Annual rent is paid by tenants of the St Helier Fish Market

​Request 751142295 

1 

What annual rent is paid by tenants of the St Helier Fish Market, please advise individual unit rents. ​

2 

What annual rent is paid by Faulkner Fisheries at L’Etacq? 

Response 

1 and 2 

The requested information is exempt under Article 33(b) Commercial Interests of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 as the annual rental fees are considered commercially sensitive. 

Article 33 is a qualified exemption; therefore, a public interest test has been applied and is shown at the end of this response.

Article applied 

Article 33   Commercial interests 

​Information is qualified exempt information if – 

(a)     it constitutes a trade secret; or 

(b)     its disclosure would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of a person (including the scheduled public authority holding the information). 

Public interest test 

In applying this article, the following considerations were taken into account.   

Public interest considerations favouring disclosure    

• Disclosure of the information would ensure the general public to be made aware of the annual rental received by the SPA (the Government of Jersey) in relation to the referenced sites.    
• Disclosure of the information would support transparency and promote accountability to the general public and would also promote trust in the Scheduled Public Authority (SPA) by showing openness. 

Public interest considerations favouring withholding the information     

• The disclosure of the annual rental fees could potentially disadvantage the tenants and the SPA’s ability to retain commercial advantage in any future rental notifications. 
• This could also result in the SPA’s inability to secure best value for the taxpayer and this will likely prejudice the SPA as its bargaining power decreases.  
• The disclosure of the annual rental fees could jeopardise the business relationship between the SPA and the tenant. 

Considering all the considerations the above, while transparency and accountability is important the public interest in disclosure must be weighed against potential harm caused by prejudice of the commercial interests. 

On balance, the SPA has concluded that the risk of causing harm by prejudice of the commercial interests the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the benefits disclosing the information.