IF, AS the Environment minister would have it, it is mischievous to suggest that there is anything wrong in the relationship between his department and Island Coachways then it is time to make mischief.

For the sudden termination of negotiations between the two sides has all the hallmarks of a full-scale public divorce rather than a lover’s tiff.

While it might be convenient for the minister to refuse to discuss the bus company’s letter to States members, the sentiments it contains depict a relationship riddled with long-term frustration, pent-up anger and not a little despair.

Those who feared that the partnership between state and service provider might be a little too cosy can rest assured that the letter is public delivery of the decree absolute.

Disappointment, surprise and dismay dominate, with particular anger reserved for the implication that ICW ‘connived’ with its landlord against the States. The company is incensed to be blamed for the lack of a proper tendering process when it is the department’s ‘inability to set this process in motion’ at fault.

The letter concludes that a relationship based on mutual respect and trust has been damaged and ICW will not work with people who no longer give it full support.

If Environment truly believes this is a good relationship then it must question what it considers a bad one.

Not surprisingly, the department now wants the offending ‘road towards a transport strategy’ withdrawn.

It was a strange document to start with, lacking vision and berating States members for the unholy mess in which the board finds itself.

Worse, its timing before an election would have fatally undermined any solid conclusions the Assembly managed to extract from a document utterly devoid of direction.

Now, having alienated a key part of any traffic strategy – the buses – the department knows any debate will focus on its own failings rather than solutions for the future. It is supreme irony then that the crisis into which Environment has unwittingly driven the island may lead to one of the very solutions it seeks – its own bus yard.