Monday 20 July 2020
New rules to allow business travellers to come to Guernsey for essential business meetings have been agreed by the Civil Contingencies Authority.
Aurigny will begin additional commercial flights to facilitate these meetings, which require business visitors to arrive and return on the same day, on Tuesday 28 July. These flights will be twice weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Business travellers will be notified of the legal requirements around 'business tunnel' meetings. They will include providing information to Public Health and Law Enforcement about their whereabouts during their visit, and only conducting their business in designated locations (i.e an appropriate meeting room in an office building or airport hangar). They will also need to maintain social distance, not share pens, phones or other items; and keep a record of their contacts for at least 14 days after the meeting.
Business travellers will also be able to travel to Guernsey on a private aircraft but will need to comply with the same requirements. All business travellers will be asked to give at least 7 days' notice where possible to the States of Guernsey before they travel by writing to criticaltravel@gov.gg.
Full details of the business tunnel requirements and instructions are available here: https://covid19.gov.gg/guidance/travel/businesstunnels.
Deputy Gavin St Pier, President of the Civil Contingencies Authority said:
"We're taking a very careful, considered approach to moving to phase 6. It's important to us that any lifting of restrictions on travel is safe, so that we don't find ourselves needing to lockdown our local community which would have a big impact on the economy, but also on each of us as individuals.
But we know the restrictions for travel create some very significant challenges, and we've sought to find temporary solutions for those. 'Business tunnels' are an example of that, and will mean that for those meetings that absolutely have to be done in person, there is a way of accommodating them without putting the health of our community at significant risk."
Anyone who travels to Guernsey, whether it is it by self-isolating for 14 days, through a 'business tunnel' or as a critical worker (who has been granted an exemption from self-isolation but is subject to other requirements) must adhere to the relevant rules for their travel or they may face prosecution. These can be found at https://covid19.gov.gg/guidance/travel/businesstunnels.
Furthermore, going forward the States of Guernsey is asking those applying for exemptions to travel restrictions as critical workers to send their applications to the new email criticaltravel@gov.gg. The online guidance on gov.gg has been updated to reflect this.
