Longer runway analysis comes in below budget

But the Economic Development Committee said that was much less than the maximum £360,000 the States had approved for the work.

It revealed details of the costs after being asked for them by Deputy Yvonne Burford through a written question.

The funding was approved after a successful requete laid by the late Deputy Jan Kuttelwascher at the end of 2019, with Economic Development directed to present a business case and cost benefit analysis of extending the runway to achieve a length of at least 1,700m by May 2020.

‘In January 2020, following a competitive tender exercise, the previous committee agreed to commission Frontier Economics to undertake a cost benefit analysis of an extension of the runway at Guernsey Airport to achieve a length of at least 1,700m,’ said the current committee.

‘The report was published in March 2020 and cost £148,650.’

In view of the impact of Covid-19 on air travel, the previous committee resolved not to bring a policy letter to the Assembly on this matter. But it recommended that the Frontier Economics report should be updated once the impact of the pandemic could be estimated, to establish whether the conclusions remained valid.

In May, the current committee commissioned Frontier Economics to update its’ analysis in the light of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on air travel. This update cost £31,500.

‘The total cost of both reports from Frontier Economics into the cost benefit analysis of extending the runway at Guernsey airport to at least 1,700m was £180,150,’ said the committee.

‘For completeness, Frontier Economics’ work was informed by an engineering cost analysis undertaken by consultancy RPS in 2020, at a cost of £33,000. The total cost of these three reports adds up to £213,150, which is significantly less than the £360,000 approved for this purpose by the Assembly.’