A Jersey health minister has admitted that workers coming to the island to build a £710m hospital will have to be housed “anywhere we can find”.
Tom Binet told the States Assembly earlier this week that talks were underway with private companies and affordable housing providers to find accommodation for the project’s construction personnel.
Bouygues UK was formally named as lead contractor for Jersey’s Overdale Acute Hospital delivery in June.
Housing minister Malcolm Ferey wrote to the chair of the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Panel the following month noting that “significant demand” was anticipated from the New Hospital Facilities programme.
“Ensuring that appropriate accommodation arrangements are available, while minimising impacts on the local housing market, is an issue that is being considered with relevant stakeholders,” he added.
Asked where the government intended to house incoming workers for the Bouygues build, Binet said this week: “I shouldn’t be flippant – it will be just about anywhere we can find.
“We are working with the private sector, we’ve got a number of accommodation units available to the health service, which we’re paying rent for, which have voids… we will try to make sure everything within Health and Care Jersey’s control is properly utilised.
“We are doing some work with [affordable housing provider] Andium to utilise anything they might have available that isn’t required by local people. Discussions are ongoing.”
Binet said the government had taken responsibility for finding accommodation for the hospital’s incoming construction workforce “because it was deemed to be a significant delivery risk by all interested parties and if we left it to [contractors] to provide the accommodation, it would have been priced in, very likely at a significant premium”.
He said the project would require 800 workers at its peak in 2028.
“That number includes the on-island local workforce to be employed by the contractor,” he said.
“Over the lifetime of the acute hospital build it is expected that about 450 construction workers will commute regularly on and off the island and about 150 will relocate on to the island.”
Pressed on the impact on the island’s roads, Binet conceded that the project “will have to add to traffic congestion to a point”.
But he added: “There is a comprehensive traffic plan.”
Senator Alan MacLean admitted that the price agreed with Bouygues to build the hospital could be affected by faraway factors.
“There is £40m of contingency contained within the project,” he told the States Assembly. “There are some risks, which will be also contained. They sit largely on areas around global conflict, geopolitical risk to the supply chain and such like.”
Shortly afterwards, he added: “There is a fixed-price contract but there are certain circumstances excluded – the example I gave a moment ago would be one of the risks outside the fixed-price contract.”
The 47,500 square metre project will include an emergency department, six operating theatres, inpatient wards, critical care facilities and a women’s and children’s centre.
Bouygues UK has been contacted for comment.
