1

Mr G

Another set of traffic lights, the traffic around that area is appalling, the environment department can’t design a road layout for anything.

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3

Ray

St Sampsons douzaine have done a U-Turn but refuse to say why…

Isn’t Mr Trott a Deputy for St Sampsons?

Surely HE could persuade them to come clean?

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5

Michael R

What was the name of that song?

I remember now: “Money Talks”

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7

milton

I WOULD MUCH RATHER SEE TRAFFIC LIGHTS AT THE
SALTPANS CROSSROADS,OR PUT A FILTER.
TRAFFIC LIGHTS SHOULD NOT BE PUT AT THE BUILDING SITE,IT COULD START A MUST HAVE AT ALL INDUSTRIAL SITES.

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9

A rate payer

“The Island needs strategic government, not a few old men who sit in private and come up with their own silly ideas.”

Those ‘old men’ spend a lot of their own UNPAID time attending to parish matters, answering phone calls in their leisure time, sometimes late at night as well as visiting parishioners.

Who else would chase up why someone’s rubbish hadn’t been picked up, visiting them in necessary? I know they do this from personal experience – not the deputies for sure.

“elected by hardly anybody”

and why is that? Because nobody can be bothered from my experience to turn up to the meetings – perhaps Martino should stand himself if he thinks he can to better.

Why don’t we wait and see first what the Douzaine has to say first before commenting.

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11

ChrisJ

Stephen John,

I don’t think money has much to do with this.

You don’t really need a fancy-pants lawyer to tell you that if a public body makes a decision and refuses to justify it properly, then that decision is dead in the water.

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13

Sarah

@Michael R you are right money does talk. I don’t think that traffic lights should go there I think that is you had a filter then the traffic my not speed down there at night as they need to slow down @ a filter but if they see the lights are green up the road they will speed. Can I just ask maybe I am being thick but what is a data park?

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15

Neil

What’s slightly perturbing about this is that this Bornement Law effectively allows the Douzaine to expose the rate payers to, potentially, legal fees from the Parish side and now, one can only assume, Data Parks legal fees.

And, as has been suggested, it’s a money earner for the Parishes even this requires a bit of scrutiny.

From the Government website the Bornement is £15
http://www.gov.gg/ccm/general/parishes/st-sampson/parish-officials.en;jsessionid=751B757CEE1A2EF37F0796BA68F4790B

If you did a cost analysis on the process from Planning, to informing the householder, to letting the Douzaine know to them issuing an invoice and the collection of that £15, I’d lay money on that the resources for all involved far outweigh the cost to collect.

So in précis; Constables and Douzaines do a good social job of administering the roads and hedges and, having had some experience, do a very good job in looking after some of the older folk and generally keeping a second eye on some of the vulnerable and trouble hot spots.

Getting involved in Planning issues though? Just get rid of Bornement and leave it to the property owner and Planning to argue the detail.

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17

Gilthead

Sarah – good question! What is a data park?

In this instance I think the meaning is an industrial (or business) park where data warehousing takes place.

“Data park” is a bit of a misnomer.

I hope all this has been properly costed as there are much cheaper places to house data than Guernsey…

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19

dave

@Gilthead

Datapark? read home to online gambling firms, all those registered in Alderney currently have all equipment in Guernsey, not one is actually housed in Aldernery, it is thought this industry will expand in low tax areas, hence the datapark, so not really other cheaper places for this industry to setup.

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21

blah

it IS all about the power of money. often when the island’s fragile infrastructure is changed on a significant scale, the finance industry (or the tax avoidance industry as reality has it termed) has bulldozed the government bodies into kow-towing to the change. whether the changes are indirectly beneficial to guernsey people, or directly detrimental to millions of poor people across the world, is open to debate. but now remember when – the banks got fed up with unpredictable fizz bang powercuts and loss of easy banter to their london mates and ordered the island cable link to french nuclear power? and lo, the states did doff their collective cap and delivered a shiny nuclear waste not – want not solution. then the banks got sniffy with the state of the chairs at the airport and ordered a new terminal for their VIP clients, with complimentary new roads and a filter. later, the banks got fed up queueing up behind the yokels’ drunk and disorderly appearances before the local beak and were minded to order, most tetchily, their very own big new court building (together with, as it happens, another new road) for their long-licence tax lawywers to glide about in, affecting much importance. later still, the banks again sulked deeply, having to put up with no decent sea views from the town back streets and ordered that the island’s east coast be sorted to their glass and marbled specification, with appropriate new roads and traffic lights. time passed and the banks, twiddling their well manicured, yet still clearly fat, thumbs thought a bit … and decided some of their low tax friends and relations should have big storage boxes to keep all their boring bits and bobs in, and ordered a squeaky clean data park, with no oily oiky freds in the sheds to lower the tone, but with, yes, new roads and traffic lights. but, what of the poor parish official who liked to stand to attention in the mirror each morning and who clung, without much clue, to something in patois, foggily recalling some old half-decent rule, and what of the common people who were neighbours in all those ancient places, including those who had understood the want of war and occupation, yet still did not rate as much cop the grabbing and grasping and the hollow nonsense of PR companies, or of style, or of mad modern greed? they concluded, with some sadness and some guilt and without the resistance of youth, that international tax avoidance was, on balance, prob..ab..ly not a bad thing, and decided to forget about the view from their window and to forget about the indian and saudi millionaires who would likely become indian and saudi billionaires given favourable off-shore tax settlements, and given comfortable chairs and offices for their tax lawyers and their tax accountants and their trust administrators, and especially given a shady spot in the new data park, because, after all, it’s only a set of traffic lights, isn’t it?

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23

blah

ray – yeah, so i hear. but knowing my luck, me and an international private equities analyst will be the only survivors. but they will make rich pickings! (p.s. – is that a donkey on your symbol of the international socialist workers’ revolutionary movement?)

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25

Nimrod

A ten week closure just to dig up the road and install traffic lights and widen a gate! Ok, allow a couple of weeks to dig up the road and install the wiring needed etc, plus anothaer week to test, and while this is being done the access point can be created at the same time! it will be well into October before this is completed. Unless they are doing other major works in the road, a gang of snails could do it quicker!

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27

nocon

I don`t know where they get this 250 number from because if this is going to be a data park then the only people going there will be the engineers to install and maintain the equipment.

The rest of the time it will be deserted except perhaps for the odd vandal or two.

Whatever is planned for this area IS GOING TO HAPPEN so learn to live with it and stop whinging.

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29

Scarlett

It certainly does seem a high traffic level, nocon, but that is what was quoted in our Press. As I don’t believe everything I read, I asked the question, and used the word ‘speculated’.

I have no idea who the quoted the figure, or indeed, whether this is a high or low number for a data park, but then as you might say, ‘hey, I’m not a data park traffic expert’…..

unlike yourself, apparently, who IS an expert, and can confirm that areas of this nature will be ‘deserted except perhaps for the odd vandal or two’.

Thanks for that, I feel far less like the rest of the gullible public having totally anonymous speculators like yourself – sorry, ‘experts’ – on these forums to help clear these things up…..

tell me, is data park traffic analysis your daytime job, or just a hobby…?

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31

nocon

By the way, if you want to see what the data storage buildings will look like then go to Cable and Wireless in the Vrangue. The big building that looks like an aircraft hangar as you drive in is one.

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