Jersey in 2035: The Charge We Cannot Make

 

“The Charge We Cannot Make”

St Helier Town Hall, March 2035

Scene: The Assembly Room
The room is packed. A digital screen reads: EV Infrastructure Update – Parish Consultation. Residents sit in folding chairs—some elderly, some neurodivergent, some young families. The air is tense, expectant.

Deputy Carteret (standing at the lectern):
“Let me be blunt. The age of private car ownership is ending. We cannot keep paving over our parishes to accommodate one car per household. The future is shared mobility—rentable EVs, community fleets, smart scheduling. That’s how we meet our climate obligations and reclaim our streets.”

Mrs. Patel (retired nurse):
“But I’ve driven the same car for twelve years. I can’t afford a new one, let alone rent one every time I need to visit my sister in St Martin.”

Jules (neurodivergent adult):
“I need routine. I need my own car. I can’t handle booking apps and changing vehicles. That’s not independence. That’s stress.”

Mr. Renouf (single dad):
“Shared cars? There’s one ZipEV bay in our whole estate. It’s booked solid. And when it’s not, it’s parked three streets away. Try doing the school run like that.”

Deputy Carteret (firmly):
“I understand the discomfort. But this is a cultural shift. We’ve subsidised car ownership for decades—now we must subsidise access. Not possession. We’re investing in EV hubs, digital booking kiosks, and mobility credits for low-income users. But the model must change.”

Sister Marie (quietly):
“In 1847, the parish built water troughs for horses. Not everyone had a horse—but everyone had access to water. That was the ethic.”

Deputy Carteret (pausing):
“We’re not abandoning anyone. We’re reimagining transport as a public good, not a private burden. It will take time. But the old ways are unsustainable.”

Audience murmurs:
“Easy to say if you live near a hub.”
“What about people with disabilities?”
“Mobility credits don’t fix broken systems.”

And so the meeting ended—not with consensus, but with a challenge. A vision of shared mobility, bold and pushed forward by the politician as a necessary change, while his own car sits in a driveway with an EV fast charger in place. 

Yet beneath the rhetoric of progress lay a quieter truth: those who could not afford flexibility were being asked to sacrifice autonomy. 

The poor would own less, move less, and wait more. And in the name of sustainability, they were being asked to carry the weight of change.

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