Taken for a ride: how we gave away £54m.

The last thing we need now is for folk – or columnists – to talk down the Bailiwick but all the conversations I have these days are depressingly similar: how Guernsey’s lost its way, how we’re going to the dogs and how the States has generally lost the plot.

So it was no surprise when my senior statesman signed off the conversation with a, ‘…so I’m leaving it to you to sort out the Assembly, Digs…’. We laughed in an ‘if only’ fashion – and I went home to read Horace Camp in this slot last Friday discussing that if government was doing anything, it was managing decline.

Chief minister Gavin St Pier was doing his best to counter that (sadly widespread) view in his statement to the Chamber last week but timing issues mean we don’t know whether the earlier 3.4% growth in employee tax receipts has continued or not.

We do know, however, that local market house sales are down 12% on the previous year and that since wretched islanders are using less petrol – as they were asked – they will be taxed more to make up the shortfall, around 3.2p per litre before garages add their margin.

Property tax (TRP) is rising by 7.5%, plus ideologically-driven refuse disposal costs are set to go through the roof. And you’ll be burning more fuel because Environment wants those few motorists it hasn’t managed to drive off the roads to employ a man with a red flag to walk in front of their vehicles to warn the hordes of pedestrians and cyclists now picnicking and frolicking on our car-free thoroughfares.

While further States savings are essential if we are to continue balancing the books, the main message Deputy St Pier had was a plea to do things differently. ‘…sustainable public services will only be delivered through the wholesale transformation of services and through being bold rather than “tinkering” at the edges,’ he said.

‘It is incumbent on us all to challenge the status quo and ensure that opportunities to change the way public services are delivered are fully explored and implemented.’

That last quote brings me rather neatly onto the bus service, because my Money for Nothing and your Bus for Free piece here the other week got quite a strong reaction, not least from another former States member, Graham Guille.

He tells me he tried to get three successive Public Accounts Committees to look into the cost (and benefit) of the bus service without success. He can be very persistent but the bus service is a very sacred cow.

Anyway, improved public transport was supposed to be broadly revenue-neutral as paid parking was to have funded it. Ex-deputy Guille estimates that over the period we’ve paid around £70m. for the service, the fleet and its maintenance. That’s a huge sum, especially as there’s no way of measuring whether it’s been well spent or not.

I don’t have space to go through his calculations, which he acknowledges could be significantly out either way, but we can look at it another way.

Lunch with another former States member, architect of the original integrated transport strategy Pat Mellor, demonstrated that the Thomas de la Rue is as welcoming and convivial as when I used to pop in for the odd under-age pint and Mrs Mellor hasn’t lost any of her spark or verbal dexterity when it comes to flaying those she blames for ruining her strategy.

More to the point, she says that firstly, a survey at the time showed around 60% of islanders were in favour of paid parking, which should have underpinned the bus strategy, and, secondly, that the sums involved would broadly have paid to subsidise the service.

In other words, at today’s prices, we’ve thrown away around £54m. because God and an ideologically-driven Environment & Infrastructure Committee ordained that the Guernseyman shalt have free parking forever and until the end of days.

It’s a significant sum and what we’re paying to subsidise a bus service for no obvious benefit would more than adequately finance the borrowing of, say, £80m. to extend the runway.

Why would you want to? Because having finally taken the risk of adopting a virtual open skies policy, how can it make any sense to have a landing strip too short for the world’s most popular passenger jet? Also, the successful 2-Reg aircraft registry has among its 300 clients planes that can’t land here because the runway’s too small – another missed economic opportunity.

Success or failure for this island hinges on providing the level of communications, in the sense of transport and digital connectivity, that people and businesses need, expect and want.

If States members and others insist on providing what they think is adequate, in a kind of flashback to the halcyon Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society era of 1946, then our days as an international centre are indeed at an end.

As Gavin says, think different, challenge the norms and stop tinkering…

WHO thinks it a good idea for passengers using our ‘national carrier’ to be penalised by Aurigny’s uniquely bijou cabin bag policy?

Most folk these days are adept at cramming enough for a few days away into a couple of easyJet- or even Ryanair-sized carry-ons. And it’s the same for islanders leaving or visitors arriving.

Now, however, unless we buy carry-ons that comply but are too small to be useful in any other context, our bags are a couple of centimetres too large to fit Aurigny’s freshly-minted ‘rip the pax’ rules and you have to shell out £19 per bag – each way – to get your carry-ons off-island or upgrade to a much pricier, 20kg option. And be warned, that goes up to £40 if you’re busted on check-in.

It’s one reason I’m assured it’s cheaper to fly from here to Gatwick via Jersey, avoiding Aurigny’s fares and hand luggage restrictions, and increasing numbers of islanders are choosing to do so.

Since communications and transport are so vital, couldn’t we get our ‘own’ airline to concentrate on giving the customer what they expect and need?