Further runway delays putting investment in Alderney ‘at risk’

Guernsey’s Policy & Resources Committee recently announced that a commission to examine the future relationship between Alderney and Guernsey should be set up this summer, after it said the project to bring Alderney Airport up to even a minimum standard was now beyond budget.

Alderney States member Steve Roberts, who worked at Alderney airport for 23 years, has described Alderney's official response as ‘weak’.

‘Alderney needs to wake up and say we are just not accepting this,’ he said.

‘We have breakthroughs with our tidal and wind plans and in 10 years could be self-sufficient, but who’s going to invest if operatives can’t go back and forth?’

He added that he believed this was a strange time to make the decision, with an election on the horizon.

‘We have an 800-year relationship with Guernsey and they are our best friends,’ he said. ‘A lot of deputies will come back but a lot will change.’

States Member Derwent Smithurst, a former Aurigny pilot who still flies regularly, said that by taking this decision, the committee was gambling with Alderney’s future. ‘Alderney is uneconomic right now but we have good prospects on the horizon,’ he said.

‘Wind and tidal is coming and we need to work towards that. We have a massive resource that in the next 10 years we will be selling licences for. Companies investing will need those transport links. The uncertainty itself is damaging, and does diminish the island.’

He added that he understood why Guernsey might want to re-evaluate its relationship with Alderney.

‘We need to work more closely with Guernsey, I don’t think Alderney could go it alone at this time, ‘ he said.

‘But if we ask the same question of the same people, we are likely to get the same answer.’

The island is currently spending an estimated £400,000 a year on patch repairs to keep the runway open.

Mr Smithurst said that as Alderney had an airport that took scheduled flights, regulations were much stricter and it needed proper investment.

‘You are putting patches on the patches, the gamble is you don’t know what is happening underneath,’ he said.

‘You could have a problem this year, next year or never. You are second guessing what the regulatory authority will do. They could give you six months to fix up the runway. If it was shut down it would be very difficult to get reopened. From my experience once shut down airports rarely restart.

‘You lose the staff and expertise which is hard to get back.’