WITH latest figures showing that Guernsey’s population is slowly increasing, the island urgently needs a new management regime, the former deputy who suggested the island aim for a static population has said.

Peter Roffey placed a successful amendment to a Policy Council report on population during the last States term. Backed by the Assembly, it said that the States should try to keep the number of people living in the island at its current level.

But the latest annual population bulletin, released this week, revealed 157 more people were living in the island at the end of March 2010 than in the previous year. And it warned that the population could be 70,000 by 2035 if current trends continued.

Mr Roffey (pictured) said the figures were cause for concern and demonstrated that the island needed a new population management plan as soon as possible – the Policy Council’s Population Policy Group has recently conducted a wide-ranging consultation on the issue.

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