CHANGING the clocks in Jersey would damage the finance industry, according to the vast majority of finance workers.
They say that the industry is facing enough turmoil at the moment and does not need a change to Central European Time.
Nearly 80 per cent per cent of the finance industry said that they would oppose a move to CET, which would place Jersey an hour ahead of the UK. Speaking before next week’s referendum on the issue, Geoff Cook, chief executive of Jersey Finance, who carried out the survey, said that the benefits of the change were outweighed by the downsides.
‘Naturally we would all appreciate the opportunity to enjoy lighter evenings in the summer,’ he said. ‘But unfortunately the business considerations outweigh the lifestyle benefits as far as the majority of the industry is concerned.’
• Picture: Advocate Christopher Lakeman is campaigning against any change to CET
Article posted on 9th October, 2008 - 3.00pm
30 Article Comments
As we have already stated the GOD of Jersey has spoken, this was never going to happen.
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I think the banks have damaged finance!
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Get up earlier and start 1 hour earlier.
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Rubbish - 80% of the bosses of the Finance Industry said that CET was a bad idea. The ’staff’ think differently!
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Wow talk about missing the big picture!
If the finance industry wanted to keep in-line with the UK time clocks and the rest of the island moved to CET then the life style benefits would be huge.
For example if once section of the community started an hour before everyone else then traffic congestion would be spread out from 8 -9 through to 7 - 10 in the morning. Finance sector would also finish an hour later. So just on reducing the stress in getting to work there would be a huge work life balance benefit.
In road safety alone it would pay huge dividends. Getting kids to school would be a lot easier and safer due to less traffic hitting the roads at the same time. Also think of the savings in fuel in the car not to mention emissions. We all should know that an urban cycle in the car uses more fuel so a shortening of the travel time will improve our bank balance and the quality of our air. Just think about walking through the tunnel!
Come on this is a great opportunity for the Island to show it can think outside the box and truly improve island life in both pace and stress not to mention safety of our commuters, pedestrians and cyclists.
The down side for parents may be increased child care starting an hour earlier or later. But if the States move to a free child care model this could be the answer to this one particular issue.
Go on be brave think of the new way of life. Less stress, less pollution, safer roads. These are just the obvious benefits. I am sure after some additional
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It is a terrible idea!
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Go on be brave think of the new way of life. Less stress, less pollution, safer roads. These are just the obvious benefits. I am sure after some additional analysis we could find other benefits besides the obvious
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I work in a bank and have for years and think its an excellent idea…
CET…………bring it on…..
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Unbelievable headlines!!! I would think they should be asking themselves if their will even be a Finance sector come the summer.
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So the Finance Industry never trade with Japan, Dubai, Paris and New York?
Every Finance Office has clocks for every part of the world so a 1 hour change would not effect business greatly. Yes if people wanted to trade on the London Stock Exchange their hours would need to be 0930 to 1800 (CET) but then as we are always being told ALL finance workers work from 8am to 6pm so this still would cover the LSE hours even if we did move to CET; so Chris I don’t see that your arguement has any weight and it is more a case of “We have always been the same so……….”
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Exactly Paul. Finance is global. We don’t just deal with firms in London thank God !!!
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I work closely with businesses ranging from trust, law, funds to banking. I think for a report to say that 80% of the finance industry are opposed to CET is rubbish!! The benefits would greatly outweigh the cons.
I’m 100% for the change
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Yes lets all obey the might God (Finance) and stay as we are.
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I’m with Andrew on this one and beside, why should we listen to the banks anymore? The way things are going they might not be here next week, and even if they are we need to take a serious look at our absolute dependence on them. CET gets my vote, it will make a huge positive difference.
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I think we should create our own time, halfway in between European and English time. that way everyone’s a winner.
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The finance industry has more things to worry about. As the saying goes ‘the clock is ticking’
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I don’t believe that a change to CET will be of any benefit.
The roads are only chaos during term time – look how nice it is to drive in to work during school holidays. Whether we are an hour in front of the UK will have no affect on the school run, except that it will be done in semi darkness for a large part of the year, hardly a safe option for school children.
Also, seeing that most finance here originates from London, it will mean finance workers having to work until 6pm+ to be in line with them. Shops, normally open until 5.30pm to deal with office workers finishing, will have to be open until 6.30pm. The cost of this will be passed to customers. From the airport side, the newspapers and mail plane normally leaves the UK at about 5am, this will mean with a change to CET that it will be leaving ( for us ) at 6am, therefore getting in later and delaying the mail infrastructure. Flight slots, already in jeopardy due to the economic downturn, may be reduced as our flight times will be out of sync with the domestic schedules.
Looking at the weather this year, its hardly been barbie night every night, so I doubt if those finishing earlier will be able to appreciate the weather.
Plus if any of you have children, think what its like trying to put them to bed during the summer hours at the moment – try sticking an extra hour of sunshine on top of that!
Attention couch potatoes – your beloved Eastenders et al will be later, as will the 10 o’clock news ( to become the eleven o’clock news ) and oldies wont know what’s hit them, what with the Archers being all over the place.
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Andrew Beagie thinks outside the box! Shame the ‘great and good’ of the ‘finance industry’ have been proved so wanting.
Vote for the clock change if you would like the financial community to vacate our streets from 08:00 to 09:00 so the Jersey folk can get to work. Who needs a ‘Minister of Transport and Technical Services if the bankers will remove half the rush traffic.
Remember your vote counts! Vote for the clock change.
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The 80% figure the JEP printed re CET was what somebody in influence wanted to hear as as far as I was concerned a clever fabrication.They should be more careful like all the press of what they print as they do influence things (certainly older people tend to take what they write as gospel I’m afraid) Yes there are some people against CET. If it only saves a few lives (as some statistics in UK have proved)it would be a good idea.It was used as a wartime measure and would certainly save energy. Yes it would be harder getting up in the dark but the extra hours of light after school in the shoulder months would more than compensate this giving more time for sport and fitness pursuits. I have just invested in lights for my bike and am buying a reflective jacket and intend to cycle to work for 8 in the morning when the weather is dry. I was in Britanny the other weekend and it made a huge difference to our day with it only getting dark after 7 O clock at the end of September. The Canary Islands have their own time and it seems to cause them no problems with their links with Spain.
I will definately be voting for CET and the sooner the better.
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Does anyone realy beleive, that even if voted for we could unilateraly change our clocks?
Its no more than a big con to up the percentage of people voting.
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I too will be hoping that Jersey votes “yes” to European Time, despite the fact that I am from Guernsey. This is because I have little doubt that Guernsey will follow if Jersey has the courage to make this move, which would bring so many environmental and social advantages.
Some of those against are very sarcastic in pointing out that it wouldn’t produce any more hours of daylight - and that is quite true. What it would do is ensure we make much better use of those daylight hours.
With the best will in the world very few people are going to have friends and families around for bbqs, play a football match, potter in their boat, or do their gardening before they head off to work in the morning. On the other hand the lighter evenings will be a real boon for social and sporting activities. Thats how our society works, we let our hair down and socialise after work, not before it.
Will it be too cold on some days for this to be a real advantage? Of course but on many days it won’t, we know that from Normandy and Brittany. How negative can one get?
The environmental advantages are obvious. In the middle of the summer it gets light before 5.00am when 95% of people are asleep. In the evenings those people are switching on their lights by 9.00pm and using electricity. Not only would this change but later outdoor activity would mean reduced use of other household electrical items, such as tvs. This effect has been proven in other places which have changed their clocks to make best use of daylight.
Maybe it would be inconvenient to bankers who have their main link with the city of London. Maybe some finance workers would need to work slightly different shifts. Is this the end of the world? I am a huge supporter of the finance industry. We need it badly in both islands. That is why we are both introducing “zero-ten” tax regimes at a huge cost to our respective tax coffers. What I don’t accept is that finance should be able to govern every aspect of island life and dictate policy just because of a perceived, minor inconvenience to bank workers.
Good luck to those voting “yes”. I think you are going to need it because there is always an inbuilt resistance to change, which makes this sort of referendum difficult to win. For example I suspect that if the introduction of the “smoking ban” had been subject to referendum it would have been a close run thing. A vote on it a year after its introduction would have been overwhelmingly in favour.
So alas the odds looked stacked on a “no” vote but I pray that I am wrong as that would be such a wasted opportunity.
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Don’t forget there are a lot of European banks over here who I am sure would be quite happy to change to CET. And they might still be around long after the British banks have disappeared…
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I’m still weighing this one up, but I just thought I’d point out that Jersey technically falls right near the middle of the GMT time zone. In fact, it’s actually closer to the -1hr zone than the +1hr CET zone.
Presumably for convenience when working with European countries further east, France, Spain, Belgium and Holland have all chosen to use CET despite being located almost completely within the GMT zone too.
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Vote YES! What a great tourist attraction, ” The Island with more summer daytime ” I have read lots of comments but have not seen any mentioning the benefits to tourism.
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its not the time that needs to be changed its the government that needs changing. to be honest i don’t particularly like the idea of being at work at 9am in the dark. whatabout people that have SAD how is it going to effect them
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NIce to get so many positive comments from our friends in Guernsey and the UK - I heard on Radio 4 news yesterday that the UK is thinking of going over to CET as well so that shoots that fox. For once let’s be seen to be leading rather than following. I spent three months in France in the Spring on CET and can tell you that it makes a huge difference. It’s still warm and sunny when you get home from work! It makes the summer (?) feel so much longer. Please vote for CET as it would be such a good thing for so many people.
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The fact of the matter is change is bad
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Well I see that CET has quite firmly been rejected by the electortate some 70% or so not being in favour of the change, Mr. Bale please take note and let this be the end of your endless letters on the matter.
We can all therefore look forward to the extra hour of day light in the evenings as I have no doubt that as with the introduction of GST our great leaders will simply ignore the results of our first Island wide referendum.
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It is exactly that sort of attitude that means that life on this island is never going to improve. Change is not always bad, change can be a positive thing. I was not particularly fussed either way over the clock changes, I think their are more important issues to be looked into on this island. However the negative attitude and panic over anything new and different is very sad and is the reason that we are so far behind the mainland in a number of areas which would benefit the people on this island if they could only open their eyes and take a chance!
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To late as the public voted ‘No’
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