STATES cutbacks on floral displays are short-sighted, say local nurseries. As the Floral Guernsey Show at Candie took off today, they accused the government of not practising what it preached.

‘We promote Guernsey as a floral island at places such as the Chelsea Flower Show but when people arrive at the airport there’s not a flower in sight,’ said Nigel Clarke of Queux Patio Plants. ‘It’s all about first impressions.’

Politicians have blamed tight budgets but the nurseries believe savings could be made in other areas.

‘If the combined States departments can’t find a way of saving a few thousand pounds in order to ringfence ‘the funding for’ the flowers around public buildings, then we’re in serious trouble,’ said Mr Clarke.

‘We’re not talking about a lot of money.’

It was widely recognised that people gravitated towards plants, he said, yet there was none in areas such as the Royal Court building, traditionally a blaze of colour at this time of year.

‘What’s the point of the parishes and everybody else working their socks off to make things nice when you walk in a public building and there are no flowers?’ said Mr Clarke.

Dave Falla and son Colin normally supply 200 planted troughs for spring and summer flowering around the harbour.

The planting that they were due to do for this spring was cancelled this year and they will now plant for the summer only.

‘We try to promote Guernsey as a floral island and they ‘the States’ are the ones who are doing this because of cutbacks,’ said Mr Falla senior. ‘We are very upset about it.

‘We have a lot of cruise liners coming here in the spring, particularly this year and visitors see the harbour absolutely bare.’

Members of the public were asking where the flowers had gone, he said.

‘It’s Floral Guernsey this week and there’s areas with no planting – it’s the principle of the thing.’

Mr Falla did not blame harbour management for the lack of flowers.

Their orders, he said, came from above.

He was aware of other areas where savings could be made and thought the current policy was very shortsighted.

The Public Services Department is responsible for the harbours and the airport.

Minister Bill Bell said his department was constantly reviewing its spending and looking at ways in which it could do things more efficiently or even dispense with some items.

‘We are not cutting it all out but just reassessing how much we spend in certain directions,’ he said.

‘We have less money to work with now than we did last year and I expect it will be the same next year.

‘We try and save money on things that will not directly affect the services we provide to the community.’

Commerce and Employment has responsibility for VisitGuernsey.

Deputy minister Carla McNulty Bauer said it was always welcoming to see well-maintained flowers around.

‘However, with the changes in fiscal strategy looming and with feedback from members of the public, we need to be continually reviewing our expenditure with a focus on the key needs rather than the nice-to-haves,’ she said.

‘I would welcome suggestions from the public as to how we could have more flowers around, or from any individuals or businesses who would be interested in sponsoring flowerbeds.’

She said that having flowers at the harbour and airport would not necessarily attract visitors.

‘It’s about the welcome and there are lots of nice flowers around, particularly at the time of Floral Guernsey.’