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Next year’s Guernsey Rally has been cancelled after Environment blocked it with disappointed organisers expressing scepticism at the reasons given.
Environment & Infrastructure says that no new major events that require three or more road closures can take place until after 2024, blaming the administrative burden on its staff and warning it may charge organisers more in the future.
The committee wrote to the Rally organisers saying it was reviewing all its non-core services against a backdrop of the States meeting the costs of an ageing population, high inflation and the pressure to provide more housing.
The rally has become firmly established since the first event in 2018, attracting competitors and fans from on and off-island and with a policy agreement with the committee that one could be held a year.
But that has now been torn up.
“They're obviously saying it's impacting on their workload when it comes to a rally, which we appreciate,” said Guernsey Rally chairman Karl Marshall.
“But then we do the majority of the work, so all the risk assessments, all the PR, all that is done by the Guernsey Rally committee. Unfortunately, they have to deal with complaints when they do come through, but we did have a meeting to try and simplify the policy and correct a few things that were outdated.”
There were 35 entries last year, some 400 visitors and crowds of up to 1,000 watching.
The event injected around £70,000 into the economy, Marshall said.
“With all the publicity about the lack of tourism it’s a bit annoying that we’re going to chuck another £70,000 away. The States at the moment need the money, so it’s a bit surprising that they want to stop these kind of events.”
He said the organisers already paid for the road closures involved, and also arrange the signs during the event, collecting and putting them out.
Organising the rally begins within a fortnight of the event finishing.
For Marshall it is like a second full time job, including liaising with UK Motorsport for licensing and insurance.
“It’s a lot of work and the team behind me to do a great job.”
They will consider an application to hold a single stage event in 2024, in a location away from built-up areas, before hoping to bring the full rally back in 2025.
“It's all about education and people understanding rallying, it’s a totally different motor sport event to what we’ve held over here for many years. I think a lot of people do understand it. But obviously, there's still people that are against it.”
Marshall grew up as a motorsport fan, taking up hill climb and sprints.
“All the way through everybody said it would be lovely to have a rally. So I decided to try and it was successful and has just grown from there. Ths would have been our sixth year. It’s a bit of a shock, but we’ll deal with it and hopefully we can come to a compromise and hold it again in 2025.”
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