Getting on with the neighbours

The counter argument, sotto voce, from Guernsey – who else receives a state subsidy every time they get on a plane?

In some ways this disagreement between islands is a simple spat. Alderney thought it had signed up to reduce the subsidy, after getting a new runway. Guernsey feels differently and so has acted. Alderney says that is jumping the gun.

But to resolve this properly needs acceptance that this debate is much deeper than that, and goes back nearly 70 years to the original 1948 agreement to prop up the shell that Alderney was left as after its Occupation.

The agreement which now leads to the oft-quoted £5,000 subsidy per islander per year from Guernsey, let alone the flight subsidy.

Is that agreement still fit for purpose? In more favourable economic times, would we doze at the wheel and keep writing the cheques, or would we take a serious look at Alderney’s status and assess how its advantages – primarily the cost of housing and ease of access on to that market – could work to the islands’ mutual benefit?

That Alderney runway decision, when or if it ever returns, must be the opportunity to rethink that relationship.