Longue Hougue inert site costs rocket to £42m.
PREDICTED costs of reclaiming more land at Longue Hougue south have risen by 40% to more than £40m.
The project, which is the favoured option for disposing of inert waste, was priced at an estimated £30m. only in December.
Confirmation of the escalation comes as deputies Neil Inder and Barry Paint step up a campaign to get reclamation near St Peter Port Harbour included in detailed assessments of the way forward.
They say that deputies have been briefed that Longue Hougue south is not estimated to cost £42m. and fear that this figure will only rise.
Another of the options, reclamation at Mont Cuet/Creve Coeur, which was shortlisted but not proposed, would now come in at around £60m., according to revised estimates.
The current inert waste site is likely to be full by 2020/21.
States’ Trading Supervisory Board president Peter Ferbrache said that in any project of this nature, some financial assessment is carried out in the early stage of options evaluation, in addition to environmental, human and practical considerations.
‘That provides a relatively high level assessment at the shortlisting stage, to help decide which ones should go forward for further investigation.
‘The costs of any options identified for further investigation are then refined as the programme progresses, and the various assumptions are tested and revised.
‘That will eventually result in a detailed budget that will need to be agreed by the States before approval is given to any development.’
A statement from Trading Assets said that figures included in the December policy letter were clearly identified as the current estimates at that time, and liable to change.
‘Since that States debate, some more detailed evaluation has been carried out for some potential options,’ the statement said.
‘That was primarily for the extension to the Longue Hougue site, and a new coastal land reclamation north of Mont Cuet, both of which have previously been shortlisted.
‘A key element of cost for the coastal land reclamation options is the rock armour required to form the outer walls of any new site.
‘Previous estimates were based on similar projects that have been carried out locally in the past, but adjusted for inflation plus some additional contingency. Following market testing, we now estimate the cost of extending the current site to be around £40m., and for a new site at Mont Cuet to be around £60m. It should be stressed these are still provisional estimates, prior to any detailed design being carried out. Engineering solutions that could potentially bring down costs have also not yet been explored. Development of any new site is unlikely to start before 2022, so we expect these figures will continue to be refined for some time to come.’
