Liner berth investigation is given the go-ahead
Friday 10th February 2012, 10:00AM GMT.
Cruise liner Mein Schiff, pictured outside St Peter Port last September. The States have approved the investigation of a new berth for liners. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 1180742)
A CRUISE liner berth will be investigated, after the States supported the proposal yesterday.
A report by Public Services in conjunction with a study by Commerce and Employment indicated that the amount generated from the industry could rise from £1.3m. to £6m. a year.
However, the berth could cost between £25m. and £80m.
PSD member Tony Spruce said some deputies had got ahead of themselves – the department was not asking for the money but to investigate the idea.
‘We’re asking to weigh up the economic benefits – I have doubts but we do need to explore it.’
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Considering guernsey is suppose to have no money and all the cut backs to the health authority etc ,yet they still manage to do large projects will always go over budget
cant see how cruise liner passengers spend much they get all meals on board walk around then get back on boat
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So IF the generated revenue went up to £6m a year and a berth cost £60m for ease of maths,thats a 10year payback, by which time the berth would probably need £20m spent on repair work…Would it be nice to have? probably, Does the Island NEED it? Maybe, Can the Island AFFORD it? NO.
Especially when one reads todays GEP (Fri 10th Feb) where millions needs to be spent on our sewers and sewage treatment being the hot topic in general.
When the Island Infrastructure is sorted and in good order and the Island can afford such luxuries as a cruise ship berth then maybe go ahead but until then spend the money on keeping the Island afloat, not swimming in our own waste.
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Today in the paper 50m is needed to stop our sewers collapsing. Agree where is the money for this project going to come from, why waste the thousands on an investigation when there will be no money to spend on any project identified anyway, assuming it did actually get a vote.
The States have made their decision spend the money on the Airport (because that project is sure bigger then it needed to be), you can’t have both invested in, especially as the harbour already needs a pot of money for repairs and new cranes.
Guernsey doe not have a bottomless pit of money to spend from, when is this going to be realised as I am not seeing any evidence of it yet!
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I hear the early rumblings of an argument to retain the £50 investigations charge rolling down the road!
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Wasn’t this something that Charles Bilson (Longport – Royal Hotel site, etc) proposed a few years back? In which case he was looking to fund it or some of it, I thought.
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Funding in that plan from memory was to fill in the whole of the Castle emplacement with a super sized shopping mall and another super sized one with a hotel too at North Beach.
One way to kill off Town and The Bridge in one go. I don’t think the cruise liners come here to shop as such, those that decant appear to go walk about and see the Island from what I have seen.
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This is the first phase of finally getting Belle Greve Bay developed. The gradual encroachment policy until the final objective is reached. Our continual large spending policies and hence need for revenue will once again be the driving force and excuse for these types of projects. To many true Guerns the development of Belle Greve Bay will be the final nail in the coffin. We will have done what so many Jersey people have seen happen in their island. Having holidayed many times in our sister island the comment from many was not to let them destroy our seafront like they have done to theirs. Do we really need such a berth and is it going to bring the revenue in they expect? Has our new airport generated more revenue, more tourists? Like many I feel so sad on the route Guernsey has gone down. Some good stops on the way but many bad ones.
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Geoff. I totally agree. Guernsey’s character was always so different from Jersey’s….. more authentic and less ‘flash with its cash’. And yet these big unnecessary projects are developing the island more and more in the Jersey mould. And sadly, so many people seem to mistake these policy as being ‘modern’.
We are in serious risk, if it hasn’t already happened, of killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
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Agree with Rosie’s comments above.
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I have concerns that this is tied up with Billson and Belle Greve. Even if it isn’t I believe that it is utterly inappropriate to our (still) beautiful island. The procession of floating car parks visiting Guernsey are acceptable if moored offshore. However the pandering to the mega-rich with super yachts smacks of prostituting ourselves and risks turning Guernsey into a facsimile of the rich haunts in the south of France.
To want to endorse any and every project purely because it might make money is like entering into a Faustian pact.
The rot started not with worries about the possible demise of the finance industry but with the procession of vanity and over-specified projects, inappropriate tax arrangements and, as a result, a basic failure to budget sensibly.
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What is the point of the States investing such a lot of money in a cruise ship berth? As others have mentioned there are plenty of other higher priority projects in the offing right now which would be for the long term benefit of the islanders.
One issue that I have with the “cruise ship business” is that the States seem so conflicted about it. They want the ships to come here, presumably so that everyone can see what a beautiful island we have but they don’t seem to want to encourage anyone to provide services for the cruise ship passengers e.g. in new or better tourist attractions, having the shops open in town when ships come in on Sundays or on bank holidays.
If we are going to invest the money in the berth then we also need to come up with some solutions to address what the passengers do when they come here. Either we are in this business or we are not.
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The Billet made it clear that the funding would have to come from private investment NOT the Taxpayer. I voted for further investigation on those grounds.
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Worse case scenario as if someone else is paying people will just nod yes and not think about the long term consequence of any such drastic change to the sea front appearence and impact. A bit like you have addmitted to by nodding yes to an investigation at this stage.
How long do we really believe there is going to be a cruise liner market, the amount of fuel they consume is not sustainable to be supported right into the far future. Cruise ships are flash in the pan, at some point the big monster ships at best might be appartment complexes at sea, but I can’t see the ‘cruising’ continuing for ever other then the odd smaller rich person’s liner.
Jersey’s sea front is ruined and looks just plain nastey. Guernsey has a very attractive sea front and heritage we have to protect it and stop diluting it and turning it into any other town front.
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Dave Jones – Excuse my ignorance if I do not have all the facts but If the funding was to come from private investment then who would actually own the berth? Would this idea be part of privatising the harbour as well?
Rosie – good to see someone else with similar ideas. We are not against modernisation or progress as a lot has been of benefit to the island it just seems to me that every time people object to something they are seen as dinosaurs living in the past which is not the case.
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Dave i thought you had more sence than that , as had been said before all they do is walk around i have seen it for myself they go back to the ship empty handed as they have everything they need onboard . Who is going to buy something “Guernsey” when everything here is well overpriced , for instance you can buy Guernsey fridge magnets cheaper in Poole !!
And another thing has anyone done research into where all the sand on the sea bed will go with the tidel current?
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There are lots of other reasons why we should explore this and it isn’t all about Cruise ships. we could make quite a lot of money from having super yacht moorings in a safe harbour, We could put some marine turbines in the structure to generate power, depending on which way the pier will run, We could run a fuel line and become a major refuelling destination (although we would have to put tax on marine fuel first) might even attract a conventional ferry to the island with its own dedicated quay, I don’t know what might be possible but I do trust the Harbour master, he is a clever Guernsey man who tells us the harbour has potential for generating significant income and he has some ideas of his own and frankly anything that helps us to have a more diverse economy away from relying heavily on finance, can only be a good thing. So in my view there is no harm in looking at this in more detail. It may come to nothing who knows.
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Fair point Dave , i agree about the finance bit eggs and basket comes to mind.But i don’t want to see is the tax payer having to fork out obscene amounts of money ” yet again” for so called experts to make a lot of cash for something that can be done in-house. We could and should learn from our forefathers who built the old harbor which is still standing more than can be said than the newer ones.
Again i am a bit concerned about the movement of the sand around that area , look what happened when they did the east arm it appears that the sand went to Herm.
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Dave
Does the harbour not already generate significant income? I have two very good friends (one owns a very successful shoe shop, the other probably the busiest restaurant in town) and both of them say that the “cruise” market isn’t even worth bothering about. Why oh why would we ever consider spending tens of millions on such a project? It’s well known amongst all retailers and restauranteurs that the people who come ashore spend very little indeed.
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It’s the private funding that makes me particularily worried. Almost like setting a president if you pay you can have.
Whilst I applaud the concept of including power collection methods it also feels like a carrot.
Seeking alternative economic providers is a good idea, just weary of backing and motives.
Lest not forget one plan included removing the harbour wash area which I gather is fundemental to the harbour’s design and stability that is enjoyed. Only have to look to Jersey to see what happens when a harbour has no natural wash area.
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Most States projects start like this as investigations, but have a funny habit of coming back to the States with firm proposals.
I know, things are a little tighter these days than when Roger Berry was President of the Board of Admin (as it was). But this needs to to be watched closely.
My own opinion, a total waste of money and a distraction that will tie up Civil servants, with so many other needy internal expenses to sort out.
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Phil
First of all it is not all about Cruise Liners, they are a part of the thinking behind this idea but as they only visit for about six months of the year any pier would have to have other functions other than just landing passengers, some of which I have suggested in an earlier post. We have a duty as a government to explore all revenue raising ideas, our Finance sector is under constant attack and we do what we can to protect that business but as I say we have to look at other business opportunities as well and if we can get someone else to pay for it, why not?
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Dave J. In reply to your earlier post, I am not cheered by the idea that we could be considering becoming a glorified fuelling station or even attempting to make ourselves an attractive destination for ‘super yachts’. To both ideas I say “yuk”!
I think I am right in saying that the harbour and town makes much more from the yachties and small pleasure craft that currently visit us, then from the cruise liners and I think we would be far wiser to improve this end of the market because it is more in scale with our harbour and in line with our character. For the space that a ‘super yacht’ would need, you could fit many more smaller boats in with each boat paying to stay, and each boat having crew that would spend money in the town.
Let’s keep it small and simple. That’s where our charm is.
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Rosie
We are looking to generate income to help this economy, what are your suggestions? The super yachts might be owned by Guernsey residents who would pay a premium for berths we don’t have at present. Fuel is what ships need, whether we like it or not, it is a fact of life.
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I’m with Dave Jones on this one. If we want to become major players in the wave/wind power and renewable energy industry, Rosie, we should at least INVESTIGATE the pros and cons and uses/non uses of having a deep water berth. From my layman’s position I can’t see how we could develop this industry without one although I stand to be corrected by those in the know.
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Dave Jones
We are in a recession, people are losing their jobs,we have huge projects to pay for in the future, and now we hear that the sewer pipes are breaking down which will cost millions to repair.
We need strong leadership in the States at the moment not wishy washy projects that only assist those wealthy residents who have ways of avoiding tax.
We dont have a bottomless pit as far as our finances are concerned, and then what if its built by private funding, then the winter storms take its toll.
The private funds will wash their hands of the project.
Alderney breakwater comes to mind.
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Dave…… I know and I totally agree that it is important that we look to diversify our economy, but I do not think that that should be at the expense of Guernsey’s character as I explained in post 5. We are in danger of losing everything that makes Guernsey Guernsey with these big glitzy projects, which is not to say that we shouldn’t be modernising, but let’s keep the projects and size of them in keeping with the scale of the town (& island…. thinking of the airport here!).
St Peter Port is an iconic part of Guernsey. You enter it from the sea and it is notable by its sense of history, its buildings (largely) in-keeping with scale, its quaintness, its sense of authenticity. You lose all that once you accommodate space for huge cruise liners that would make Castle Cornet look like a Dinky toy. The system we have now with them mooring off the harbour works perfectly well 99% of the time and has its own advantages.
For my money, I would rather it was somewhere else that prostituted themselves to sell cheap fuel to mega yachts. I don’t want to see Guernsey turned into a glorified petrol station…. (we have enough of them on the island!) And anyway, how would that fit in with our newly agreed energy policy that is supposed to be committing us to reducing our emissions?
As I said in my last post, we make a lot of money out of the smaller boats that visit us, more than we make out of cruise liners ….. let’s work with that because that would not need to involve huge flashy engineering projects and they are more in keeping with Guernsey’s character. I doubt these small boats will want to come here once we have turned ourselves into a Monaco look alike.
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The deepwater berth proposal is poorly timed as fuel prices will continue to rise. Unless there’s an alternative fuel source I doubt the cruise industry will exist in its present form in 20 years. EU regulations will clamp down on the use of dirty bunker fuel because of high greenhouse gas emissions. Guernsey is having a difficult time maintaining its existing infrastructure and now it is looking at the feasibility of building a structure out into one of the most inhospitable environments in the Bailiwick. The Bailiwick has a difficult enough time trying to maintain the Alderney breakwater. A cruise line quay may sound appealing but it will be a heavy yoke around the neck of Bailiwick tax payers. The engineering of such a structure will be complex because the Great Bank is a mobile sand mountain that travels up and down the Little Russel. A storm in the early 1960s crushed the Salerie Corner quay. How would a cruise line quay stand up to mountainous seas provoked by Force 10 southerly winds? There are much better ways of spending £50,000 than on a feasibility study for a ‘wish’ rather than a need.
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Exactly Richard! I couldn’t agree more.
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Richard
Excellent comment, I am with you on this one, total waste of money
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I don’t think many cruisers will want to stop here after our first typhus outbreak!
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Does Guernsey not have any form of Strategic plan, given that it prides itself on being a major Financial Centre?
If so this should be an action in such a Plan. If not it explains a lot about the ad-hoc nature of major projects by the States.
If this is not to be funded by Guernsey, then Guernsey needs to spend no more on this than drawing up an outline spec for potential developers – having first cleared planning permission. And see what happens – if anything. I personally doubt that that there is a real need for such a terminal, which will be difficult to cost-justify, and is more wishful thinking than anything else.
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Richard
The question is will the EU be there in twenty years? Look I don’t mind what some future states do if it becomes too expensive a project then it won’t be done but that doesn’t mean all the options should not be examined. On the rest of your post the Harbour master a very experienced seaman and a much respected marine Pilot now a States member don’t agree with you. You may have more experience that they do in these matters we do not know.
Rees
PSD are putting together a master plan for the Harbours which will feed into the next strategic corperate Plan, which is updated every year or so.
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Dave,
You speak a lot of sense, much of the time, but I think you are wrong on this one. One could speculate the Harbour master’s and marine pilot’s comments are unsurprising in that it expands their empire.
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Not forgetting a previous proposal that would have infilled the Harbour’s wash area, the deliberate designing of the Careening Hard from when the Harbour was built. That proposal was not objected to by the Harbour Master that I recall, so I do not take everything I read as being not detrimental and ‘OK’.
If we do make a good revenue from small boaters then it would make sense to investigate ways to improve and promote that business rather than some grandious proposal such as this one.
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Turning the Careening Hard into a marina for mega yachts was another bad idea as you suggest. Apparently it would earn us £2m per year once built. But we apparently made in excess of £7m from the smaller boats that already visit us, several years ago which would suggest we should be making more than that by now from them. Bearing in mind the negative reporting our harbour service got in the media last week, it would appear that there are plenty of things we could be spending £50,000 on to improve the product we already have.
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