EARLIER this week this newspaper posed the question, in the light of the States’ Guernsey Tomorrow strategic initiative, what sort of island people wanted to hand on to their children and grandchildren.

The reason is that the consultative process started by the Policy Council will lead to a direction emerging which will help to shape the community over at least the next two generations.

What some participants have argued, however, is that formulating policies is difficult if the objective is not clear.

In short, what are planners and politicians trying to achieve with the new direction?

What’s missing is an overarching statement of intent to which all other statements are subordinate. For instance, asked whether they are in favour of high-rise office blocks, most delegates are likely to say no. Asked whether they are in favour in order to maintain full employment and a good standard of living for a majority, the answer will be different.

Since the 1400s, when this island exported conger fish to the City of London, it has relied on certain industries to provide a living for its inhabitants and because people have had economic reason to remain, so Guernsey’s identity has developed and survived.

As privateering, quarrying, tomato growing and tourism have waxed and waned, so has this community looked to other areas to provide the jobs its children will need in order to be able to live here, and older islanders will well recall the periods when quitting Guernsey was the only way to earn a living.

There are more offices and car parking spaces now than in the heyday of horticulture because planners and, ultimately, electors recognised they were necessary to accommodate finance as the engine of the economy.

What Guernsey Tomorrow is ultimately about – although it does not express its purpose as starkly – is asking people what compromises they are prepared to make. This newspaper would add: make in order to maintain full employment and a buoyant economy.

If that rider is the correct one, and there will be opposing views, then there are difficult decisions ahead, not least regarding green field development and, perhaps, involving Belle Greve Bay.

Equally, the alternative is to contemplate a future ‘ghost community’.