From Guy de Faye.
WHILE your recent article entitled ‘When “oops!” is the only thing to say’ (JEP, 23 August) was amusing, as the former Minister for Transport and Technical Services, I need to advise both you and your readers that the section making reference to the 2008 redesign and resurfacing of the Bel Royal section of Victoria Avenue was almost entirely inaccurate.

Following a major internal inquiry at Transport and Technical Services, officers in the relevant section remain adamant that the emergency services were consulted about design aspects of the scheme. However, due to a switch between project audit systems, there was no written record of those consultations, or note of when they took place or who with – therefore consultation could not be proven to have taken place.

Contrary to your report, TTS was not forced to abort the road works plans. Instead, a variety of emergency service vehicles tested the new road design over a number of weeks. The outcome demonstrated that these vehicles only had to mount the centre Island of Victoria Avenue if ordinary traffic failed to pull over to the side of the road. If car drivers pulled over to the left hand side, emergency vehicles were able to pass without using the centre Island mounting sections.

The only design changes subsequently made were the addition of railings around the pedestrian crossing opposite Bel Royal Garage and the extension of the mounting sections built into the centre Island by a few metres, amounting to a further spend of around £4,000.

Apart from that expenditure, the project budget did not overspend by £200,000, as your article alleges. This amount was an additional cost to the project when initial works revealed that the original highway sub-structure had not been properly constructed when the roadway was first laid. There was no alternative but to fix this problem alongside the pre-planned operations.

I believe that it is important that the prevailing myths surrounding the Bel Royal project do not go down as recorded historical fact. Furthermore, TTS are to be congratulated for having successfully carried out, over the last five years, the largest and most comprehensive road repair programme that the States of Jersey has ever undertaken.

Projects such as the Queen’s Road resurfacing, Springfield Gyratory, St Saviour’s Road, La Haule to Beaumont, Beaumont to Bel Royal have all been completed on time, within budget and with very low disruption to residents and traffic flow, while saving millions of pounds in future maintenance costs if the work had been delayed for any longer.

Despite all the carping, this is a good news story that Jersey should be pleased with.