Renewed hope for education on post-16 campus funding

Education committee President Andrea Dudley-Owen said she was hopeful for funding new post-16 campus

Guernsey's education committee president is hopeful of a funding shortfall solution after talks.

Plans to borrow more than £100m to fund the building of a new post-16 campus were thrown out in November 2023.

Education President Andrea Dudley-Owen met with the Policy and Resources Committee (P&R), which was formed in December after a vote of no confidence in the previous committee.

She said the plans "have to go ahead this political term".

The committees met in January to discuss funding options to take the proposals back in front of States members.

"Those talks at the moment are confidential, but the talks are coming from P&R, it's their conversation and we were guests in their space," said the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture president.

"In terms of taking this forward, it's up to the P&R committee to decide what mechanism they use to get the funding proposal into the States and debated."

'Must go ahead'

Despite politicians failing to approve funding proposals, Deputy Dudley-Owen said the "door was left open" by States members.

"We have two clear principles that we have in mind when we're talking about education, the children, the young people have to be at the heart of every decision we make and secondly it's about ensuring we give our tax payer the value for money that they will be looking for," she said.

Mrs Dudley-Owen said a final decision on the new post-16 campus has to be made this political term as the government has not "done the best" for Guernsey people.

"We have to do something, we cannot leave the remainder of the term with over a year to go, without delivering this for our islanders," she said.

"We said we would deliver the campus within this term and we haven't been able to do it. The plans are there, they are ready to go as soon as we get the green light, but we have been stymied by funding."