WITH Guernsey schoolchildren getting another day off for little reason and the mounting disruption to business life, many islanders are increasingly starting to ask who is actually coordinating the community’s response to bad weather.

As things stand, the shots are called by a private company: Island Coachways. If it decides that the roads are too slippery, then the schools close, even though many teachers and pupils could get there other than by bus.

No buses? Well then, think the rest of us, best not use the car and that’s like being told to stay at home, right?

Island Coachways is not to blame in this, of course. Its fleet can operate only when it is safe to do so and if the authorities are content to let the island’s thoroughfares become unusable through even the lightest covering of ice, then its hands are tied.

The point for everyone else, however, is that this feels shambolically ad hoc.

The States believes in contingency planning and invests taxpayers’ money into it. But not, apparently, when it comes to weather. Guernsey Water has said, ‘thou shalt not salt’, and there’s an end to it. All hell and a £250,000 inquiry bill may have broken loose last time the airport closed for a couple of days, but weather..? You can’t pin that one on the chief minister, can you?

While Guernsey Water may have a point about water catchment and the use of salt, how thoroughly has that view been tested against the community’s need to function as normally as possible despite snow and ice?

If the island’s desire is for minimal disruption, what is the risk to water supplies if key thoroughfares only are kept open?

What consideration has been given to the alternatives to salt that exist and which are claimed to be cheaper, more effective and more environmentally friendly?

Doing nothing is certainly one response to this – but there are costly consequences as a result.

And if government’s contingency plan is simply to tell people to wait until it melts and to hell with the disruption, then it should have the courage to say so.

And explain how it makes sense.