Alderney States rejects funding Nunnery project

The leader of the General Services Committee vented her frustration after the States refused to sanction a £280,000 spend to renovate the Nunnery.

States members were asked to approve the money to replace the roof and wiring and improve accommodation there, including hostel rooms for Alderney Bird Observatory visitors, and create a field centre. The sum also included £40,000 for a project manager, building fees and preliminary works.

Despite the work and the sum previously being approved in both the Policy and Finance Committee and in the GSC, the spending proposal failed at the final hurdle.

States members ratified the choice of tender – Tickled Pink – and on the lease being given to Alderney Wildlife Trust for five years.

But members were split 5:5 over the cash proposal. States president Stuart Trought said he would not use his casting vote, saying there was 'insufficient support' for the proposal, so it failed.

Mrs Paris told her fellow members: 'My shelves are filled with reports, many of them excellent, which are gathering dust because of our endemic failure to make the final push on almost any subject.

'We have known about the costs of this project for more than a year, it was voted on unanimously by the old States last October as part of the Capital and Revenue Budgets for 2017. That means that the six of us who were sitting members then all voted for it.

'Mr Jean and Mr McKinley have changed their minds. I applaud the new members' desire to make sure we get value for money, I would only suggest they could have done it in a more timely fashion.'