IT seems like only yesterday that the Planning department were issuing the last Island Plan. But last week they chose to present us with a new one.

In fact, the previous plan was published in 2002 and was expected to last for ten years. So why has Planning come out with a new plan three years early? The answer, we are told, is that the increase in population has forced their hand.

The new plan estimates that in the next ten years the Island will need 4,000 new homes in all – and some of these will be built on seven sites which Planning has earmarked for rezoning. Two of the sites are green fields. Others are brownfield (meaning that they have already been built on) and some are currently sporting dilapidated greenhouses that in the dim and distant past would have been used to grow tomatoes and cut flowers.

Actually this is the first time, to my knowledge, that Planning has suggested eating into the precious countryside. In the previous plan, as I recall, they swore to protect it. So what has changed? Well, it might have something to do with Economic Development’s decision to allow an extra 250 J-category workers into the Island each year over a five-year period. That policy is now a couple of years old, but ultimately it will mean that another 1,250 people – plus families – will have to be catered for.

So subtracting 1,250 from 4,000 leaves us with an estimated requirement for 2,750 additional homes. Some of these will be for people gaining their residential qualifications, but surely not all. So Planning are clearly expecting that either more people will be moving to the Island or that there will be a swell in babies being born here – or that more of us will be living longer.

The latter is the most likely. It is a concern not only for Jersey, but for large swathes of the developed world. Third- world countries have a different problem – there are plenty of younger working people, but they don’t live as long.

The big problem for the States is that if more people live longer more will require pensions. OK, I know pensions are boring. But they cost governments a lot of money.
So the answer, say the politicians, is to bring in more people of working age so that they can put more money into the Social Security pension fund to pay for all the people living longer. Question is, where does the cycle end?

In the meantime, 4,000 homes mean an average 8,000 more cars on the road and an extra 16,000 people, if each couple has two children. Is this a place we want to live in, come 2020?

NOT all of the suggestions in the Island Plan are disagreeable. There is, for example, a proposal to establish a coastal national park. We already have a coastal path which is mainly accessible to the public, thanks to generous benefactors over the decades. So provided that the developers don’t build houses right up to the path’s boundaries this national park status should be a given.

However, I would like to make one suggestion that might save a few broken bones. I would like to see some special facilities for mountain bikers.

Let me explain. Last Sunday I took the coastal path from Sorel Point to Grève de Lecq and back. This path is one of the Island’s best. In fact, one couple I spoke to were so impressed that they said they couldn’t understand why it had taken them so long to find Jersey and that they couldn’t wait to tell their family about it and bring them over, too.

But my idyllic walk almost came to a rather messy end when, as I started the descent into Mourier Valley, a mountain biker coming down the other side fell off his vehicle and almost went head-first into the valley below. Happily he survived, but I had noticed that several other people were using the path as a cycling challenge and, if I had not moved niftily out of the way on several occasions, I myself could have been the victim of a nasty collision.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against biking. Far from it. And I support one hundred per cent the move to create a cycle track from the east of the Island. But there are places where I don’t cycle because it is dangerous, such as pavements and pedestrian precincts – and cliff paths that are only a foot wide.

I also noticed, on my walk home, that in many places the sleepers placed there to enable walkers to climb safely had been worn away, with the vegetation alongside mown flat by the frequent passing of wide tyres.

I was pleased that I didn’t need to use my mobile phone to call the emergency services to scrape up the limbs of any unfortunate biker who happened to fall off. That would have ruined my Sunday. But perhaps that is what it will need before the authorities put their collective feet down more firmly and stop them using the coastal footpaths.

On a completely different subject, I see that Senator Ben Shenton has proposed to expose the exam results of the non-fee paying schools. Anyone coming from the UK will no doubt be surprised that results are not already available, as they are on the mainland.

But in Jersey the Education department insist that they don’t want to start a competition between secondary schools. On the one hand you can understand their point of view. If the schools are shown to be comparatively worse than their UK counterparts it could start a bit of a bun fight between parents. It is not unknown, for instance, for families to move house in order to be in a better catchment area.

On the other hand, shouldn’t the Jersey taxpayer know that the taxes they are paying are producing an acceptable level of education for the majority of pupils? Actually a couple of years ago someone gave me a slip of paper which purported to represent the GCSE results of the respective secondary schools. One school, as I recall, only gained something like a 33% pass rate in one of the crucial subjects, English or maths.

At the time we did check it out with Education, but they insisted that the figures did not correlate with their own. At the same time they refused to divulge what the figures actually were.

To be honest, I’m not a great believer in keeping things secret. I think we ought to know where we stand, especially as the UK government are making it ever more expensive for our children to attend university. I wish Senator Shenton all the best in his endeavours.