Plans for waste mountain at Longue Hougue move closer

The States’ Trading Supervisory Board is currently allowed to fill the void but will soon need to stockpile until the States settles a long-running dispute about where to put the waste in the future.

It believes there is capacity at Longue Hougue for eight more years’ storage, but puts the cost of stockpiling at millions of pounds.

‘The Longue Hougue land reclamation site is not yet full, but we expect it to be full around the end of this year,’ said Guernsey Waste senior technical adviser Rob Roussel.

‘After that, any construction and demolition waste that we receive which cannot be reused or recycled will need to be stockpiled until a future disposal site is available.

‘We estimate we could stockpile around 550,000 tonnes at Longue Hougue if needed.’

Mr Roussel said significant costs would be incurred moving the stockpiled waste to the next disposal site. Most recent calculations indicate a range of between £4 and £12 per tonne, depending on the location of the next site and the volume of material stored.

The final bill could be more than £6.5m.

A plan was drawn up in 2020 to extend Longue Hougue to the south with a new breakwater, which would expand the reclamation area by 500 metres to Spur Point, providing infilling capacity for an estimated 15 years.

But the States halted the plan after the rare Atlantic scaly cricket was discovered at the site.

Spur Point remains the STSB’s preferred location for the future disposal of inert waste.

But some senior politicians are believed to want Les Vardes Quarry to be used instead, once Ronez moves quarrying to Chouet, and Environment & Infrastructure has been directed to study the future use of Les Vardes.

‘An extension to the current Longue Hougue land reclamation site to the south was agreed by the States as the preferred option for the future disposal of inert waste. That remains the case until any other option is approved by the States,’ said Mr Roussel.

If permission is granted to stockpile at Longue Hougue in the meantime, initially it will be done at the northern end of the site on the seaward side.

Mr Roussel said this would allow the processing of composted green waste and aggregate recycling to continue at the site.

‘There is scope to extend storage across the site from east to west, if required.

‘Any area that is reserved for potential storage does restrict it being used for other purposes, but currently there are no plans for the site for other projects in the immediate future.’