Caroline Allisette said it felt like the States had ‘washed their hands’ of the organisation ever since news of the Tourism Management Board’s decision not to grant it more than £40,000 in funding – which it had received on an annual basis up to last year – filtered through.
‘We haven’t heard anything more, we don’t know what’s going to happen,’ she said.
‘We’re in limbo, that’s probably the best way of putting it.’
In the States last week, Neil Inder, president of the Economic Development Committee which oversees the TMB, reiterated his support for the decision to reject Floral Guernsey’s funding application for this year, adding he believed the horticulture industry needed to be removed from his committee’s mandate.
After hearing its funding application was rejected, Mrs Allisette said that Floral Guernsey had applied to the Social Investment Fund for a grant, but the maximum amount it could receive from this was only £15,000, and it would not hear whether it or not it was successful until later in the year.
She denied claims that the group had been told it should seek out other funding arrangements in case its funding application was rejected.
She said, thanks to ‘historic’ financial reserves, Floral Guernsey was able to fund the Bailiwick’s 13 floral groups to help them organise and run events for this summer, but these reserves would run out as early as June.
She warned the group needed continuity of funding, otherwise it would cease to exist.
Its committee members still believed this funding should come from the States, because they considered Floral Guernsey to be akin to a quango.
‘We polish the silver if you like, we make Guernsey the beautiful island that it is, we do the work that otherwise would be left for someone like States Works,’ she said.
She added the group would not apply for a grant from the TMB again, saying it would be a better fit under the remit of Environment & Infrastructure.
‘But we need the funding back. [E&I president] Lindsay de Sausmarez has said they couldn’t do anything with us unless we got the funding we had with Economic Development back.
‘Things will grind to a halt and Floral Guernsey will die if nothing happens.’
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