IN ANNOUNCING yet another use of consultants, Commerce and Employment says it wants them to look at producing a wide retail study including looking at the fitness for purpose, ambiance and variety of shopping centres and access.

That, as we argued on Saturday, is disturbing.

The States has already agreed that St Peter Port is the jewel in the crown and policies have to ensure that it remains the dominant retail centre in the island.

While few will disagree with that, subsequently explaining to islanders that they cannot have a state of the art shopping facility with plenty of parking on the flat at St Sampson’s because of the policy is a recipe for conflict.

Commercial outlets have sprung up around Guernsey in response to demand, to adapt to changing circumstances – the drift out-of-Town, for instance, is entirely due to States policies on parking and preserving the centre – and because of government intervention.

Older islanders will well remember that the States and Board of Administration had many and varied ‘strategies’ for preserving the Markets, which ultimately led to them being starved of cash, seeing the traditional stallholders driven out and a nicely-restored group of buildings which is anything but a market left in its place.

Few would argue that retail is having a tough time in a swiftly changing marketplace and that an examination is called for .

But speaking to those involved and analysing difficulties and assessing the suggestions that can be made for improving things is not rocket science. Commerce and Employment already employs 128 staff and it expects to spend nearly £5m. this year on business development alone.

If it is suggesting that its own staff are not up to the task of carrying out such an analysis, that would be surprising given its previous role in creating a particularly complex economic model of the island’s construction industry.

If it is saying that it is too busy to do the work itself, then the retail study clearly cannot be much of a priority.

Either way, the taxpayer appears to be getting little benefit from the £45,000 C&E estimates it will spend on consultants this year.