Retail report: Sandpiper link?

THE company behind a £50,000 review recommending that no new supermarkets should be built in Jersey is working for the biggest supermarket chain in the Channel Islands.

Property consultants DTZ recently published a report on Jersey’s future retail needs, one of the key findings of which was that no new supermarkets were needed.

Since then, it has emerged that DTZ are working on another project for Sandpiper — the company who bought out Channel Island Traders and who are one of two supermarket operators in Jersey — to sell two multi-million pound hotels in Guernsey. The hotels — St Pierre Park and La Trelade — are worth around £20 million.

DTZ’s head of retail planning, Jonathan Baldock, who wrote the retail report, did not know anything about the hotel sale when asked by the JEP. But in any case, he said, because the projects were in two different sectors — hotels and retail — there was no danger of a conflict of interest.

Environment director Chris Newton who commissioned the report, said that he did not know that DTZ were working for Sandpiper, but he added that he was happy with the work and did not see any conflict. Sandpiper have declined to comment. (from thisisjersey)

Sounds little dodgy to me....

...Sounds little dodgy to me...

Don't get too paranoid, DTZ are a huge company quite capable of working independently for different clients.

That said I'm sure, given the right brief, they could find for or against any argument.