Visitor moorings at Greve de la Ville and Havre Gosselin may not be available until next year unless an agreement is reached with Chief Pleas.

SARK’S 30 visitor moorings at Greve de la Ville and Havre Gosselin are unlikely to be available for pleasure boat owners this year.

The news will come as a blow to the many hundreds of boat owners from the other Channel Islands and France who have used the facilities for the better part of the last 10 years.

At Chief Pleas last month, members threw out a proposal to ‘seek compensation’ from operators Simon Couldridge and Andy Leaman for commercially exploiting the seabed in previous years but agreed a Harbours Committee proposition to negotiate a new agreement levying charges.

However, Mr Leaman told me earlier this week that no agreement has been reached with the committee and therefore the facility will not be available this summer.

‘They are all coming out of the water and the earliest they will be available will be next year, providing a satisfactory agreement can be reached,’ he said. ‘As it is the chains need replacing, as do the bobbers, and that will involve spending between £9,000 and £10,000.’

In its report to Chief Pleas, the committee said it wanted the present operators to continue with a new agreement but warned that there was a possibility this would not happen. In that case, said Harbours, the committee would ‘feel obligated’ to ensure that some visitor moorings were provided as a matter of urgency but warned that this could require some initial financing by Chief Pleas.

The failure of the parties to reach agreement confirms the worst fears of many people in Sark – and particularly those involved in the hospitality industry – who believed that it was counterproductive of the committee to demand payment from those who actually financed and ran the moorings facility. Certainly the Sark Chamber of Commerce expressed concern in a letter to all conseillers prior to last month’s debate that the demand for payment could be seen as a tax on just one business and thus was unfair.

I just find the whole thing rather sad and it seems unfortunately typical of a legislature which at times – and certainly with a couple of recent decisions – appears to want to stifle enterprise.

There is no doubt from people I know who use them that the visitor moorings are a considerable asset to the wider business community in Sark and I would have thought that with this in mind our elected representatives would have shied away from doing anything to jeopardise that most fragile of industries – tourism.

To many it was as plain as a pikestaff that there was a strong possibility Sark would lose this most valuable asset – possibly permanently – and now that is a reality, at least for this year.

It seems that Sark politicians are not immune from something I noticed when living in Jersey (and I suspect the same might apply in Guernsey): that there is a small-minded and short-sighted aversion on the part of politicians to the thought that someone might actually make a few quid by showing a bit of enterprise. Sad isn’t the word.

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On a much brighter note, I am delighted to offer congratulations to 15-year-old Owen Godwin, elder son of Philip and Joanne. Owen is a pupil at Kingsley School in Bideford and last weekend took part in the gruelling Ten Tors 50th Anniversary Challenge.

His age group team were only allowed to do a 35-mile course – the full challenge is 10 miles longer – but head teacher Andy Waters said he was proud of the team, which completed the challenge in a very fast time.

I dare say his parents and grandparents are very proud also, as well they might be.

• Email fallesark@sark.net.