Funding boost to island air links subsidy rejected

Politicians have voted to keep the public subsidy for an island's air links at £1.5m for 2027.

Alderney's representative to the States of Guernsey asked for an extra £364,000 to bring the funding to a minimum of £1.86m, but it was dismissed with 10 deputies voting in favour and 23 voting against.

Alex Snowdon, Alderney States member and representative to Guernsey, said an action plan needed to be drawn up to address the "urgent crisis of aviation services in Alderney".

Policy & Resources vice-president, Yvonne Burford, said the committee had budgeted £1.7m, an extra £200,000, in light of high fuel prices due to the US-Israel war with Iran.

In his speech, Alderney representative Edward Hill said disruption to Alderney's links was impacting on some residents' cancer treatments.

He said: "I had breakfast with a lady this morning who had come over for cancer treatment, she told me her oncologist had told her that they are very, very reluctant to enter into certain forms of chemotherapy for Alderney patients because of the necessary need to have chronological timing guarantees."

Snowdon said things needed to move forward "rapidly" or things would get worse.

"This isn't going away anytime soon," he said.

"I do think there needs to be urgent action between the States of Guernsey and States of Alderney to look for some sort of solution to improve things or it is going to cost everyone a lot more money."

Reacting after the decision, Snowdon said the governments' emergency response body, the Civil Contingencies Authority, may need to get involved.

"People's lives are really important," he said.

"People needing cancer treatments, people needing treatment in Guernsey for all different sorts of situations, if the planes aren't flying because of technical or not having enough crew something is seriously wrong.

"I urge the States of Deliberation to start taking some appropriate action to resolve this."

Follow BBC Guernsey on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.