St Sampson's also critical of lack of progress on Bridge flood defences

A high spring tide laps over the sea wall onto the Bridge in 2008. Picture: Guernsey Press

The Guernsey Press devoted two pages to the length of time it has taken the States not to take action on the issue, despite it first being formally flagged to government by Royal Haskoning in 2007. And that report was itself an update to a 1999 report calling for the creation of a sustainable policy for managing coastal defenses.

St Sampson’s senior constable Joe Abbotts told the newspaper that he was not 100% confident the latest report would be any different from those that have gone before.

"They have done so many other reports and studies and surveys or whatever else, is this just another one?" he asked. "I’m hoping it’s going to be a bit more in-depth and actually take into account the flood risk to everywhere that they’re building, not only on the Bridge itself, but Saltpans and other areas.

"Black Rock, Leale’s Yard, and then going slightly further into the Saltpans and to Nocq Road, because there’s going to be such a big knock-on effect. If a survey was done five years ago, why are we not just reviewing that one?" he asked. "If it was done 10 years ago, then OK, maybe we need to go and start again. But you get a report and nothing happens, then five years down the road, you get another report. If you’re spending all this money on reports it could have been actually spent on doing some work."

No progress
The lack of progress on flood defences was raised earlier this week by Vale Constable Richard Leale (see here), who was also quoted in the Guernsey Press article because the Vale's fear is the States will adopt a stop-gap measure of defences down the middle of the Bridge, which will have to be replaced at a later date.

Although highlighted as a priority more than a decade ago, no flood defences have been installed, no timetable has been given for the work and homes planned for Leale's Yard and the former Kenilworth Vinery have yet to be built.

Fun fact: Then Vale Deputy Dave Jones attacked the States back in 2013 when the Royal Haskoning study was debated: "I have seen this kind of inertia before in coastal defences that oozes from this Report, when many hundreds of tonnes of rock armour were offered to the Vale from a large commercial
development in town... We very quickly put together a team of volunteers, experienced heavy excavator operators, together in a few days, when the offer was made, to place this armour, and with the supervision of an experienced marine engineer from Geomarine... in a very vulnerable area at L’Ancresse. The operation was thwarted by planners at Environment, most of whom knew nothing or little about rock armouring or indeed very much about our coastline in general," he said.

Potential flooding in the north of the island from La Société Guernesiaise's 2007 Planet Guernsey study