'Sark Shipping needs monopoly'

SARK Seigneur Michael Beaumont has made a passionate plea to preserve Sark Shipping's monopoly on services to and from Guernsey. Speaking on the second day of a public hearing in Sark, Mr Beaumont told reviewer Dr Jonathan Spencer that to license a second operator on the route would seriously jeopardise Sark Shipping's service to the extent that he did not think the company could survive.

During the hearing, which relates in part to Trident Charter's application to operate on the route, the latter company's lawyer, Advocate Gordon Dawes, made much in his cross-examination of witnesses of Sark Shipping's financial position.

But the Seigneur described the Chief Pleas-owned company's operation as a public service undertaking run principally to provide a service to Sark and its tourists, not to make money.

Mr Beaumont said it was unfair to attack the directors because Chief Pleas had not required the company to make money. He also criticised the Trident application, particularly over the lack of information on its freight proposals, something he described as just as important to Sark as passengers.

'I have no idea, and I'm not sure they 'Trident' have, just how much this is going to cost and the fact that the information is missing I find rather disturbing,' he said. 'The priority for Chief Pleas is to maintain the lifeline and keep fares and tariffs as low as possible.'

He described Sark Shipping as exceptionally reliable and said that his view, and that of others, was that it could not survive operating alongside a powerful, commercial service.

'We would be left with little or no control over our service and that would be unpalatable,' he told Dr Spencer. 'It should be the survival of the fittest and not the survival of the richest - and that is important.'

Dr Spencer also heard from representatives of a number of Chief Pleas committees and various Sark residents who had made written submissions to his inquiry.

Today he will be back in Guernsey hearing the final submissions of counsel for Trident and Sark Shipping. He hopes to have his report and recommendations to Lt-Governor Sir Fabian Malbon later in the autumn and he told witnesses and the public that he would expect the document to be made public.