Floral Guernsey funding is pulled by the States

The group has historically received annual States funding ever since its formation as an extension of the then Tourist Board more than 30 years ago. But this year, for the first time, it will not.

‘I don’t want to criticise the States, but it does seem incredibly short-sighted,’ said Floral Guernsey co-ordinator Caroline Allisette.

In recent times the grant has been distributed among the Bailiwick’s 13 floral groups to help them organise and run events, including the local section of the national floral competition Britain In Bloom.

However, Floral Guernsey was moved under the remit of the Tourism Management Board following the TMB’s launch just over two years ago, and since then it has had to apply for funding.

A spokesman for Economic Development said the TMB provided some funding – understood to be about £42,000 – to Floral Guernsey during its first year, but indicated it would not necessarily be able to do so in the future as it judged competing applications against the funding criteria.

He said that, this year, the TMB had £123,000 in total to distribute for its events and activities grants, with all applications together amounted to £500,000.

He added the committee supported and respected the TMB’s decision-making.

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Mrs Allisette said the rejection of the group’s application came as a shock to the organisers. It was seeking £60,000 this year.

‘When we went to apply at the beginning of the year they just went “we’ve got no money to give you’’,’ she said.

‘We’re not an events organisation and obviously the TMB’s remit is to create bed nights.

‘They know we’re not an events organisation but for some reason they put us onto the events budget.’

Mrs Allisette said Floral Guernsey was essentially an ‘umbrella’ organisation for the 13 Bailiwick floral groups, with each of them heavily reliant on the central grant Floral Guernsey received in order to plan their activities for the year ahead.

She said the lack of funding would hit all of them hard.

‘If we can’t give them funding, they’re not going to be able to start planning for this year. We also provide insurance, so all their volunteers come under our public liability insurance, and we also provide a charity number, so if they want to do their own fundraising, they’re doing it under our charity number.’

Without the funding, Mrs Allisette said all of the groups could fold, and Guernsey’s participation in competitions such as Britain in Bloom was in jeopardy.

‘The cost of employing somebody to do all the stuff the volunteers do would be astronomical, even the little parishes spend about 300 or 400 volunteer hours a year.’

She said the group had been advised by States officials and some deputies to seek out other potential funding sources such as the Social Investment Fund.

However, she said a grant from the SIF for the level of funding needed was not available until later in the year.

She added the Floral Guernsey committee felt ‘very strongly’ the money required should be coming from the States.

‘We do a lot of work with Agricultural & Land Management Services and States Works, and have spent years building up a relationship with these people.’

‘Once we’ve lost that connection, we won’t get it back again.’