Sark Shipping's cargo boat Sark Viking

CHIEF Pleas met last week and managed to get through an agenda of more than 20 items before lunch.

There were some important matters down for debate, not least the proposal by the Shipping and Harbour committees to withdraw harbour and crane facilities from Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay’s freight vessel Brecqhou Warrior because a 1951 law says that Sark Shipping has a monopoly on the Guernsey to Sark route.

It has long been argued – notably but not solely by Chief Pleas – that Brecqhou is part of Sark. That begs the question as to what the Shipping and Harbour committees are going to do about enforcing that 1951 law when the Warrior is used between Guernsey and Brecqhou.

The proposal to withdraw facilities was brought, and I quote directly from the Chief Pleas document, to ‘safeguard the revenue of the Isle of Sark Shipping Company’.

Whether the proposition will do that remains to be seen but many here are sceptical and share the view expressed during the debate that the move was ‘dangerously confrontational’ and could result in litigation which Sark simply cannot afford.

Additionally, it appears that even with the use once a week of the Warrior, Sark Estate Management – the umbrella organisation for the Brecqhou enterprises in Sark – is Sark Shipping’s biggest customer, with about 70% of the freight they bring to the island coming in on scheduled cargo services.

As several members pointed out during the debate, there don’t appear to be restrictions on bringing freight in from elsewhere – Jersey and France were referred to – so if Sark Estate Management decides to do business in Jersey, then not only would Sark Shipping lose its biggest customer but those Guernsey businesses which supply the Barclay family’s enterprise’s needs will also suffer considerably.

As to the debate itself, the voting was 18 in support of the committees, one – Conseiller David Pollard – against, and nine abstentions. I certainly didn’t take the trouble to vote for a government so that as near to a third of them as makes no difference could abdicate their decision-making responsibility on the first occasion that push came to shove.

Those nine abstentions were more than I witnessed in more than 30 years of reporting on Jersey States and that involved recording the votes on probably thousands of propositions. If that is the shape of things to come then, as one Sarkee suggested, we might just as well fell some trees and make a fence around the Millennium Field so that everyone can sit on one.

During the session, the issue of helping further education students with transport costs was referred to, following the considerable increase in Sark Shipping fares. Apparently the Education Committee has no funds available, its chairman Helen Magell clearly stating that the priority must be those at Sark School.

I hope there’s a change of policy soon. The young people on FE courses in Guernsey are there at considerable expense to themselves and/or their families. The skills they acquire return with them to Sark – they’re home-grown so we don’t have to import them, with the additional pressures on the infrastructure that imported labour brings. We have more than £2m. in reserve – investing a few quid of it in the next generation would be wise.
It’s the first day of May today and the last two of the island’s hotels opened their doors to tourists last week with La Sablonnerie and Petit Champ welcoming their guests.

Sue Guille’s tea garden opens today and that seems to me to mean that everything for our guests is up and running.

• The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.