DPA rejects plans for Longue Hougue ‘waste pyramid’

The presidents of the two committees involved in the application – the States’ Trading Supervisory Board and the DPA – both laid the blame for the situation firmly at the door of the States for its failure to make a decision on a permanent site.

‘It’s a bit of a stumper to be honest,’ said STSB president Peter Roffey after the DPA politicians rejected Guernsey Waste’s application for a nine metre-high stockpile to the north of the Longue Hougue site by a majority of three to two.

‘I’m not sure where we’re going to put it in a few weeks’ time.

‘The STSB has been telling the States for years “Please find us a site” – but they haven’t done so.’

Guernsey Waste was told to come back with new plans that might include using the dumped waste to create usable land at the site rather than a temporary solution.

‘I’m angry with the States because we have got to be in this position,’ said DPA president Victoria Oliver in summing up her views before the vote.

‘We [the States] have not done our jobs properly. We’ve talked about strategy and nothing has been done about it.’

She voted to defer the decision on the application with a view to Guernsey Waste coming back with a potentially revised timeline.

After the meeting she held out the hope of a solution.

‘It’s disappointing to be in a position where stockpiling has had to be put forward as a proposed solution. However, although we’ve rejected this application by majority, I think that it is possible for a workable solution to come forward as a new application, and we’ll work with the applicant to achieve this.’

The meeting took place in a small room at Frossard House because there were no representations from the public to be heard.

Members instead were given a presentation summing up the plans to build a ‘waste pyramid’, which would take some 550,000 tonnes of inert waste over the next three years.

By then it was hoped that a permanent site would have been decided by the States and the dumped material would be moved to this new site, which would take another three years.

DPA members Sasha Kazantseva-Miller and Chris Blin wondered if this could be done more quickly, but were told by planning officials that the three-year time frame was based on how long it was estimated to complete the dumping of the amount being proposed.

The member who was most strongly against the plans was Deputy John Dyke.

‘This is one of the most horrendous things I have ever seen in terms of the history of it,’ he said.

The DPA was told that 140 lorry loads a day would be using the site. Deputy Dyke said this was unacceptable environmentally.

He thought it would be better to have the waste dumped there at a lower level but over a larger area, which could then be used as reclaimed land. But he was told that this would involve a completely new planning application.

The only firm approval for the plans was from Deputy Andy Taylor who said that while there had been a failure within government, there was also a need for stockpiling.

‘It would be easy to make alternative solutions, and for a deputy that might almost be expected, but I think to do so would be prejudicial to the applicant who, rightly or wrongly, are where they are,’ he said.