Waterfront U-turn – ministers scrap pre-let promise to get work started

Monday 01 June 2015

Promises that the Waterfront office development would not go ahead until tenants had been found for 200,000 square feet of office space have been torn up to get the deal through.

The commitment, first given in 2009 and re-affirmed by former Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf last year, was that no development would begin before firms had committed to leasing 200,000 square feet of office space.

But now, the new Treasury Minister Alan Maclean has confirmed that the agreement announced by UBS on Friday to take on part of the first of six planned buildings doesn’t reach the threshold, but that the work will go ahead anyway.

He said that there was enough evidence of interest from prospective tenants including UBS to say that the risk of starting the multi-million pound development was sufficiently covered.

“We have met the requirement,” he said.

“We have maintained the spirit of what the States have laid out in terms of de-risking the project.

“At this stage, I cannot directly comment on what my predecessor said or the context in which it was said.”

On Friday, it was announced that after years of delays and missed deadlines, work on the Waterfront finance centre was finally due to start after UBS signed a lease for the first of a planned six buildings. Local firm Camerons are due to construct the building, which will house UBS’s 200 staff.

But last year States Members and the public were told that work would only start when 200,000 square feet of offices – the equivalent of almost two entire buildings of the six-block development – had been signed up by tenants in secure contracts.

That commitment was originally given in 2009, but was repeated in February 2014 – six months before the last election.

In an exchange in the States, Deputy John Le Fondre said: “Previously in a statement to the Assembly the Minister has stated: ‘That development works on the Esplanade Quarter will not commence until agreement has been entered into for the letting of at least 200,000 square feet of office accommodation.

“Could the Minister confirm whether this position has changed in respect to the present planning applications and if there is to be any reduction in pre-let areas and, if so, why and when he was going to announce this to the Assembly bearing in mind what is, therefore, the increased risk to the project?”

The response from the then Treasury Minister Senator Ozouf was: “No, the position has not changed.”