No tax-paying resident should be subjected to the vagaries of a niche sport

I’m firmly in the ‘anti brigade’. I deplore, loathe and resent every acrid reek of fuel and burnt rubber, every sound of revving engines, and screeching brakes and the nightmare scenario of a curious cat being squashed, without a second thought, under speeding wheels.

But I know others revel in, and greatly enjoy, all of the above and each to his own. There’s no accounting for taste – or lack of it – and it’s apropos for the ‘pro brigade’ to feel that way. The trouble is, while the ‘pros’ are demanding live and let live – a two-way street – and niche sports have a right to be staged etc., please be careful what you wish for because civil rights apply to everyone, not just the friends and cognoscenti of motor sport.

A can of worms has been opened, giving the right for every niche sport imaginable to hit Guernsey. They’d all have to be accepted on the premise of equality – a formidable buzz word – and non-bias. Consider a couple of other niche sports which would, I’m sure, mean a lot more of us having the slur killjoy and worse heaped on us.

Paintballing anyone? Hordes of overgrown school boys rampaging over our beautiful countryside – on bonding exercises of course – defiling everything in their way with unsightly gunge, not withstanding the accidental targeting of any livestock, pets or private property en-route. Or how about a drone club? The sights and sounds of which would frighten and panic the animal world and drive the rest of us up the wall. I’m sure many more maddening niche sports are available as they say, but would the protagonists and the pro lobby like any of them outside their homes?

I think not. I know I certainly wouldn’t.

Why don’t the rallyists do like other Guernseymen have done and relocate to where they have the space and facilities we haven’t?

Or is the self-satisfaction and arrogance involved a more important criteria than the actual sport itself? As for the thousands of spectators, all wild with delight watching the rally antics. Well, from time immemorial there have always been rubberneckers or spectators for the gross and unappealing which rallying is, to some of us, and were all entitled to the right of our own opinion, eh?

At the end of the day, no law-abiding, tax and rate-paying resident in Guernsey should be subjected to the vagaries of a niche sport which is anathema to them and clearly causes distress. No personal taste in our over-crowded island home should be deleterious to or ride roughshod over a fellow islander.

It’s high time the relevant deputies resolved the situation and abandoned their mugwump – or should that be zombie-like – tendencies and applied a smidgen of governance.

We know they like to emulate the three wise monkeys, ‘hear no evil, see no evil, say nothing’ but unlike monkeys, they’re not paid peanuts.

Jill Martel

8 Courtil Jacques

Burnt Lane

St Martin’s