Plenty of potential for island to roar

The trick is how to unlock it, a conundrum that faces both policy makers and business alike.

Some major development opportunities have been stymied in the last decade.

Out on the east coast cliffs, the former Idlerocks Hotel still stands as a burn-out scar,. For all the enthusiasm expressed about plans for a five-star hotel there, little has happened since planning permission was granted three years ago – the planners have now given another three.

Head to the north of the island and Leale’s Yard remains locked up with weeds growing where once industry flourished.

We have cycled through plans, through consultations, through development briefs, yet no-one has been able to turn the key to realise a vision.

Hundreds of homes and the chance to revitalise commerce in the area are the rewards for getting this one right, and it appears the government is going to have to find a way of investing to make it happen.

Belgrave Vinery, primarily States-owned, is a mixture of broken glass, fields and piles of rubble and waste.

It is a site that could open the route to more affordable housing, lifting the living standards of families in need.

Then we see the slowly evolving reinvention of horticulture with the growing of cannabis at greenhouse sites that may otherwise be turned over to the weeds.

A new industry that will again need official action to ensure access to the international markets that will be the making of it.

The former ‘data park’ site in the Saltpans, the harbours, the greening of the economy, all things begging to be embraced, for the right environment to be created for the potential to become a reality.

We have been promised action, a can-do attitude, and that is exactly what is needed if Guernsey is not to spend more years talking about good ideas but not seeing them come to fruition.