THERE are few more frustrating elements to island bureaucracy than when everyone wants the same thing but no one is prepared to work to achieve it.

Petit Bot valley is one of the island’s most unspoilt and picturesque areas. Densely wooded with a strong stream, it offers visitors and islanders somewhere different to the beauty of the cliffs, beaches and common.

No one believes it is enhanced by the assortment of abandoned cars rusting away in the Manor Hotel car park.

The constables certainly do not, neither does the landowner and, of course, neither do the police or Environment.

Yet between all these groups, no one is providing a solution.

It could be argued that the landowner has the answer. He can pay for an advert in the paper, warn the six car ‘owners’ what is coming, then, eventually, pay for a skip lorry to come, pick them up and dump them.

All told, it might cost him the best part of £1,000, a sum he is, not surprisingly, reluctant to pay.

His unwillingness to start the process off is no doubt bolstered by the knowledge that no sooner has he spent the cash than someone else will drop their car off before walking up the road to the airport and their flight to who knows where.

Or perhaps they will just get in a friend’s car and go home, again leaving the landowner to pick up the tab for their rustbucket.

Environment’s solution is for the hotel owner to lock the place up.

But would a selection of bollards, gates and chains really enhance a natural beauty spot? Not really. And who would administer it?

Rather than shirking responsibility, Environment should be looking to help people out in these circumstances and live up to its name.

It is clearly not an isolated incident. The Vale Church has struggled for years with exactly the same issue and, although different, the Cobo car park row showed how powerless the douzaines are.

Surely the solution cannot be to wait until the Guernsey Boys come along again.