Former Alderney politician calls for legal action over runway

James Dent, who led the Policy & Finance Committee from 2017-2021, told a people’s meeting in the island last month that the States should seriously consider seeking a judicial review into the way the project had been administered.

‘Enough is enough,’ he was reported as saying at the meeting by the Alderney Journal.

‘I have watched for 10 years the machinations, obfuscations and delays. Now we have even more, and we are talking about our island’s economic survival.’

He said that the call for review should include demands of emergency and immediate remedial action.

‘I believe the failure by the States of Guernsey to proceed the case is both irrational and improper, and I use those two words with care, because they are two of the conditions of a judicial review.’

Work on the project has been dogged by delays for a decade, with the cost of the project escalating, particularly in recent years. The States of Guernsey at one point gave indicative support to the rebuilding of the entire airport, but those plans were scrapped when they came in 50% over budget.

Currently hundreds of thousands of pounds are spent every year on short-term repairs and patching of the island’s runway.

The States of Alderney has also submitted two scaled-down proposals for the project but they have not so far been pursued by the States Trading Supervisory Board, which said that they were premature.

The matter is expected to be considered again by the States of Guernsey before the end of the year, but there is no indicative date for any work to start on the runway.

Alderney States member Edward Hill, also one of the island’s representatives in the States of Guernsey, said that Alderney had considered pursuing a legal remedy earlier this year, but it was felt that was not the right time and could actually introduce further delays to the project.