The Island's Traffic Strategy, which was finally agreed by the States in 2003 after 20 years of pressure and campaigning and frustrated waiting by Islanders, has been seriously damaged by the very first decision made by the new Environment Department, says Friends of the Earth Guernsey. In 2003 the States finally acknowledged the traffic, congestion and access problems experienced by Guernsey people every day, and for the first time States Members had demonstrated the strength of purpose and determination to address the problem.

The group's Transport spokesman Mike Johnson added: "The Integrated Traffic Strategy was a milestone because the States understood that only a coordinated strategy, operating over a realistic timescale, has any chance to halt potential traffic chaos and its environmental costs. Overnight, this Board has dropped us back into the dark ages of policy-making on the fly, swayed more by opinion polls than any strategic considerations. How can we trust policy statements when they have the substance of rice paper, and could blow away any minute on an executive whim or U-turn?"

The Environment Department back-track, supported by the Policy Council, has given us a taste of the failure of the joined-up approach of the new Machinery of Government, and the dangers of putting executive powers into the hands of just a few politicians who are not prepared to educate themselves on the wider picture for the good of the whole island.

Environment Board members have shown us just how weak and woolly they are prepared to be. With the promises of further action to dismantle the Integrated Traffic Strategy, ultimately the burden of cost will fall on all road users affected by congestion, including commercial vehicles, and on the tax payer who is subsidising a bus service that the Environment Department obviously intends to undermine.

In the meantime, all the taxpayers of the Island have been forced to gift those 360 people who park their cars on publicly owned, publicly funded land at North Beach for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, their own private parking space in Town.

"This is no way to run the Island's roads, and a disturbing precedent for the future running of the States," the spokesman concluded.

ENDS

Note: There will now be 20 fewer short term spaces on the North Beach car park than in July last year, and 120 less than last month.

June 2004

See also FoEG Traffic Report 2001 Less Traffic for a Better Island