This Is Guernsey

By Nick Mann

ALDERNEY will oppose proposals to increase the passenger fees at its airport. Public Services goes to the House this month with plans for an RPI plus 25p increase as it bids to maintain the airport’s deficit at under £500,000.

But the two Alderney representatives will vote against the move.

‘We have not yet decided whether to lay an amendment. We’re looking into that,’ said representative Bill Walden.

‘Charges should not be significantly higher - we think they should be the same as those charged in Guernsey.’

In a letter attached to Public Services’ States report, Mr Walden points out that, taken together, Guernsey and Alderney airports are in profit.

He said they were under common management - Alderney Airport was a transferred service.

‘The separate accounting is arbitrary in its effect,’ said Mr Walden.

He added that having to face increasing expenditure on items such as salaries and social security contributions while holding the deficit at a fixed and, in real terms, diminishing level was unsustainable.

Increasing charges risked discouraging passengers, added Mr Walden.

The prospect of Alderney taking on responsibility for specific elements of the airport operation, such as the terminal building, has been raised.

‘The transferred services are provided in return for Alderney residents paying Guernsey taxes,’ he said.

‘If Alderney is to take responsibility for any part of the transferred services, it would have to be on the basis that Alderney retained or had remitted back to it an element of the taxes paid to Guernsey.’

Deputy Bell wrote back saying that it could be argued the transferred services agreement from 1948 limited Guernsey’s responsibility to providing an airfield - not, for example, a terminal building.

‘In such circumstances some costs of the terminal could, in my view, be considered to be offset by the States of Alderney,’ said Deputy Bell.