THE more the background to the decision by Commerce and Employment and Environment to use consultants to start late-stage poking around the Leale’s Yard planning application is analysed, the more questionable the motives appear.

It certainly begs the question whether either minister has read the report prepared at the behest of Environment by CACI, a well-respected UK provider of marketing solutions and information systems.

The five key points the departments want covered by their rival report, which the taxpayer will have to fund, have already been touched on by CACI in its detailed retail development assessment. And as a letter of comfort from Environment to the Co-op’s Leale’s Yard applicant partner indicates, that assessment has officially been accepted.

So why, islanders are entitled to ask, the sudden interest in retail surveys now?

In the case of C&E, that question has rather more significance.

Why is it only at this stage the department wants to piece together a retail strategy? Since Environment decided at a board meeting as long ago as December 2007 that the Leale’s Yard development could move to the next stage, hasn’t it rather missed the boat?

What the CACI report shows – and what the commercial success of Leale’s Yard depends upon – is that the current retail offering in the island is inadequate in certain categories and that the Co-op’s development will compete with internet and catalogue shopping rather than with businesses in Town.

Improving the shopping experience and helping to keep some of the current spend on island is in everyone’s interest, as is giving the Bridge a long overdue facelift.

And C&E’s enthusiasm for what it calls an overarching retail strategy should be treated with the utmost suspicion as heralding yet more government interference in the marketplace.

Most retailers here see the internet as a threat but the Co-op sees it as an opportunity to bring that spend back on-island at no risk to St Peter Port.

That should be encouraged.