Guernsey-Jersey travel corridor suggested by Jersey minister

Jersey’s Environment Minister John Young has suggested that the islands could now look at introducing a Jersey-Guernsey travel corridor, once cases have reduced.

The comments come as Guernsey enters its third week of lockdown. While the number of new cases in the second outbreak have been rising, the number of new cases has dropped in recent days. There are currently more than 360 active cases in Guernsey, compared with 59 in Jersey.

Deputy Young said that now was the time to introduce common policies and create trust between the islands.

'We don’t want a repeat of last year,' he said.

'If we work together now to bring cases down to a suitable level, then we could introduce a travel corridor between the islands which would benefit our economy, tourism and hospitality industries.'

'On one hand I think we must be praised for our testing capabilities and the contact-tracing system the island has in place. Guernsey could learn from this and I don’t see why we couldn’t help them with testing too.'

Last summer Guernsey and Isle of Man has a travel corridor, which allowed for quarantine-less travel between the two. But that was because both islands had strict restrictions on arrivals. Jersey did not have such a high level of arriving restrictions, which meant arrivals from Jersey are subject to quarantine in Guernsey.

'I think that Guernsey has been very definitive with its approach and restrictions and the message from its government has been clear from the start,' Deputy Young said.

'Our biggest downfall was reducing the quarantine time for people coming into the island and relaxing our borders too early. We should have taken a leaf out of Guernsey’s book on that one.'

Deputy Young also believes that Guernsey’s approach fostered a greater level of trust between the government and the islanders.

'Their [Guernsey’s] message has always been strong and clear whereas we have been inconsistent and given mixed messages throughout the pandemic which creates a lot of distrust among islanders,' he said.

'Now is the time to set goals together and act cohesively so that we can reduce our cases. Hopefully this could create an opportunity for a corridor in the summer where we can move freely between islands.

'Who knows, maybe we could align policies with other islands who have similar border capabilities?'