AS THE months passed and the Environment Department’s increasingly eccentric and business-unfriendly attitude started to emerge, we wondered back in February whether it had joined the curly pipe and sandals brigade.
Its latest attack – banning A-boards on the grass along Les Banques – on people trying to make a living will make islanders wonder what the department is actually smoking in that pipe.
Two or three small operations, including food retailers and the karts at the Track, had the temerity to erect sandwich boards (and take them away at night) to promote their services.
Environment, overworked, undermanned and unable to provide a timely planning service, nevertheless was able to send an official to confiscate the signs and threaten real-world businesses with prosecution if they put them back.
In trying to justify its pointless persecution, Environment said ‘it has a duty to conserve and protect these areas of natural heritage’ at the same time as its own regime of care for such sensitive areas is to pass a tractor-powered mower over it every time the grass grows half an inch.
The proprietor of a bakery and coffee shop there calls the department’s actions stupid and petty and most will consider that condemnation mild.
In the circumstances, it is difficult to know which is worse: a vindictive attack by officialdom on individuals or attempting to justify it by pretending some rough turf is of special significance.
Be afraid….
NEWS that Guernsey has failed to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets should be viewed with trepidation by islanders. Not because what they have or have not done makes any difference in a global context but because of what the States will now do to them as a result.
When the head of policy and research says on behalf of the Policy Council that ‘we’re going to have to take some deliberate policy decisions in order to hit the target’, that means just one thing: living here is about to get even more expensive.
The CO2 emissions culprits are trying to generate electricity as cheaply as possible for local users, getting people and their goods around the island and using planes and ferries to get to and from Guernsey.
Discouraging that will mean higher prices, more allegedly green taxes, more misery for islanders – and not one polar bear saved.
What’s that in the pipe?
AS THE months passed and the Environment Department’s increasingly eccentric and business-unfriendly attitude started to emerge, we wondered back in February whether it had joined the curly pipe and sandals brigade.
Its latest attack – banning A-boards on the grass along Les Banques – on people trying to make a living will make islanders wonder what the department is actually smoking in that pipe.
Two or three small operations, including food retailers and the karts at the Track, had the temerity to erect sandwich boards (and take them away at night) to promote their services.
Environment, overworked, undermanned and unable to provide a timely planning service, nevertheless was able to send an official to confiscate the signs and threaten real-world businesses with prosecution if they put them back.
In trying to justify its pointless persecution, Environment said ‘it has a duty to conserve and protect these areas of natural heritage’ at the same time as its own regime of care for such sensitive areas is to pass a tractor-powered mower over it every time the grass grows half an inch.
The proprietor of a bakery and coffee shop there calls the department’s actions stupid and petty and most will consider that condemnation mild.
In the circumstances, it is difficult to know which is worse: a vindictive attack by officialdom on individuals or attempting to justify it by pretending some rough turf is of special significance.
Be afraid….
NEWS that Guernsey has failed to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets should be viewed with trepidation by islanders. Not because what they have or have not done makes any difference in a global context but because of what the States will now do to them as a result.
When the head of policy and research says on behalf of the Policy Council that ‘we’re going to have to take some deliberate policy decisions in order to hit the target’, that means just one thing: living here is about to get even more expensive.
The CO2 emissions culprits are trying to generate electricity as cheaply as possible for local users, getting people and their goods around the island and using planes and ferries to get to and from Guernsey.
Discouraging that will mean higher prices, more allegedly green taxes, more misery for islanders – and not one polar bear saved.
Article posted on 14th April, 2008 - 2.08pm