Coronavirus: Fears over arrivals on Jersey's Ecrehous islands

The Ecrehous islands lie six miles off the north-east coast of Jersey

People on Jersey's Ecrehous islands are concerned travellers are arriving from France by boat and not being tested for coronavirus.

On Saturday Jersey reclassified France as amber risk, meaning travellers from there must self-isolate for at least five days.

But property owners have reported an increase in people coming ashore.

Customs and port authorities said they were working together to monitor activity.

The Ecrehous are a group of islands about six miles off the north-east coast of Jersey, which fall under the St Martin parish and have a small number of huts, mostly used as holiday lets.

Under Jersey law, travellers from an amber risk country are required to undergo a test on day one and five of their arrival. If both tests are negative, they will be allowed to join public life.

Property owner Richard Miles said monitoring the situation should not fall solely to the St Martin parish

Richard Miles, who owns a hut there, said he would like to see officials monitoring new arrivals on the Ecrehous.

"You could say that in some awful sense you are dealing with a Russian roulette situation, because you just need one or two of those people coming in from Brittany or Normandy and you know, you just need one person to spread something," he said.

Deputy Steve Luce said French travellers had been told they could sail to the Ecrehous, but were asked not to go ashore.

He said it was a matter of "self-policing" for local people to "look after".

"But if things escalate, certainly we will have to look to customs officers and the honorary police to maybe go out there and have a word," he added.

The Government of Jersey said more information on how arrivals at the Ecrehous are monitored would be released this week.

• GLOBAL SPREAD: Tracking the pandemic

• EUROPE LOCKDOWN: How is it being lifted?

• THE R NUMBER: What it means and why it matters

• HOW A VIRUS SPREADS: An explanation

• WHAT IS A PANDEMIC? The WHO's definition