Review of the Year – April

JERSEY prepared for the introduction of the goods and services tax during its last tax-free month in 2008. Businesses and Islanders braced themselves for the three per cent increase as the States GST team worked hard to explain the details of the new tax to everyone. GST was brought in to help to fill the £100 million ‘black hole’ forecast in the States coffers as a result of zero-ten tax measures. In the run-up to the introduction of the new tax, PoundWorld announced that all products would now cost £1.03, there were warnings that more than 100 businesses had not signed up for GST, and the States issued an explanatory booklet to all households. The landmark new tax structure was even lampooned by Jersey’s ‘celebrity farmer’, Hedley Le Maistre, in his latest music video, Broad Bean Down.

THE Haut de la Garenne investigation was featured on the BBC Panorama programme, prompting 20 calls from members of the public. As the investigation continued, police began to examine two large pits, one of which had been filled with lime, which a witness said had been dug in the late 1970s. In the same week that a second man was arrested in relation to the investigation, police also announced that sniffer dogs had found five bloodstained items and two children’s milk teeth in the third and fourth cellars and would be sending them to the UK for tests. Senator Stuart Syvret oversaw the creation of a Care Leavers Association to help Islanders who grew up in children’s homes.

SENIOR Island politicians met their Normandy counterparts to discuss the possibility of building a bridge between Jersey and France. The initial proposal, which incorporated a wind farm and tidal energy turbines, came from former Jersey Chamber of Commerce president Peter Walsh. He suggested that the project would cost about £1 billion and said that private enterprise would take such a risk if the construction was underwritten by financial guarantees from the French and Jersey governments. The Deputy Chief Minister at the time, current Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur, said that the French had thought it was an April Fool when the issue first appeared on the agenda.

ENVIRONMENT Minister Freddie Cohen unveiled revised plans for the Waterfront, including proposals to sink the road at Route de la Libération and create more than 620,000 square feet of office space. The revised plans involved an increase in the amount of public space and included a covered winter garden, replacing half of the planned restaurants and shops with flats. Senator Cohen said that the new plans resolved the emergency services’ access and other traffic issues and would also create parking spaces for more than 1,400 cars. Developers Harcourt said that that would be willing to meet the cost of sinking the road, which was estimated at £45 million.

DURRELL announced the arrival of their latest star – Gina the Sumatran orang-utan artist. The 44-year-old animal had been encouraged to use coloured crayons to stimulate her mind, and so successful were the finished drawings that Durrell decided to sell them in aid of the Sumatran Orang-utan Conservation Programme, which focuses on rehabilitating captured orang-utans to build up new wild populations. Orang-utans are intelligent creatures and Gina quickly realised that she would receive a treat for each finished picture of doodles and scribbles that she created. Her keeper, Emma Wells, said that Gina had to be in the mood to draw – otherwise she would just rip up the paper.

Pictured: A JEP impression of a bridge to Normandy