Sark Estate Management will soon announce a guarantor scheme for people in full employment who have problems raising finance to buy or build homes. (0922921)

MORE than 55,000 people visited Sark last year.

That total does not include charter passengers and the many boat-owners who visit from the other Channel Islands and France.

Figures released by Sark Shipping and the island’s tourism office show that 45,653 came via Guernsey – an increase of almost 1,400 on the 2008 figure – while 9,500 travelled with Manche Iles on its direct service from Jersey.

The statistics will provide a welcome boost for the island’s tourism industry.

Millions of pounds are being spent on renovations at three of Sark’s principal hotels, and those running visitor-related businesses will be hoping that the passenger figures will be increased this year.

Meanwhile, Sark Shipping was due to hold its annual general meeting last night and the welcome format of having a public discussion prior to the presentation of accounts and other formal business was set to continue.

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One of the Barclay family’s companies in Sark is poised to announce a radical move designed to make home ownership easier.

Writing in his weekly newsletter, Sark Estate Management’s Kevin Delaney said that the company will shortly be announcing a guarantor scheme for people in full employment which, he said, will see an end to the current problem of raising finance to buy or build homes.

He said that as well as employees of SEM and its associated companies being eligible, the scheme will also be extended to other island residents who can show that they are in secure, year-round employment and to those looking to borrow money to start or develop small businesses.

Part of the difficulty facing prospective homeowners in Sark is the absence of the sort of lending facilities available to those in similar circumstances living elsewhere – principally mortgages.

Mr Delaney said that even a long lease is often not enough to use the property as collateral to secure loans – only tenement or freehold owners have that option – and he added that this has caused private lending to become commonplace.

He wrote: ‘Self ownership ensures that properties are well tended and invested in. Many Sark residents are so wealthy that this issue does not touch them but an alternative to private lending is needed by the working man and woman and prospective business owners and home owners who, by their own hard work, seek to build a better future for themselves and the island.’

I have always been told that the Letters Patent under which Sark exists precludes anyone borrowing money against the security of property. Without putting too fine a point on it, that seems somewhat ironic seeing that the present seigneur’s ancestors came by Sark when the then seigneur invested in the silver mine project, which ultimately went pear-shaped, and those from whom he had borrowed foreclosed.

To use a mining term, it will be interesting to see how the SEM scheme pans out. As sure as eggs are eggs there will be those who will be anxious to put the boot in – concentrating more on who is proposing what, rather than what is being proposed, if track records are anything to go by.

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Three officials from the ministry of Justice were in Sark earlier this month, so I am told. Quite what they discussed and with whom has not been made public but I doubt it was just the prospect of a duty free allowance of 200 cigarettes and a bottle of Scotch which brought them here.

Perhaps we will be told in the fullness of time, or perhaps we won’t. We shall see.

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