer. So you can then go out to get 190,000 hits on Google for saying that we have got safe zones throughout the countryside. You might find that less difficult to push through. That is just an observation. The other observation is I would not put your money on winning this in the House as 15 to 20. I would really be worried that unless our report persuades the Minister to change his mind about bringing it at all, there is a real difficulty here with Home Affairs on one side, Tourism on the other and everybody in between saying: "Well, 15 is unenforceable." I would be wary of saying ... what did you say: "We will do a bit more." Doing a bit more is not going to be enough. So comment on that, please, because you might lose this and then everything has gone in a sense, because you have not got an alternative. You have lined up and said: "We are going to go this way."
Deputy S. Power:
Before you answer, the impression we got this morning was that the Minister for TTS regards this as a very small tweak. He regards it as a kind of levelling out, kind of an evening out of the whole system and that it is not a big deal. From the Home Affairs point of view and from the policing point of view, or from a score keeping point of view, from the road traffic accident point of view, this is simply a police issue which will level things out as well, it is a lot easier. So, you know, you are up against an uphill battle. One of the things ... it may not be a funding issue but one of the things that happened in Ireland and in the Frisian Islands, which is the German/Danish border, they took the tarmac off in some areas and they replaced it with a cobbled green so it was essentially grass and weed with cobbles in the middle and that immediately stopped and slowed things down completely, yes, and vibrated. But then they were 20 k.p.h. lanes, that is why was saying that. They did stamp that on it. They have turned out to be incredibly successful, where they have restored a Green Lane to its original 19th century, early 20th century status. It has an absolute traffic calming effect. But then you are dealing with Parishes and Parish roads.
Development Manager:
Yes, the 12 Parishes and the 12 ...
The Deputy of St. John :
I have to ask another question, we have had hearings all day today since 9.30 this morning and I am concerned that nobody from Tourism was sitting in the audience listening to what has been said by TTS, by the working group that were originally in here, by the Minister and his entourage from Home Affairs, and I just have to ask, have you all got your heart in this or is this just ticking the boxes?
Senator P.F. Routier:
We certainly have our heart in this and we are quite determined to try and protect this. If it was an error on behalf of anybody not to be here, well that may be something we will have to take note of. It probably did not occur to us to have been here. I was in other meetings myself this morning but ...
The Deputy of St. John :
I have concerns because an error on your part, fine, okay, but do officers and Ministers think so little of scrutiny not to come and listen to the evidence being given on something that affects their department greatly, given that you have an input of £250 million into the Island economy that nobody gave thought to being at this meeting to hear the evidence.
Senator P.F. Routier:
I know we would have been reading the transcripts from this meeting, that would have happened. So we would have obviously seen that.
Deputy S. Power:
I think where we are, where you are, there is a report and proposition coming up for debate and there is one amendment in there from the Constable of St. Helier ...
Senator P.F. Routier:
Also an amendment from ourselves.
Deputy S. Power: Yes, sorry.
Senator P.F. Routier:
We are reacting to this. Whether, as you warned, that ...
Deputy S. Power:
I suspect the Deputy of St. Mary has got an accurate finger on the pulse of the Assembly.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
On this one, not usually. [Laughter]
The Deputy of St. John :
Just listening to the evidence we have received to date, I think you have a mountain to climb, on what I have seen to date, to not see that figure of 15 moved to 20.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
Simply on feasibility and enforceability grounds, which is why it is time to move on. It is time to find a new concept that is the same concept, broaden it out, make it more exciting, and get rid of 170 miles worth of signs that we do not need.
Deputy S. Power:
Yes, I think that is the real issue.
The Deputy of St. Mary : Can you imagine that?
[15:00]
Development Manager:
I do not think it is just a Tourism issue. I think this is about local quality of life and every single person I have talked to about this has been ... I do not think people are aware of the reports, I do not think everyone reads these reports, I do not think people are aware that they have to log on to websites. We use jersey.com, we do not use gov.je so there is a myriad of websites out there that you have to physically explore and I have not met one person - and I know a lot of people - who is pro raising the speed limit. People do not realise this is going on. They are naive. So I do not think it is just about a Tourism initiative. Of course we are here from that angle but this is about local people, local families, local horse riders, local dog walkers and it is going to be, I think, a very big issue if the speed limit is increased.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
Can I say there are 2 issues on that. One is that in your paper that you have given us today, the third paragraph, you talk about how the 15 mile an hour speed limit was selected specifically to deter vehicular use and we hear the Minister for Home Affairs now saying that is not a legitimate use of the speed limit. Now, there are other ways you have talked about, bollards and all the rest of it and little clicky things that make you able to go on the lane, that is fine, but that as a justification for a speed limit is not going to stick.
Development Manager:
I think this is a curve-ball, though, because having been part of the Sustainable Transport Policy and another working party which was about the obesity strategy, which recently ... I do not know where it is, it sort of happened and then disappeared but it was about the New Directions, about trying to reduce obesity and to improve the health and well being of local people, nothing to the contrary except ... extending Green Lanes, extending walking networks, extending cycle networks, that is what has come out of Transport and Technical Services. The reason we knew about this is because one of my colleagues emailed me saying: "This is happening, did you know?" We had an email from an officer who said that. So I do not think this has been something we even expected. The culture has always been, certainly in my experience, one of extending these facilities, not necessarily just Green Lanes but walking and cycling opportunities. So to me it is a real curve-ball.
Senator P.F. Routier:
I know you can read into surveys whichever way you like but even the TTS own survey showed that 77 per cent of people wanted to keep the Green Lanes or to extend them. So that was the response they got to their survey.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
Also the 66 per cent of people that they claim want either 20 or more than 20, it is not 66 per cent at all because they have not taken into account people who skipped the question and went on to the next question. So it is less than 50 per cent. So we are aware of those things, but the argument is going to be we cannot enforce 15, nobody goes 15 except Daniel when he is watching his speedometer and the fact is that 20 is enforceable. That whole debate avoids the whole point which is how fast you go when you are next to a horse.
Senator P.F. Routier:
I find it difficult if they are not monitoring 15 mile an hour, they are not going to monitor a 20 mile an hour speed limit. Are they going to have policemen ...
The Deputy of St. Mary :
That is why I am suggesting to you that you abandon 15 or 20, you are going to lose the argument about 15 or 20 and then you are going to end up with no marketing tool. So you have to move on and go for something else which does protect the walkers, the 50-plus sponsored thingy and tourists, whoever it is, and little Judy on her pony and you have to make it safe for all these people.
Development Manager:
One of the things we are trying to do is to encourage people back on to the coastal path because we are trying to create a Channel Island way, or we have created a walk around all of the Channel Islands which is going to come to fruition in the spring of this year ...
The Deputy of St. Mary :
That will be car free. [Laughter]
The Deputy of St. John :
Can we get back to the ... have you anything else to report, Minister?
Senator P.F. Routier:
To report? Not necessarily to report but to comment is that we are very, very concerned about damaging our Tourism offer and we will be fighting this the best we possibly can, even if this is a temporary measure to go on to something different in the future. If this going to be debated, when it is going to be debated, we are going to be fighting our corner to try and protect what we have got at the present time. Fair enough if we move to something new in the future, that is all well and good, but I do know that there are some people who have not commented publicly yet who are gearing themselves up for making public comments about this and the hospitality industry and all that sort of stuff. They are sort of really quite worried about this. I think the heat will turn up nearer to the debate and we will be fully behind that.
The Deputy of St. Mary :
Just a comment, just as long as you couch that in terms of the transition to something that everyone can live with.
The Deputy of St. John :
Director, have you got any further questions?
Director of Tourism:
No, I think the key issues for us - I take on board the points you have made and I think perhaps we have taken our eye off the ball in terms of developing the system so I think that is something we need to think about very carefully. I would suggest that the principal reason for that is we have been marketing what we have got - that is what we do, that is our day job - rather than perhaps the development job. But one of the things I think we will have to do in the short term is to motivate the people in the industry who care about this, and I think there is a big public opinion job that we can do. We might not be able to change everything that we have not done in the last few months but we can activate the huge number of people that we believe are out there that are very strongly supportive of this particular Green Lane network. So I think we can do that and maybe that will give us the breathing time that we need, to do the other things that you suggest.
The Deputy of St. John :
Development Manager, do you have anything else to add?
Development Manager:
I would like to add that I think the idea of changing the concept of Green Lanes to something else would be absolutely amazing, it is just how we do that. How we make those changes happen and it is about us, I suppose, engaging more with our colleagues in TTS and within the Parishes to see what else could happen.
The Deputy of St. Mary : And within the industry. Development Manager: Yes, and within the industry.
The Deputy of St. John :
It is now 3.08 p.m., I would like to thank you all for attending and I will declare the meeting closed.
Senator P.F. Routier: Thank you.
[15:08]