The managing director of Sark Electricity announced yesterday that he was leaving the island and was happy to negotiate the sale of the company to Chief Pleas.
Alan Witney-Price said as recently as last week that there were no circumstances under which he would sell the company to Chief Pleas and that doing so would be ‘signing the island’s death warrant’.
They have been in dispute for years over the island’s ageing network, about which independent reviewers have raised serious safety concerns, and the States of Guernsey agreed only last Thursday to loan Sark up to £1.5m. to fund what was expected to be a compulsory purchase of the company and remedial work to equipment.
‘If Chief Pleas genuinely intends to negotiate for the purchase of Sark Electricity in good faith then I will consider such an approach and I invite you to reach out at your convenience,’ said Mr Witney-Price yesterday, in a letter to Policy & Finance Committee chairman John Guille.
The company and politicians had clashed again on Friday and Sunday in heated written exchanges about safety, investment and legal issues.
During that time Mr Witney-Price also received private correspondence from a Sark resident which he said had persuaded him that the conflict needed to come to an end and caused him to rethink his position.
‘They made the point quite simply that if I had chosen to remain on Sark and challenge Chief Pleas’ desire to own Sark Electricity they would have understood and indeed they would have supported me. However, I have chosen to leave,’ he said.
‘In their view, using the loan from Guernsey and the subsequent transition of Sark to a higher tax base and the implementation of social security would protect the future of real Sarkees in the face of Chief Pleas’ failure to protect Sark themselves.
‘I spoke with James [his partner] yesterday and I have considered this correspondence overnight.
‘I am of the view that the resident is in fact right. We have left.
‘It is for those that remain on Sark and call it their home to determine its future. If Chief Pleas wishes to chart a pathway towards Guernsey rather than the independence that I would choose then that is for them as the elected representatives of Sark and for those that elect them to challenge such decisions at the ballot box, if they feel so inclined.’
Mr Witney-Price said that his offer to negotiate a sale of the company would not prevent him going ahead with legal actions against Sark’s electricity prices control commissioner or members of Chief Pleas.
The policy letter debated by the States Assembly last week valued Sark Electricity’s assets at between £400,000 and £500,000, although Mr Witney-Price has claimed that Chief Plas does not understand the market value of the company.
An electrical contractor who has 20 years’ experience working on the network in Sark has estimated that between £300,000 and £500,000 needs to be spent on urgent safety works.
The terms of Guernsey’s loan offer include Sark participating in a commission on the future relationship of the two islands, putting up income from duties as a security guarantee, and reviewing its tax system, which currently does not include income tax.
Policy & Resources president Deputy Lyndon Trott told the Assembly's last meeting before the general election that Sark was a great place but needed to modernise and raise enough revenue to ‘wash its face’.
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