The States’ latest debate on Alderney Airport provoked anguish and relief.
Anguish because it fully exposed the farcical and reckless decision that Alderney, with a population smaller than St Andrew’s, needed a longer and wider runway to take 72-seater aircraft, together with a grandiose terminal building, at twice the cost of the more realistic project agreed before the pandemic.
Not a single deputy is in favour of this folly today, tenders for it having predictably reached nearly £40m., but why were a majority of them earlier this term? Was it out of almost tribal loyalty to the former Policy & Resources Committee then near the peak of its powers? Executive government, you say?
Alderney needs commitment, the States needs ambition, but hopefully this saga will be a timely lesson to the next Assembly about remaining grounded and pragmatic.
Relief now is belated but welcome. Yvonne Burford was right to persist with a more rational vision, suddenly widely accepted, to replace Alderney’s crumbling runway with ‘the lowest possible cost and most practical and pragmatic’ refurbishment and to license a single airline to use a fleet of small aircraft to re-establish the traditional Channel Islands route network.
All the islands were well-served by the decisions made on Friday, although Alderney still desperately needs a new runway, and it must have one as a matter of urgency.
