CONFIRMATION from Treasury and Resources that the move of Guernsey Post Ltd into the former States offices will not go ahead is disappointing but actually poses more questions than it answers.
Two reasons are given: it was not possible to use the building in a way which maintained the standards demanded by Guernsey Post and the Information Centre and the size of the building itself.
Yet if the 1911 building in the Revival style of architecture was simply too small, why did a commercially astute operation like GPL waste two years and thousands on architects’ and other fees pursuing a dead cause? As it said yesterday, the move ‘would have been a good fit for us and our customers and it is frustrating that this is no longer an option’.
That is hardly the comment of a business acknowledging that its property experts cannot use a measuring tape properly.
The reality is that the former States office would have been an excellent fit.
Faced with expensive rented accommodation in Smith Street, GPL approached Treasury and Resources and asked whether the States owned suitable alternative property and was pointed in the direction of the North Esplanade back in 2006.
A footfall survey showed that when the postal operation was at its busiest, in December, the Information Centre - rarely a hive of activity - was at its quietest. Stamps and visitors are a further natural match and GPL was assured by T&R’s own property unit that Post would shortly be moving in.
The problem, however, was that the other tenants were not consulted and raised a whole range of objections, led by Commerce and Employment, fearing loss of status for tourism and an influx of postal workers.
So what was an excellent proposal and one that would have benefited visitors, especially since GPL now owns the bureau de change there, has been blocked by petty grandstanding.
Guernsey Post will have to find alternative rental accommodation and in addition to taxpayer and tourist being disadvantaged by this, there is a further casualty: believability.
When it comes to plain speaking, States departments just don’t know how.
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Another strangulation of Guernsey’s tourism. Could it be that ‘vociferous minority again’?