Delay is a cause for regret
Covid had an impact, clearly, but States members might want to look back at their papers and regret that they did not pursue repairs to the Alderney runway when they were first promoted at the end of 2018.
The £12m. price tag now looks a snip after the Policy & Resources Committee announced yesterday that doing a similar job on the runway now was set to cost more like double that. It could even be four times as much.
That £24m. was almost exactly the price which led this States, in one of its madder moments, to back a significant upgrade of the airport as a whole in December 2022. Two years later the price was £37m. and the whole idea was junked.
Yesterday P&R published a policy letter on the runway which many expected to confirm a rehabilitation rush job at least possible cost.
Instead we heard that the costs have again gone sky high, and learned of the offer of a ‘constitutional committee’ to review the relationship between the islands, which hit rock bottom at the end of last year.
That is welcome, and so is the proposed ‘radical reconsideration’ of the runway project. But it can’t wait for ever, in fact it can hardly wait.
In a week where the States was given a ‘hurry up’ to address infrastructure spending, this looks a classic case of how the failure to make a stitch in time has cost way more than nine.