BACKBENCHERS launched a second attempt to change the Island’s population policy during the Strategic Plan debate in the States yesterday.

The States have decided that the population should be allowed to rise by about 325 people per year until it reaches just below 100,000.

THE Chief Minister delivered a tough warning about Jersey’s short and long-term future as the major policy-setting Strategic Plan debate began yesterday.

CHANGES to the policy direction of the Council of Ministers over the next three years are being proposed in a series of amendments to the Strategic Plan.

The draft plan says that the whole question of the Island’s infrastructure – including the roads, sewers, the harbours, the Airport and States-owned utilities – should be looked at afresh.

Although the States has been restructured in broad alignment with the Clothier proposals, it is argued that there is still plenty of room for further development and improvement.

The plan says that Islanders should be ‘the authors of their own lives and gain social justice through independence’.

From Kenneth Godfray. I MAY be considered elderly and it is true that mobility is a huge problem for me, but thankfully my brain still functions well. The Chief Minister wants to hear from Islanders re priorities – is this more spin?

From Derek Bernard. IT is understandable, but still regrettable, to read that the Chief Minister thinks that there is some sort of upper limit for Jersey’s population of about 105,000.

Space and open land will always be at a premium in a 45-square-mile island. There will also be continual and no doubt increasing pressure on natural resources such as water.