In brief: Deputy Alex Curtis is challenging the Government of Jersey’s plan to build a new Highlands College campus in the centre of St Helier, arguing that an education strategy should come before a location decision. He wants the commitment to a town-centre site removed from the Common Strategic Policy 2026–2030, warning the move could prove costly without a clear business case. The States Assembly is due to debate the policy and its amendments from 10 November.
Cart Before the Horse
The Government of Jersey’s Common Strategic Policy 2026–2030 sets out a plan to progress a central St Helier campus for Highlands College, with delivery targeted for 2032. The proposal also envisages releasing the existing Highlands College land for new homes and development. On the face of it, a tidy piece of joined-up thinking: shift the college into town, free up a greenfield site for housing, and everybody wins. Or so the theory goes.
Deputy Alex Curtis, the St Clement backbencher, is not convinced. Writing ahead of the November debate, he argues that the States Assembly has not yet agreed a strategy or plan for higher and further education that could justify the specific proposal for a town-centre campus. “It has also not seen a business case for siting a new campus ‘in the heart of St Helier’,” he said, as reported by the Jersey Evening Post.
His amendment would remove the central St Helier commitment from the policy while leaving open the possibility of moving some or all provision into town at a later stage, once the evidence is actually in hand.
The Case Against Committing Early
Deputy Curtis raises a practical concern that deserves scrutiny: the Government of Jersey owns very few central sites large enough to accommodate even some of Highlands’ existing services. That means a full town-centre relocation could prove highly costly, and without a costed business case, the Assembly would be signing a blank cheque in all but name.
Supporters of the town-centre plan have pointed to the public-facing value of Highlands’ restaurant, hair and beauty services as a reason to locate the campus centrally, giving the college a visible shopfront in St Helier. Deputy Curtis does not dismiss this entirely, but he argues that smaller town premises could provide that public-facing presence without the expense and disruption of relocating the whole campus. It is a reasonable distinction.
He also questioned the emphasis on releasing Highlands land for housing, noting that no costing or reasoned benefit had been provided for that element of the plan either. Given that the release of that land is one of the key arguments for the move, the absence of any financial analysis is a notable gap.
What Happens Next
Politicians are due to debate the Common Strategic Policy 2026–2030 and its amendments in the sitting beginning on Tuesday, 10 November. Deputy Curtis’s amendment would not kill the idea of a new campus or even rule out St Helier as its eventual home. It would simply require the Government to do the analytical groundwork before the Assembly commits to a specific location and a 2032 delivery date.
That is, on the surface, an entirely reasonable ask. Large public infrastructure projects have a well-documented habit of expanding in cost and complexity once they are under way, and Jersey’s taxpayers have had occasion to notice this pattern before. Establishing what the Island actually needs from its higher and further education estate, and then working out where best to provide it, seems like a logical sequence of events.
Source: Jersey Evening Post
