Cost of proposed pedestrian and cycle path on the A11 (FOI)

Request

With regard to the A11, La Vallee de St Pierre. St Peter and St Lawrence proposed
two mile pedestrian and cycle path I note that there are several reference to purchase and/or lease land for this purpose.

Could you please advise the total cost of purchase and what the ongoing leases will cost?

Response

The project for the proposed pedestrian and cycle path is still ongoing. There are a number of different third parties involved. At this stage no agreements have been signed or have passed through the Royal Court process. The public authority is therefore refusing this request under Article 33 (Commercial Interests) and Article 35 (Formulation and development of policies) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 (see below).

There are however a number of ministerial decisions which are in the public domain which relate to this topic and which you may be interested in. See links below.

Ministerial Decision MD-T-2015-0064

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0101​

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0102

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0103

Ministerial Decision 28 August 2015

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0112

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0113

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0114

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0115

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0128

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0129

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0130

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0131

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0132

Ministerial Decision MD-PH-2015-0133

Exemption(s)

33 Commercial interests

Information is qualified exempt information if
(a) it constitutes a trade secret; or
(b) its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information).

35 Formulation and development of policies

Information is qualified exempt information if it relates to the formulation or development of any proposed policy by a public authority.

Justification for exemption(s)

The contract for the sale/lease of the property identified for the project has yet not been completed. The detail will need to be drafted by the Law Officers’ Department. Once this has been completed it will need to be approved by the lawyers of the third parties.

As the exemption is a qualified exemption there is a need for the public authority to assess the public interest when making the decision as to whether the information should be released or not. At this present time the fine detail of the sales/leases is deemed to be of commercial interest both to the public authority and the third parties. There is a need for public authorities to have transparency, accountability, financial and good decision making. It also needs to consider at what time it is appropriate to release information into the public domain and this information will become available once negotiations and legal processes have taken place. 

The timescale for the release will be when it goes through the Royal Court. It will then become public knowledge, as it will be on PRIDE at the Public Registry and Jersey Archive.  If details are released now they could prejudice negotiations.