Drains and Dictators

Ben Shenton recently brought a proposition to the States against Guy De Faye's unilateral ministerial decision to allow a developer to dig up people's gardens and lay sewer networks without their consent. The voting pattern revealed some interesting results - perhaps a psychologist might argue a case that it reveals States Members who may have a "Great Dictator" complex?

In the proposition he asked

to request the the Minister for Transport and Technical Services to rescind his Ministerial Decision made on 27th November 2007 in which he agreed to vary the policy on the service of notices under the Drainage (Jersey) Law 2005 and agreed that he would, from the date of the Ministerial Decision, consider serving a Notice on third party landowners for the benefit of private developers to enable those developers to lay sewers across the third party land if there was a demonstrable public gain, namely where a developer was able and willing to fund the connection of other surrounding properties to the public sewer network.

He noted that:

A fundamental issue is whether it can properly be said to be for the public benefit for the Minister to exercise these powers under the Drainage Law in circumstances where the neighbouring landowners are perfectly happy with their current drainage arrangements and those drainage arrangements are perfectly adequate for their current properties. Furthermore, the questions of future maintenance and the States liability to pay compensation following legal claims under the Drainage Law have not been answered.

How would you feel if a Minister passed a Ministerial Decision that allowed a private property developer to lay pipes through your land without your permission?

How would you feel if the Ministerial Decision was structured in such a way that you would receive no payment for going through your land and no compensation for inconvenience caused?

How would you feel if you and your neighbours were not consulted in any way about this and only found out through a third party?

How would you feel if you found out that you had no right of appeal as you only found out about it after the appeal date had passed?

How would you feel if the property developer stood to make a significant sum by obliterating your view and reducing the value of not only your own property, but also that of your neighbours?

Pretty fed up - I would think.

What is interesting is the States Members who agreed with Guy De Faye and opposed the motion. These were as follows:

Senator Terence Augustine Le Sueur
Senator Philip Francis Cyril Ozouf
Senator Terence John Le Main
Deputy Robert Charles Duhamel

and of course, the man himself, Deputy Guy William John de Faye.

Given the track record in ignoring the public over GST (Le Sueur) or done his own thing (Ozouf on the Battle of Flowers), or treated the public with disrespect (Le Main over Data Protection), it perhaps is not too surprising. I was rather disappointed to see Deputy Duhamel here though.

there were also a few vacillating members who didn't want to vote definitely one way or the other and who abstained:

Senator Frederick Ellyer Cohen
Deputy Jacqueline Jeannette Huet

So it seems likely that these are the kind of individuals who might like the opportunity for trampling over ordinary people's property rights and would like this sort of precedent, but don't want that to be part of their public record. As the recent Waterfront proposals include a forced compulsory purchase should a seller not be able to agree a satisfactory price (based on what?), it is hardly surprising to see these two suspects here.