Guernsey Watch

Guernsey Watch

My occasional look at news in the neighbouring Bailiwick

Waste Water

PUBLIC drinking fountains will be on the agenda at the next Environment & Infrastructure committee meeting. Its president, Barry Brehaut, said it was something the committee would like to see happen.

‘There is clearly a move away from single use plastics, because it really does concern people – it concerns us all,’ he said. ‘It’s something we’d like to stop and if we can do that by ensuring there are fountains around St Peter Port and elsewhere then it’s worth doing. It’s worth approaching the douzaine to see what pumps are in the possession of the parish that may be used, or take advice as to where they might be installed.’

This is interesting because, independently, Simon Crowcroft has also been thinking of this in St Helier, and of course the same is proposed for London

“A new network of drinking fountains and bottle-refill points is set to be rolled out across London this year as part of a plan to reduce the amount of waste created by single-use plastic, the Guardian has learned.”

And in 2017, the Telegraph reported:

“Keep Britain Tidy found that only around seven per cent of the population ever use communal water fountains while four times as many people spend money on expensive and environmentally unfriendly plastic bottles of water.”

I wonder if this will become a local election issue!

Bridge Over Troubled Waters

The weather which smashed up Jersey’s sea wall along Victoria Avenue has also proven destructive in Alderney. In January, a story read:

STORMY weather and spring tides have inflicted what is thought to be the worst damage for several years to Alderney’s breakwater. Huge granite stones were torn from the Victorian edifice and more than a dozen two-tonne blocks landed along its walkway.
Although the breakwater gets a battering every new year, a combination of gale force winds and a strong spring tide meant it sustained a worse pounding than usual. Around 12 granite blocks, measuring about a metre and a half in length, broke off the seaward side of the breakwater and were brought over the top by the force of the water on Wednesday. Each block is estimated to weigh between two and three tonnes. A 10m section of coping stones was also stripped off further down the wall on its harbour side – but it could stretch to 30m on the seaward side.

The increase in severe weather events means this is more rather than less likely.

A Southampton study for a course exercise in "Coastal & Maritime Engineering and Energy" notes:

The existing Victorian breakwater on the Island of Alderney (Channel islands) is a blockwork structure which suffers recurrent damages. It will need to be replaced in the near future. In this design exercise, the outline design for a replacement will be developed based on an assessment of wave conditions, design requirements (harbour area and harbour wave conditions) and a diffraction analysis of the harbour basin. 

And in another story about the sea:

MARINERS are being urged to be vigilant while sailing off Jersey’s coast as large pieces of debris from a £1.8m. yacht which sank last year continue to pose a hazard to vessels.
Small pieces of the yacht, including seat cushions and plastic covers, began to come ashore days after a salvage attempt was abandoned because the wreck was breaking up on the sea bed.
Why was it towed to deeper water rather than grounded on the beach?

While there may have been good reasons for the decision, at the moment Ports of Jersey are keeping rather quiet about it.

Trouble in Sark

THREE of Sark’s senior politicians have resigned as conseillers, with one warning that the island’s system of government must evolve with the times.

The chairman and deputy chairman of Sark government’s senior committee, Policy & Performance, Charles Maitland and Hazel Fry, have stood down.

Robert Cottle, who was the deputy chairman of Finance & Resources, has also resigned. ‘The workload on Finance & Resources is very heavy and during my five years as a conseiller I haven’t been able to achieve the direction that I think Chief Pleas should be going in,’ said Mr Cottle. ‘Chief Pleas needs to be more forward-looking and progressive, but it seems to be reverting to ways of old. I don’t believe this is the right way to go and I am leaving it to those who feel otherwise to get on with it.’

Conseiller Maitland said: "It's been increasingly obvious that GP&A has really got too much work... we deal with all Sark's external relationships and we're at the forefront of reform. It's a lot to expect unpaid amateur politicians to cope with, this is really why I've been pushing for help in Sark's administration and why we're taking that to Chief Pleas. Sark's administration has never been reformed in all of its 450 years and the committee system has grown... we've now got 16 independent committees and it really needs serious reform."

The committee's proposals for employing full-time civil servants are due to be discussed at the Chief Pleas Easter meeting.

Sark got an administrator in 2013, when a proposal, for a civil servant to help coordinate the work of government and advise conseillers, was accepted by 21 votes to four. This was the first civil servant hired by the Government, and as far as I can see the only one.

The last 5 years have seen increased regulatory burdens on business and government, and probably terrified of an army of civil servants, Sark simply has not moved ahead, and the burden on conseillers in Chief Pleas has grown. Something has got to change if government is to remain viable in Sark.

Links

https://guernseypress.com/news/2018/02/04/public-drinking-fountains-on-the-ei-committee-agenda
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jan/23/new-fountains-and-bottle-refill-points-to-tackle-londons-plastic-waste
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/10/bring-back-drinking-fountains-cut-plastic-bottle-waste-improve/
https://guernseypress.com/news/news-from-the-islands/alderney/2018/01/06/alderney-breakwater-damage-worst-in-years
https://www.ntnu.edu/documents/4369942/0/CoMEM+Courses+SOTON+complete.pdf
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/luxury-18million-superyacht-sinks-jersey-11558224
https://guernseypress.com/news/2018/01/08/three-senior-politicians-step-down-from-sark-chief-pleas

Guernsey Watch

Guernsey Watch

Rubbish News

“TURNING an agricultural field in St Peter’s into a ‘graveyard’ for cars, tyres and broken pots resulted in a £3,000 fine for defendant Matthew Le Page. The 52-year-old, of La Balise, Rue de la Viltole, Torteval, had initially denied two charges of ignoring compliance notices, that were issued by the planners to clear the site. But at the 11th hour of the trial in the Magistrate’s Court, after all the evidence for both sides had been heard, he changed his plea to guilty on both counts.”

I have seen the photos of this, and it doesn’t seem very bad at all... compared with what we used to have at La Moye. When Cyril Syvret ran La Moye Garage, by the side of the garage, where there is now a space for cars for sale was a heap of cars which certainly would never have been sold.

Questions were raised in the Jersey Evening Post, and in the States about the eyesore, heap upon heap of broken cars, often with no tyres, broken windows, rusting bodywork, but as there was no health hazard, it seemed to be the general view that Mr Syvret had a right to dump what he wanted on his land, even if it was aesthetically unpleasing.

The same principle applied to Bob Bisson, the eccentric Bible quoting man who painted his house with Biblical verses, not in any tidy fashion, but just scrawled all over in rather messy handwriting.

Would Jersey authorities be as forgiving today, or would they police these sites more strongly? It would be interesting to know.

The Guernsey Way

“Two Guernsey midwives have been struck off the nursing register following the death of two babies. Lisa Granville and Tuija Roussel had previously been found guilty of failures relating to the deaths at the island's Princess Elizabeth Hospital. A third midwife, Antonia Manousaki, was suspended for a year by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). Staff administered drugs "without prescriptions" or without speaking to consultants, a panel heard.”

Dubbed by the media, “the Guernsey way”, this case was investigated thoroughly by the NMC, which found that there were serious failings in the care given to the babies.

One hopes that enough safeguards are put in place to prevent these events happening in the future.

The Guernsey Press reports that:

“Their long battle for truth and justice has clearly added to the pain of their loss and they feel not only that they were not helped by island institutions but that they were actively resisted. It is an all too common tale. Ordinary people asking difficult questions find their path blocked by a system that closes ranks and fails either to take them seriously or be open with the facts. In this instance it took the courage of a whistleblower to shine light into areas that those in authority sought to keep in the dark.”

In Jersey, it should be noted that The Minister of the Health and Social Services Department was ordered to comply with a summons for disclosure of key documents top the Jersey Care Inquiry. His lawyers, presumably on his instruction, had resisted this. Fortunately the Jersey Care Inquiry had legal teeth, and was able to press for the documents.

But how much time and cost was wasted because their path was also blocked by the system that refused to be open with facts, even given the considerable steps taken by the Inquiry for necessary redaction. No apology was as far as I am aware, ever given for this.

Lessons still need to be learnt.

References 
https://guernseypress.com/news/2017/10/07/landowner-fined-3000-for-his-car-graveyard
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-guernsey-41435467

Guernsey Watch

Guernsey Watch: An occasional review of the stories in our sister Island.

I’ve already commented on the general election, so the reader is referred there.
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-tale-of-two-islands.html

Tourism

Guernsey press reports that Guernsey is the more popular Channel Island than Jersey:

“A ‘NATURAL charm and rich history’ make Guernsey the number one of the Channel Islands, holidaymakers have said, warning that the island should not change to be more like Jersey.”

It is true that St Peter Port is a very charming and picturesque town, and as one of the gateways to Guernsey via the Harbour, and for visitors shopping, it has more to commend it than St Helier. The Financial heart of Guernsey has shifted out of St Peter Port and straddles the road between St Peter Port and St Samson.

This means the main town is relatively free of large glass fronted buildings of the kind which are so invasive in St Helier. They do spoil that stretch of coastline, but the traveller will probably bus or drive past it relatively quickly, whereas in St Helier, they are all pervasive.

Panama Papers

The Panama papers have not really impacted on Guernsey yet. As the Guernsey Press reports:

It’s too soon to say, to be honest,’ said William Mason, director-general of the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. ‘But the evidence suggests that Guernsey’s hard work in the past has meant that we are in a better position than many other jurisdictions.’

Mr Mason said the commission would take up ‘very seriously’ any issues brought to its attention through the release of documents leaked from Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca and admitted that he was ‘glad’ the firm had no local presence.

Jersey, of course, has offices of a local branch of Mossack Fonseca, although it is not licensed to carry on trust or company business. So what is it doing, It seems that it is acting as a conduit, facilitating links to its parent company, rather like an “introductions” agency. That does put Jersey potentially at more risk from collaretal damage than Guernsey.

Signs of the Times

Rebranding and reorganising departments is not just something which Jersey does alarmingly often – Guernsey’s change to committee government away from ministerial government also sees changes in the portfolios of those committees. Guernsey Press reporst this:

‘Civil servants will be more accountable’ under changes: GREATER civil servant accountability and responsibility will be a key feature under the restructure of government, the States’ chief executive has said, as work gets under way to bring about changes to the system. From 1 May the structure of government will change from the current system of 10 departments to a committee system made up of the Policy and Resources Committee plus six principal committees.

The structure of public service delivery will also change to reflect and support the new political system and there will also be greater distinction made between the strategic policy-making of the political committees and operational service delivery. As part of the changes, a great deal of work has gone into rebranding, including new logos, letterheads and new signage, at a cost of more than £45,000.

I find it deeply ironic that the main part of the change – described as “a great deal of work” – is all about new logos, letterheads, and signage. Changing the structure of a department, changing accountability and responsibility, are what is promised, but what do we see – changing the signs, letterheads and logos, at a cost of over £45,000. In this respect Guernsey is not so very different from Jersey, where similar cosmetic changes have been and are being made.

Guernsey press also reports on population. As with Jersey, vague generalities take the place of precision, and come to think of it, Jersey too has also avoided looking at how many people should be living on the Island. The Jersey mindset is focused on growing the population to replace elderly people while at the same time burying its head in the sand over the sustainability of this policy for infrastructure – water supply, schools, hospitals etc:

Many, many, many hours had gone into debating Guernsey’s new population management regime. There was just one thing missing – the policy to guide how many people should be living on the island. It had been an issue ducked throughout the management debate where it was insisted a focus on numbers would distract from the core issues of getting the right tools in the box. When it came to the big reveal, Policy Council attempted to shift the focus onto the ‘working population’ number, although buried within its report was indication that to achieve that the total population may need to hit some 70,000 people. The policy faced objections from those who felt it was too vague – members, though, rejected the opportunity to effectively cap the working population at its current level.

China

According to a report in the Guernsey press:

GUERNSEY is making ‘tremendous progress’ in China, according to the director of international business development at Guernsey Finance. After getting on for a decade of strong connections between China and the island, Kate Clouston said that Guernsey Finance and local firms were starting to see success in the region. Guernsey Finance will update on progress made at an event for industry on Tuesday 17 May.

It will be interesting to see how this is reported. Jersey, too, has (we are told) been making progress in China, so we are told, but facts and figures that are clear and unambiguous are hard to come by. What I'd like to hear both in the Guernsey report, and in any Jersey ones, are businesses saying that they have secured business worth £x thanks to the help given in making contracts by the Guernsey or Jersey teams working in China from their respective States. Good publicity for the firm, good publicity for the Islands - but will we ever have anything like this level of direct effect charted out?

Guernsey Watch

Guernsey Watch

Another of my occasional looks across the water at our sister isle, and breaking news stories unfolding there.

Guernsey is taking in 25 migrants. Hundreds of people have offered to rehome them. These are not, however, refugees from Calais, but dogs. 25 dogs were brought to the island from Slovakia illegally, and are costing the Guernsey Society for the Protection of Animals around £400 a day to keep.

But what about migrants? The Guernsey letter writer, B.W. Tomkins does not think it is a good idea. He writes that “having a barbecue the other day here, close friends and relatives were as shocked as I was to read that Guernsey was contemplating taking in refugees.”

He has clearly been well-education by the Daily Mail, as he notes:

“Many of these refugees have ‘lost’ their documents and some, we are told, are cold-blooded trained groups. Well-known authors and security experts have declared this influx is unstoppable. Does the island have a strong security force/army personnel who could be flown in? If these organised refugees arrive in large numbers by their own boats, on the ferry, cargo, who will stop them? Tourism will be damaged, the economy, house prices will be affected.”

Jersey is closer, but I’ve not heard any talk of migrants trying to find boats to get over here. The reason is probably obvious, and it is this: if you manage somehow to smuggle yourself into England, and goodness knows people try, it is a large country with a big population, and you are a drop in the ocean, and may find work in the cash economy.

If you arrive in Jersey largely destitute, without any papers or documents, you will be spotted very quickly, especially as you need to register before being employed, or taking up housing. Mr Tomkins doomladen predictions are a fantasy.

And he ends with an almost apocalyptic warning: “Open the ‘charitable gate’ and Facebook and mobile phone communication will bring more from Calais. Be wise in advance.”

It’s a letter which invites contrasts, and I cannot help but think of migrants in “the Jungle”, with very little water (four standpipes), hungry, dependent on charitable food, and Mr Tomkins, well-fed and relaxing in his garden after his BBQ, smugly penning this letter while he reclines on his sun-lounger, and sips wine..

But leaving migrants aside, what is happening with housing for locals in Guernsey? Policy GP11 which is about “Affordable Housing of the Island Development Plan” is causing a rumpus among builders. It seems innocent enough:

“For the first time in Guernsey, in certain circumstances, housing development schemes will be required to make provision for an element of affordable housing to seek to address the challenge that appropriate housing is available to meet all of the Island community’s housing needs.”

As the Guernsey Press put it, Landowners not taxpayers will help fund new homes.

But it is the thin end of the wedge, according to Eric Legg, Chairman and spokesman for the Construction Industry Forum. In a letter to the Guernsey Press, he wrote:

“The Construction Industry Forum recently met and felt obliged to respond setting out the difficulties it sees with regard to GP11and the Environment Department’s single-minded determination to drive through a policy purely aimed at affordable or social housing.”

“The construction industry is a vibrant part of Guernsey’s economic landscape. It is currently suffering a slow down with a lack of major projects in the market at present or in the pipeline. This policy (GP11) will be a major blow to the industry and to the 3,000 people employed in it.”

Isn’t there such a think as corporate social responsibility? The policy, anyway, says “in certain circumstances”. But to read Eric Legg, you would think that Jeremy Corbyn and rampant socialism was loose in the Island.

Peter Roffey, meanwhile, thinks that the time may be right to revisit States loans.

“With the high price of property in Guernsey, and landlords expecting a decent return on their capital, private rentals don’t come cheap. So if home ownership is to remain beyond the reach of many Guernsey people, there are three basic options. Either we let islanders pay a very high percentage of their incomes on rent, which will inevitably lead to relative poverty and suppress the domestic economy. Or we help them pay their rent through some form of housing benefit, which would be a very big burden on the States’ revenue account. Or Guernsey massively increases the amount of social housing in the island – a huge capital cost.”

And he concludes:

“By and large, I prefer measures to help people who want to own their home to any of those options. Not only to help them fulfil their own aspirations, but also because I think Guernsey’s tradition of high home ownership has tended to have a stabilising effect on society.”

Housing and population may feature in the next Guernsey Institute of Directors talk. The focus of the debate is the key demographic issues facing the islands, with a talk on how the island can stimulate growth and prosperity in the face of the imminent demographic challenges.

Another assessment is coming from the EU via “Moneyval”. Moneyval is a body of the Council of Europe tasked with assessing the effectiveness of measures in place to prevent money laundering. The island was inspected by Moneyval earlier this year and it is understood that its findings will be discussed in Strasbourg. This is looking at Guernsey’s systems for preventing financial crime, and will be viewed with interest. I wonder if they’ll have noted the £2.6 million fraud committed against Guernsey States!

Meanwhile, cross-channel co-operation has been taking place over the winding up of cross-Channel shipping line Huelin-Renouf. Instead of both Islands being processed separately, “pooling” can take place. Law firm Ogier and liquidator Grant Thornton applied to the courts in Guernsey and Jersey to pool the liquidations of the long-established shipping lines. This means the Jersey and Guernsey companies would be treated as one for the purpose of distributing a dividend to creditors and the courts’ approval means that a dividend to creditors in the islands is due to be paid before the end of the calendar year, rather than be delayed.

Partner Mathew Newman said the decision demonstrated the flexibility of the Guernsey insolvency regime: “This cross-border cooperation develops insolvency law in both jurisdictions for the better. It provides a just, fair, cost-effective and reasonable outcome for creditors of the two companies”

Why can’t the States do what the private sector manages to do? All we’ve had so far are talks and meetings between Jersey Ministers and their Guernsey counterparts, and press releases full of that fake exuberance which evaporates like morning mist. For when fishing or air registries are on the agenda, and real progress could be made, the intransigence of one side or the other usually scuppers the deal.

References

http://guernseypress.com/news/2015/09/20/offers-pour-in-to-home-slovak-puppies/

http://guernseypress.com/news/comment/letter-of-the-day/2015/09/18/you-want-to-put-the-lives-of-our-children-at-risk/

http://guernseypress.com/business/2015/09/16/iod-annual-debate-has-a-new-look/

http://guernseypress.com/business/2015/09/15/islands-ability-to-tackle-financial-crime-assessed/

http://guernseypress.com/business/2015/09/21/legal-flexibility-speeds-huelin-renouf-liquidation/

Guernsey Watch

Guernsey Watch

I’ve been taking a look at the news in our sister Island.

http://guernseypress.com/news/2015/07/18/environment-wants-to-introduce-smaller-buses/

“The first phase of Environment’s replacement programme will see it replace 12 buses, purchase two minibuses, one of which has already been secured, and refurbish up to 27 of its existing vehicles.”

As well as replacing buses sufficient for the existing capacity, the Department is also looking at smaller vehicles for some roads. A spokesman said they were “retaining the required carrying capacity to meet peak demands while securing vehicles that are smaller than the existing fleet”

It’s an interesting idea. Whether Jersey could benefit from a similar scheme is a moot point, but perhaps a park and ride which used a smaller bus would be useful, or a minibus service, either operated by Liberty Bus or another operator, linking the Island’s more remote sites to main trunk bus routes could be viable.

http://guernseypress.com/news/2015/07/16/deputies-to-have-final-say-on-introducing-same-sex-marriage/

“The option to introduce same-sex marriage in Guernsey over the controversial union civile reforms could rest with deputies when proposals are debated, one of the politicians behind the recent consultation has indicated…. Deputy Green gave his backing to opting for same-sex marriage legislation over union civile and revealed the ‘high level’ of public support for that option, supported by over 70% of consultation respondents.”

Guernsey has been looking initially more positively at the “Union Civile”, which would remove the religious element from all marriages – including those conducted by the Church of England – a civil ceremony for all sexes (including same sex marriage) would be followed by a religious ceremony, where the church allowed (an opt out for same-sex marriages, but the latter would not be a legal marriage; that would remain with the civil ceremony for a “Union Civile”.

Jersey looked at the option, but rapidly ruled it out, and it looks as if Guernsey has now done the same. It would be easier for Guernsey, as it has no formal Canon Law of its own, but there would still be disquiet that the Established Church, of which the Queen was the Supreme Governor, would not be able to conduct traditional marriages. In a way, the idea of a “Union Civile” was a fudge to avoid a discrepancy between civil marriage and marriage in the church, and avoid controversy over opt outs for religious groups.

It is interesting to see that the same pressures to do something are in place in Guernsey, just as they are in Jersey, and matters are moving in the same kind of direction towards recognition of same sex marriages, at least in the civil sphere.

The language of debate has also moderated from even 2006, when a perusal of Jersey’s Hansard sees such terms as “sodomy” and “buggery” used by some members, without the slightest reprimand from the Bailiff of that time, who nonetheless ruled Geoff Southern’s use of the term “godforsaken” as inadmissible because it was “religious” when the term has patently been denuded of all religious meaning for at least the past 20 years!.

Curiously, a search of the site by the in-house search engine does not turn up those terms anywhere, and yet a perusal of Hansard from 2006 reveals their presence. Is there a selective censorship in the search engine?

http://guernseypress.com/news/2015/07/16/female-politicians-launch-inspiration-drive/

“Some of the current female deputies are leading calls to encourage more women candidates in the lead-up to next year’s election. Environment minister Yvonne Burford said there was probably more than 20,000 women eligible to stand as a politician in 2016 and it really should not be too difficult to get 20 of them elected into the States. She said to answer the million dollar question of how to get more women to stand, they first needed to understand what might put women off standing in the first place.”

That is indeed the million dollar question! 

Research from the Brookings Institute suggests it is not family concerns and responsibilities which are the main reason why there are less women in politics. Jennifer Lawless from Brookings noted that "Family roles and responsibilities exert no impact on potential candidates' decisions to run for office -- and that is the case for both women and men" although she does note that younger women have a lot more juggling of responsibilities for home than men. But the real reason is a male bias in those looking to support candidates:

"Political gatekeepers tend to recruit from their own networks, and those are men who tend to operate in pretty male-dominated networks," Lawless said in an interview. "So there's not much evidence to suggest there's any overt bias against potential female candidates. It's just that they are not the ones that the electoral gatekeepers are surrounding themselves with. They're not the immediate names that come to mind."

In other words, the political support network for women is harder to come by than that for men. I wonder if that is the case in Jersey?

The method of election is also important. The late Professor Wilma Rule showed the biggest reason for female candidates’ success in these some democracies and not others is the use of “fair representation” electoral systems, also known as proportional representation. Looking, for example, at Germany and New Zealand, women win a lot more seats chosen by the fair representation method than in those chosen in one-seat districts—twice as many seats in Germany.

http://guernseypress.com/news/comment/letter-of-the-day/2015/07/15/safeguards-needed-in-states-reshuffle/

“WE ARE a small island where we can all contact each other and there is plenty of opportunity to exploit the benefits of flexibility, nimbleness and ‘mucking through’. This is our strength; we need our quirks, ‘Guernsey ways’, traditions and anomalies. If we accept a global ‘one size fits all’ philosophy, we are dead in the water. An analogy: go-karts are quicker up Le Val des Terres than dragsters.”

“Spoonerists will find it appropriate that it is Matt Fallaize who has spearheaded proposals to reduce the number of States departments from nine to six. This will mean having six obese departments. I have seen numerous illustrations that departments are already too large and cumbersome”

“Given the increased size of their departmental mandates, in the long term it’s likely that deputies will become less ‘hands on’ and will increasingly farm out decision-making to consultants and experts largely appointed by committees and sub groups made up of civil servants and consultants appointed by civil servants, etc.”

This letter of the week by Matt Watermann is interesting because that is exactly what one tends to see in Jersey – monster departments that really are too much for any Minister, even when supported by Assistant Ministers. And I rather like his implicit spoonerism at the start! Did you spot it?

http://guernseypress.com/news/comment/nick-mann/2015/07/15/lack-of-cross-departmental-working-has-cost-millions/

“Current Scrutiny and Legislation Committee chair Rob Jones outlined areas including the power to compel witnesses to give evidence, being able to force the release of existing documents and being able to review the extended arms of government, those bodies such as Guernsey Post, the competition regulator or Aurigny, that are in receipt of public funds but because they are non-political cannot be touched, at the moment.”

The States of Guernsey are looking for reforms, and as well as a reduction of departments from nine to six, they are also looking to “beef up” Scrutiny. I bet John Le Fondre would like those powers in relation to the Waterfront development, where crucial documents are permitted to be held back, making Scrutiny into a toothless tiger.

http://guernseypress.com/news/comment/letter-of-the-day/2015/07/14/whisper-it-there-are-some-things-that-jersey-does-better/

“Whisper it... There are some things that Jersey does better”

And finally, I rather enjoyed reading this story!

“The first notable difference was the ways in which the two ports handle passengers sailing between the islands. In Guernsey, I was required to walk along the quay, walk down the car loading ramp onto the car deck and finally up a flight of stairs to the passenger lounge. Fortunately, the weather was fair but had it been raining I should have been very wet indeed before reaching the lounge. In St Helier harbour, I left from the upper stern deck via a dedicated covered walkway.”

“The second notable difference is the way Jersey manages vehicular and pedestrian traffic and the attitude drivers as a whole seem to have towards pedestrians…. Crossing from the Pomme d’Or Hotel to Liberation Square is easily achieved by using two zebra crossings linked by a traffic island. Drivers were always – or so it seemed to me – prepared to give way at this very busy junction.”

“The third difference I noticed was the Jersey bus service, operated by the same company that runs our bus service….There are frequent services – as often as every 15 minutes at peak times – to the more popular parts of the island with a fare structure which includes a £1.50 for a ‘short’ journey or £2 for a ‘long’ journey. There is also a variety of season tickets – daily, weekly or monthly – to suit both holiday visitors and residents. There are even double decker buses.”

“My final observation relates to the different experiences enjoyed on a visit to Elizabeth Castle compared to a visit to our own Castle Cornet. As the tide was in, my visit to Elizabeth Castle began with a sea crossing aboard a modern-day DUKW-like amphibious vehicle. When the tide is out, it remains possible to use the DUKW in its wheeled format. The return fare is a modest £3. I realise Castle Cornet is never cut off by the tide, but some sort of transport to the castle would be an advantage.”

“Apart from a very interesting talk set in 1781 from an ‘army surgeon’, which is not a daily offering, the ‘noon day gun ceremony’ is a very different experience indeed. In Guernsey, while you can almost set your watch by the firing, the whole thing is over in 10 minutes. In Jersey, the ceremony took over an hour on the day of my visit. It involved visitors being ‘volunteered’ to parade with the gunner and then assisting with the firing when he eventually got around to firing the cannon at approximately 15 minutes past one.”

“However, to end on a positive note, there can be no dispute that St Peter Port harbour beats St Helier harbour hands down”

Nice to see some praise from a Guernseyman, although he was obviously aware that he might stir up and hornets nest with this letter – so name and address withheld!