Scrutiny can shine a light into shadow of overspend

THE immediate response to the overspend at the Salerie Corner junction was at times unfortunate.

Environment & Infrastructure president Barry Brehaut said it had been unhelpful to release the project's estimated cost when they did.

And that, in a nutshell, tells you about the culture of transparency in the States.

It would, of course, make life much easier for those behind these schemes if they could work in the kind of vacuum not releasing estimates creates.

All scrutiny would be after the event and there would be no real pressure to keep a lid on spending.

Something needed to be done at the Salerie.

Any junction where cars are coming from behind a cyclist and turning across them is problematic and what has been done makes the area safer.

It was also long overdue.

But the overspend – the project will cost more than £130,000 when it was meant to come in at £50,000 – and the subsequent reaction to it will overshadow what should have been a positive step forward.

It is imperative that this is dealt with speedily and the loose ends tied up.

The internal review and then Scrutiny's work on this will be illuminating.

Making Environment explain the timeline – how and why the scope of the project changed midway through – will say a lot about the planning that went into it.

The late decision to install CCTV added not only to the capital cost but also an ongoing cost that was not in the original work announced.

This, we are told, was done to 'discourage poor behaviour.'

That, frankly, is nonsense. And it is costly nonsense.

Taken to the Nth degree, we will have CCTV installed at every junction in Guernsey.

Thankfully we do not. And it is also very questionable whether people walking, cycling or driving in the area are making split-second decisions based on whether a camera is recording their movements or not.

Of course, faced with decisions about safety and as-yet-unnamed-expert recommendations, the prevailing mood in the States is to go for belt, braces and beyond.

Environment would be well placed to proactively release the safety audit it commissioned which led to it making decisions about things such as adding CCTV and extra lighting.

These things are never absolutes. Ultimately the committee is making a judgement on the information before it, just as its predecessors did with the botched changes to the seafront layout.

If it is right in its decision-making, being open with that type of information should reassure the public.

It would have done well to have done so proactively. Following the form of the previous administration, it has not.

Indeed, it was forced into admitting there had been an overspend only when pressed by questions in the States.

It would also be well served to release the full internal review. By all means strip individual names out if needs be, but let everyone see at face value what went wrong and what will happen in the future as a result.

Given the assurance that the spending on the Salerie will not break the £200,000 budget set aside under the transport strategy for new initiatives, there is £70,000-worth of something that will not be happening this year that was meant to.

We have not been told what that is yet, but this is not a good start for a transport strategy that already has plenty of vocal critics.

None of this is helped either by the lack of evidence so far that the first registration duty, which is the funding bedrock, has actually had any impact on the buying behaviour of the public.

It is early days, and too early to judge, but making that case out in the years ahead will do a lot to bring confidence that Environment's strategy is one leading to positive change.

Scrutiny of this spending at the Salerie comes at a time when the London mayor has announced a commitment to spend £770m. on cycling infrastructure in the capital over his term of office.

That is the equivalent of £17 per head each year, which in Guernsey terms would be £1m.

This is the debate that Environment should be engaging in, because at the moment it is spending a pittance and failing in too many people's eyes to win the argument to even do that.

Instead it is fighting a rearguard action about another poorly-managed traffic project, something which has only further damaged public confidence in it.

Without that confidence, it will find it tough, if not impossible, to advance its message that more needs to be done to encourage walking and cycling and the use of public transport as alternatives to the car.

That will be painful for the committee's president, who is so passionate about the issue.

He and his board have much work to do to regain the trust of the public.