PSD told: Come clean on waste costs

CRITICS have demanded that Public Services come clean with islanders over the true cost of dealing with Guernsey's refuse.

The department announced on Wednesday that the cost of building infrastructure for the island's waste export strategy, supported by deputies in February last year, had risen from £3.5m. to £24m.

The export option was one of three put forward and was thought to be the cheapest.

But Vale deputy Tony Spruce said the department's report last year had included incorrect figures – with the amount for the on-island energy-from-waste plant option, known as option A, being the only one to include a Guernsey uplift figure.

He has called for the costs of all the options to be revised, but PSD has stood by its strategy saying that it was still the cheapest option.

Deputy Spruce, p[ictured, who was on the PSD board when it devised the strategy, said when the report was drafted he knew the figures were wrong and put pressure on the department to ask its consultants to validate them.