Government of Jersey

Vacant Government owned properties (FOI)

Produced by the Freedom of Information office
Authored by Government of Jersey and published on 16 June 2023.
Prepared internally, no external costs.

Request

Please advise, as of 1 January 2023, how many empty properties the following entities had:

States of Jersey.

Andium Homes.

Property Holdings.

Ports of Jersey.

Education.

Jersey Post.

Jersey Telecoms.

Public Health.

Any other company whose shares are held 100% by the Government of Jersey and or the public of Jersey.

Any other companies or entities where the Government of Jersey and or public of Jersey own the majority of shares.

Please can you identify between commercial and residential empty properties.

Please identify the empty properties by name and location of property?

Response

The Jersey Property Holdings (JPH) section within the Infrastructure and Environment Department administer the Government of Jersey’s (GoJ) property portfolio. This includes the areas referenced in A, C, E and H.

As of 1 January 2023, JPH had recorded that 70 lettable units, across 17 sites, were vacant, with only two sites recorded as having been fully vacant with the other 15 sites recorded as having been partially vacant.

A lettable unit is defined as being either a separate building or part of a building, located upon a site, that can be let out.

Information requested regarding commercial and residential vacant units for the requested areas are provided below -

Education – 1 residential unit, the department’s only vacant unit
Health and Community Services – 19 residential units of a total of 32 vacant units in this department
21 commercial units for the other Government of Jersey sections across 4 sites
3 residential units for the other Government of Jersey sections.

It should be noted that:

not all lettable units are classed as being commercial or residential, and the remaining units would generally be utilised by the Government of Jersey as, for example, office space or storage

There are 70 vacant lettable units however, only 44 are classed as either commercial or residential

For the purposes of this response, it has been assumed by ‘Public Health’ that the information requested is for Health and Community Services. There are no vacant lettable units within Public Health.

The information requested in relation to the following entities is not held by the Government of Jersey, therefore Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies. It may be held by the specific entity, so you might wish to send your information request in writing to the details shown at the end of the response:

Andium Homes Limited (B)
Ports of Jersey* (D)
Jersey Post* (F)
Jersey Telecoms* (G)
Jersey Development Company* (I)
Jersey Electricity* (J)
Jersey Water* (J)

It should be noted that the entities marked with an asterisk (*) are not Scheduled Public Authorities (SPA), therefore, they are not required to respond under Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011.

Information which would identify vacant properties is exempt under Article 42a of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 – Law Enforcement. The information is being withheld as it is considered that disclosure into the public domain would likely create an opportunity for break-ins and or vandalism.

Article 42 is a qualified exemption; therefore, a public interest test has been applied and is shown at the end of this response.

Articles applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a) it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b) it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

Article 42 - Law enforcement

Information is qualified exempt information if its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice –

(a) the prevention, detection or investigation of crime, whether in Jersey or elsewhere;

Public Interest Test

Whilst disclosure of the information would support transparency, promote accountability to the general public, however, its disclosure into the public domain would likely create an opportunity for break-ins and / or vandalism.

Therefore, the protection of the vacant sites outweighs the public interest in favour of disclosure at this time.

Andium Homes Limited

Email: foi@andiumhomes.je

or by post to:

Andium Homes Limited, 33-35 Don Street, St Helier, JE2 4TQ.

Further information about making an FOI request to Andium Homes at:

andiumhomes.je

Ports of Jersey

Email: ask@ports.je

or by post to:

Ports of Jersey, St Peter, Jersey, JE1 1BY

Jersey Post