From Laurence Wheeler.
MY incredulity increases every time I read the background to the Waterfront decision.

Now, according to your report on 12 June it seems that the Chief Minister and all the others (including the civil servants) were prepared to accept the assurances of Harcourt. Surely this was naïve at the very best if not negligent and lacking due diligence.

The property development world is very dangerous so surely these politicians and civil servants should have made their own inquiries or were they taken in by the blarney?

So, to answer the Chief Minister’s question (to which he obviously expects the answer ‘No’), ‘Are you suggesting that every time we get an assurance by a third party we should double and triple check it?’. The answer, Chief Minister, is most emphatically ‘Yes’. Any other approach is negligent and dereliction of duty.

There is another small point. In this context Harcourt is not a third party as the Chief Minister states. It is a second party directly on the opposite side of the table from our representatives and therefore all the more dangerous.
Les Marais House,
Rue à Don,
Grouville.