No time to focus on a 'pipe dream'
TALK about tunnels between Guernsey and Jersey, and Jersey and France, just don’t go away. Do a quick internet search and you’ll find the story bouncing back, year after year, enthusing the chattering classes for a while and then going quiet again.
We can all think of a good reason for a tunnel to Jersey, or even France once or twice a year. Holidays would be so much easier and more convenient. Inter-island sport would be revolutionised.
Beyond that, there is so much to dig out. Potential and relatively simple upsides might be economic growth, easier employment, taxes stalled, if not reduced, food security, population growth managed.
Dive deeper and you’re facing closer inter-island integration, potential health specialisms across the islands, one CI hub airport, and the prospect of a lack of sovereignty over our own affairs.
And let's not underestimate the potential loss of our ‘island life’.
These are big issues, the type we’ve avoided for years, and the idea that these two deliberately diverse islands could be brought together by miles of concrete tunnels seems rather fanciful.
Will a tunnel resolve hospital waiting lists, poor school performances and behaviours, high house prices and rents, and the ever-increasing creep of poverty in this island?
Meanwhile for now, most islanders will feel they have to focus on these issues, rather than a pipe dream.