Guernsey’s Committee for Economic Development has provided an update on its future agreement with Brittany Ferries.
Brittany Ferries was confirmed as Guernsey’s preferred bidder on 30th October following a detailed 10-month tender process. The tender process was carried out jointly with the Government of Jersey, with a joint invitation to tender (ITT) document issued, a joint market testing phase, and a joint scoring and evaluation of bids and submissions which were also subject to a structured joint moderation.
The Government of Jersey was advised of the Committee for Economic Development’s position on 17th October.
Over the next week the Committee for Economic Development will evaluate the ‘Guernsey only’ approach from Brittany Ferries and, subject to the Committee’s views, a contract will be finalised within the following 10 days. This will enable Brittany Ferries to publish its schedules in mid-November.
In addition to this the Committee will be meeting with Brittany Ferries and business stakeholders this week to provide more detail on services and scheduling, following a very helpful stakeholder meeting on 31st October.
Deputy Neil Inder, President of the Committee for Economic Development, said: “The Committee and its officers are in regular contact with service users and with Brittany Ferries as we seek to finalise the contractual arrangements and as Brittany Ferries seeks to finalise the schedules. There is also ongoing conversation with the Government of Jersey, although at this stage they have not confirmed their plans.
“Regardless of the decision that the Government of Jersey reaches, we have committed that should we take different approaches we will work together to put in place a robust inter-island service, building on the recent joint agreement with Manches-Iles-Express.
“The partnership with Brittany Ferries also provides opportunities to further develop our community and commercial relationships with Normandy and Brittany, and we are about to begin conversations with them and also with trade bodies on maximising the benefits of the new approach.”
