Review of 2021: October to December

“I would like to thank everyone who swam and all those who supported and sponsored our swimmers. Their great support has ensured that charities in the Bailiwick will benefit,” said Swimarathon chairman Nick Guillemette.

Pictured: 2,500 people took part in this year’s Swimarathon.

In the month before Omicron turned up, Guernsey scrapped testing for Jersey and UK travellers and introduced QR codes for its travel tracker app. Masks were strongly recommended in schools except in classrooms.

The Pandora Papers dropped in October – the result of a significant piece of investigative journalism published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The leaked papers included several references to local business and individuals.

Also in October, concerns were raised that the iconic chancre crab was starting to disappear from Guernsey waters.

“The baby brown crabs generally live in rock pools for the first stage of their life until they are big enough to fend for themselves. We started to wonder where our grown up female crabs are going to spawn their eggs because they don’t seem to be making it back here,” said marine scientist Francis Binney.

Pictured: Chancre crab caught in Guernsey waters has fallen by nearly 300 tonnes.

November started with a message from the Civil Contingencies Authority that the Bailiwick must “live with covid” and ended with the emergence of the omicron variant, initially in Southern Africa and quickly around the globe.

From then until the end of the year, there was an avalanche of covid-related news.

The Chairman of the Civil Contingencies Authority, Deputy Peter Ferbrache, caught covid himself. The States set an ambitious target of offering a booster vaccine to all 51,000 eligible adults by the start of 2022. And mandatory facemasks were back in public places. Just in time for the Christmas holidays.

November also saw the launch of the Girls Night In campaign when many women took part in a boycott of Town venues to raise awareness of drink spiking and sexual assault. 

It was also a month of much conversation about climate change as the COP26 Conference dominated the world news cycle. Guernsey signed up ‘in principle’ to the Paris Agreement.

Pictured: The infamous ‘Cobo Alice’ house went up for sale in November.

In December, France banned non-essential travel from the UK and the Bailiwick, and the covid-19 vaccine programme was accelerated with record-breaking weeks during which thousands of boosters were given. 

In the States’ Assembly, the Development & Planning Authority was successful in getting approval for a raft of new planning exemptions.

“The amendments will also result in a reduction of planning applications required in circumstances where they would have been likely to be approved by the Authority under the current policy direction,” said the President of the Authority, Deputy Victoria Oliver.

“Not only will this improve the customer experience but enable the Planning Service to be more efficient and direct more resource into service improvements and delivery.”

Pictured: “The Authority thought it necessary to broaden the exemptions relating to energy and solar products to encourage sustainable development,” said Deputy Victoria Oliver of one of the successful proposals in her Authority’s policy letter. 

The Sarah Groves Foundation donated 39 bikes to children and young people from less privileged backgrounds for Christmas.

The year 2021 ended with the Channel Islands’ Christmas Lottery jackpot being won by a ticket sold in Guernsey and, predictably, with more covid news: the omicron variant is falling disproportionately on people who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, is more transmissible but less severe than previous variants and is leading to a record number of daily infections in the Bailiwick.

READ MORE:

Review of 2021: January to March

Review of 2021: April to June

Review of 2021: July to September