Arguments rumble on as foghorns fall silent

‘The Alderney foghorn has already gone, and the Casquets fog signal is about to be removed’, said Captain Steve Shaw of Alderney Harbour, ‘and there has been virtually no communication that it was about to happen.’

The islands’ Harbour Masters have been jointly lobbying Trinity House over the decision to scrap the islands’ foghorns. Peter Gill, the Guernsey Harbour Master told MJ that the outcome of the 2010 consultation advised users that the ranges of the lighthouses would be reduced. ‘But there was no mention of fog signals being removed in the Channel Islands’, he said.

Captain Shaw was blunt about the lack of clarity and said, ‘Not only were we not consulted, we were all left out of the advisory information, only finding out about it through other people.’

Trinity House maintains that the fog horns are no longer ‘significant’ aids in the modern age of electronic navigation. But Mr Gill explained that the turning off of the horns has caused quite some disquiet amongst the local population. ‘The seas around here have had more than their fair share of substantive disasters, he told MJ. ‘The fog signal is a last ditch warning of the rocks.’

Both Harbour Masters noted that there is a nearby traffic separation scheme. Although it is being managed by the French authorities, it is suspected that they were not consulted either.

Added to the turning off of the fog signals at Alderney, Longstone and Casquets, Alderney’s Quesnard Lighthouse has had its light range halved, along with range reductions which have taken place at other lighthouses. Also, the lights at Alderney and Anvil Point have been changed from a 24 hours a day operation to night time only. The Trinity House AtoN review said that less powerful lights were adequate for local mariners and the reduction in power from cutting the islands’ lights and foghorns would save about £1,500 a year.

Although Trinity House says that when a review recommends a ‘substantial’ alteration like this, a user consultation is undertaken, Capt Shaw disagrees and said, ‘We were left off almost every communication list.’

He added, ‘Given the limited power consumption of foghorns, they would have been worth keeping.’