A complaint, by the Isles of Scilly tourism officials, is due to be lodged because a claim that was made by Jersey’s tourism office in a TV advertisement that the largest of the Channel Islands is the warmest place in all of the British Isles.
Scilly is recognized by the Met Office as officially the warmest place in all of the UK. Jersey, which is located another 50 miles south, does not fall within its auspices since it is not a part of the UK.
Jersey’s advert using small print bases their claim on minimum temperatures supplied by their Meteorological Department that used mean minimum temperatures from the period 1971-2000 which is the same period that the Met Office uses to calculate their mean temperatures and the figure for Jersey for that period was 8.9C.
But the Met Office data for St Mary’s Scilly, the largest island has a mean temperature of 9.4C over that same period of time. Jersey fares better as far as hours of sunshine and maximum mean temperatures.
Also contested in the advert by the council of the Isles of Scilly is Jersey’s use of the term Britain. They say a crown dependency such as Bailiwick of Jersey is not a part of the UK and geographically the British Isles archipelago does not include Jersey.
The council’s economic development officer Julian Pearce said he would be writing to Jersey to let them know of their position on geography and their ranking as the UK’s warmest place.
Jersey through Jennifer Elenger of Jersey Tourism says they stand 100% behind their claim and have the data to back it up. Politically she says they are a part of the British Isles even if not geographically and said that the claim is not just based on the mean minimum temperature but also on average hours of sunshine and mean annual temperatures.
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