Where did the millions, if not billions, of pounds go?

No such considerations are coming from the powers that be. They treat Guernsey people like enemies at the gate, with their policies of secrecy, passing the buck and outsourcing, they make a mockery of democratic governance. They only seem to tolerate us, when they need compliance for something controversial, like building on greenfield sites, or GST. No wonder islanders are wary of it.

We’re not anxious to be sold a pup again, like the last time we were promised El Dorado, a panacea cure for all our fiscal difficulties. When our island home was sold out from under us by becoming a tax haven or financial centre (a rose by any other name etc.) being told that everyone, and our dear island, would benefit. The only ones to benefit were all the usual suspects, bankers, lawyers et al, our poor Guernsey got no TLC whatsoever.

We’ve had the same amenities (notwithstanding Beau Sejour) and infrastructure, since I was born, in the 1940s, into an impoverished, post-Occupation, little island. Our beloved Guernsey just gets shabbier and disintegrates more year on year, even to letting our pretty little Victorian greenhouses in Candie Gardens rot and fall down.

I was about 10 years old when the last big social housing development was built, Millbrook Estate, we had forward-thinking, pro-community leaders then, who put Guernsey people first. We’ve had various ‘Clos’ built since then of course, (but out of the reach of working-class youngsters) and the concrete and glass temples to Mammon dominating our east coastline but my contemporaries, Horace Camp (columnist) and Rod Hamon (contributor) from the GEP often (sadly) list in this paper chapter and verse about what we’ve lost, or had axed. To gain what? More and more people, we can’t accommodate, and more and more traffic for our already choking highways and byways. Talk about the economics of the mad-house.

I’m reminded of John Neale’s succinct letter to the GEP recently entitled ‘Where did it all go wrong’? I’d shorten that a little and ask, ‘where did it all go?’ The millions, if not billions of pounds generated, and accrued, by the finance industry, ostensibly to provide the help for Guernsey to prosper and flourish. It hasn’t materialised, except for those aforementioned, at the top of the pile. So can the powers that be, really be surprised, that Guernsey people aren’t giving them a happy smile and a thumbs up at the imposition of an extra swingeing tax, where only the rich get richer, yet again? We don’t relish succumbing to the siren song of another cure-all mirage, once bitten twice shy.

The school prom season is with us once again and when I look at their photographs in the GEP, and see those beautiful, hopeful, eager faces, our next generation, on the cusp of embarking on their adult life, I wonder how many of them will have to leave their island home, to find a place to live. It breaks my heart and nauseates me, in equal measure, because it shouldn’t happen.

The very notion of usurping our own for incomers is an iniquitous concept. The fact that the powers that be would break planning laws, that the rest of the island has to abide by, to build for incomers and proffer inducements and subsidies to tempt them here, while our own are ignored or turned away, speaks volumes about our leaders. Are they too rich and blase about life in Guernsey they just don’t get it or so far out of the loop they think a basic human right shouldn’t apply to the Guernseyman? Procurement of what they want and getting their own way, seem to be the watchwords for the powers that be.

No wonder they’ve lost all credibility, not only with the electorate, but islanders

in general.

JILL MARTEL