Alderney must come to the table

It is a significant move and indicative of how serious the situation has become. The senior committee cannot – and should not – turn a blind eye either to the losses incurred by Aurigny on the Alderney route or the overall economic deficit.

Alderney’s politicians will not like it. They have backed their island into a defensive corner with an insistence that P&R’s figures do not reflect the true financial relationship.

That may play well in Alderney, but it is P&R who hold the purse strings and its committee members who must be persuaded. Turning members of P&R into hate figures on the streets of St Anne will not help their cause one iota.

As it is, each time the finances are examined it looks worse. The latest statistic puts the total per capita funding deficit of Alderney at the equivalent of a £250m. black hole for Guernsey.

It is a huge, unsustainable, sum. Guernsey’s black hole through the worst of the zero-10 years and the global financial collapse was about one-fifth of that.

The new figure includes a social security deficit of up to £2.5m. per annum when balancing benefit payments and contributions and values the e-gaming sector in Guernsey at just £1.1m.

No doubt both of those figures will also be challenged but to win this argument Alderney’s politicians must prove P&R has got its sums substantially wrong, which will not be easy.

Failing that, Alderney must come to the table in good faith and work in partnership with P&R to remodel the relationship. Anything else will be unacceptable to the senior committee, who have to balance the interests of everyone in the Bailiwick.

Ultimately, as Deputy Peter Roffey suggested tjis week, Alderney may have to accept that the deficit is capped. That means going without some on-island services and travelling more to Guernsey or operating them on a shoestring.

Neither of those options is going to go down well in Alderney – but Guernsey’s senior committee has by this letter given notice that it is prepared to be unpopular.