Milky milky

Isn't this whole debate about milk zoning a bit wide of the mark? Forgive me if I am wrong (I may well be, I only read the Billet yesterday!), and forgive me if I sound like a Commerce and Employment spokesman. But, as I understand it, the milkmen have never had more than 'de facto' protection of their territory. There never has been any legal provision for zoning; the wording printed on round licences until a few years ago has never conferred legal exclusivity.

So there never has been any legal reason why one retailer couldn't serve a customer in another's 'zone', and the chaos which the Guernsey Milk Retailers' Assocation tells is it won't be able to save us from has always been a possibility. As I understand it, what is being purchased when a milkman buys 'a round' is not a legally drawn-up territory, but the goodwill of the other members of the GMRA not to compete on what is mutually agreed to be their territory.

A milkman who tries to poach customers from other rounds will lose this goodwill. A milkman who obtains a licence but does not buy 'a round' will find it very difficult to get a foothold because the GMRA won't let him in. It'll be even harder after the new C&E proposals are introduced which will require retailers to buy in commercial quantities.

So it seems that implementing the Lowe/Jones amendment will mean very little additional protection for the milkmen (who are very well protected by the GMRA anyway), but it will create a whole heap of headaches for C&E (like where do they draw the boundaries at big new developments like Leale's Yard...), costing a twonk-load of taxpayer's money in administration costs to resolve fights between milkmen.

I can understand the milkmen being aggrieved that what they thought they were buying was a legal zoning, and in fact it was no such thing. The licence reprinted in the Press this week does look pretty misleading. But what they have is in fact worth just as much - in fact, it will continue to be worth exactly what the milkmen and the GMRA think it is. The only thing which can cause a collapse in round value is if the milkmen and the GMRA lose confidence in it, and they are doing their best to talk themselves in that direction!

So where is all this debate coming from? Presumably C&E have let the GMRA bandwagon career off in this direction without wasting too much time debunking it because it's a good foil to draw media and public attention away from the meat of the proposals.

But I may be completely wrong - I'm interested to know what you think!