Cost of tunnel between Jersey and France proposal (FOI)

​​​​​Request

Please advise if any money been spent by the Government of Jersey exploring the tunnel proposal between Jersey, France and Guernsey.  If so, how much and on what? 

Also, is it budgeted to spend any further money on the idea? 

Response

The Government of Jersey engaged a specialist firm, on a very limited basis, to explore engineering feasibility. Details of all such consultancy type expenditure is published on a six-monthly basis as a Report to the States Assembly. The next publication is expected to be within the next 12 weeks. Therefore Article 36 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied to this information.  At the time of this request, there are no plans for any future spend.

Article applied 

Article 36 - Information intended for future publication

(1) Information is qualified exempt information if, at the time when the request for the

information is made, the information is being held by a public authority with a view to its being published within 12 weeks of the date of the request.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground

must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant –

(a) of the date when the information will be published;

(b) of the manner in which it will be published; and

(c) by whom it will be published.

(3) In this Article, “published” means published –

(a) by a public authority; or

(b) by any other person.

Public Interest Test 

Article 36 is a qualified exemption, which means that a public interest test has to be undertaken to examine the circumstances of the case and decide whether, on balance, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information. 

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure:   

• disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public.

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information:

• It is intended to publish a report containing this information on www.gov.je within 12 weeks of the receipt of this request. In it is reasonable for government to publish reports in an orderly manner, following completion of appropriate internal processes, and publishing in advance, and in such close proximity to the expected publication date, would potentially undermine the orderly publication and conduct of government work (when the public benefit of earlier publication under the Law would derive limited benefit). ​