Public holiday declared for King Charles visit as 'rare and historic' move marked with day off

Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham remarked it was a "rare and historic" occasion.

The minister then said it would cost taxpayers around £700,000 in wages, for people to cover civil servants who took the day off.

It will be the first time a reigning monarch has visited the island since the late Queen Elizabeth II's visit in 2005.

Deputy David Warr said it could cost small businesses, who will have to pay wages to their workers.

He said: "When we ask businesses to close down for a day over and above those already allocated as bank holidays, with virtually no ability to plan, we immediately place a significant, additional, unbudgeted cost burden on our local businesses.

"I've been approached by many local businesses, who feel that this Assembly is simply not listening to them."

A public holiday has also been declared for Guernsey, when King Charles and Queen Camilla will visit on July 16.

The long weekend will coincide with the final of the Euro 2024 football tournament.

Jersey's government said Charles and Camilla will visit a special sitting of the States Assembly and the Royal Court, as well as a "large-scale, open-air exposition" in the capital St Helier which will "showcase the best" of the Crown Dependency.

While representatives from smaller Channel Islands, Alderney and Sark, will be present at the festivities, the King and Queen are not scheduled to visit the two due to "time restraints" on their travel.

The day after the King returns from the English Channel archipelago, he is due to deliver the King's Speech on July 17 as part of the State Opening of Parliament following July 4's General Election.

The trip comes just five months after the King was diagnosed with cancer in February.

The British monarch, regardless of gender, is known informally as the "Duke of Normandy" in the Channel Islands, a peculiar historical hangover from the Crown's jurisdiction over the now-extinct Duchy of Normandy, of which the islands were a part, and now exist as a sort of rump state.

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While the King is expected to make the brief trip across the Channel in less than a month, he and Queen Camilla are due to journey halfway around the globe to visit Australia and Samoa for a Commonwealth summit in October.

Additional legs of the trip to fellow South Pacific states New Zealand and Fiji had reportedly been canned as the 75-year-old monarch continues his treatment for cancer.

Despite this, New Zealand's Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, extended an "open invitation to King Charles" for what would be his first visit there since 2019.