Vote for incinerator delay ‘would mean £8m. wasted’
Friday 5th February 2010, 2:29PM GMT.
GUERNSEY will have spent £8m. since 2004 and got no closer to a waste solution if a requete to investigate alternatives is successful, according to Treasury.
If approved, Deputy Jan Kuttelwascher’s delaying motion would require Public Services to step back from signing the £93.5m. incinerator contract with Suez Environnement and return to the States for final authorisation.
The requete has been labelled irresponsible and Treasury minister Charles Parkinson said it could add more costs for no reward.
The requete argues that the incinerator is too unpopular with the public to be allowed to continue.
Deputy Parkinson (pictured) said approximate total costs incurred since the States rejected the Lurgi incinerator in 2004 reached £1.8m. and that payments to the aborted project totalled £3.3m.
‘If the States should decide not to contract with Suez, a payment involving up to a further £3.2m. will need to be made and in that event it would appear that the island would have spent at least £8m. on successive procurement processes and be no closer to having an agreed waste disposal solution,’ said Deputy Parkinson.
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And this is what he promised…….
“Vital investment in our infrastructure, e.g. at Les Beaucamps and La Mare de Carteret schools, in replacing the Castel Hospital, in the airport runway and in sewage treatment, has been jeopardised by the destruction of our revenue surpluses and our capital reserve. Where projects have been undertaken, there has been a history of overspends and bungling (Fallagate, the New Jetty, the airport terminal, the SSD computer system etc), for which no one ever seems to be held accountable.
As a result, the States has lost the trust of the people of Guernsey. It is seen as arrogant, incompetent and out-of-touch.
I believe that the next States must restore the balance and regain that trust. It must demonstrate fairness, competence and good judgement. It must consider the interests of all sections of our community, and restore equity to our tax system.
The challenges facing the new House are enormous. Not only will it have to deal with the structural deficits and exhausted reserves left by this House, but it must also tackle the big external issues facing us – peak oil, climate change and a political environment increasingly hostile to offshore finance centres.
I believe that my character, qualifications and experience equip me to play a part in meeting those challenges.”
Is this the same man who talked about sharing our waste with Jersey???
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He obviously cares about the public…
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I’m sure somebody famous once said ” every time you say no you get closer to the point where you can properly say Yes “
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Its a bit naughty to insinuate that turning down the Suez proposal will cost £8m by including the Lurgi farse to make the numbers higher.
That said £8m is a small price to pay to not make a wrong decision costing more than £200m over the lifespan of the Suez proposal.
I think someone said at the latest proposal at les cotils that any deputy that voted in favour of this Suez plan wont get his vote at the next states election. I’ll be following suite and would urge those 11k others that aren’t in favour of the Suez proposal to consider a similar course of action.
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After Andy Hall’s excellent argument against the incinerator in yesterday’s Guernsey Press, how on earth can any Deputy in their right mind ignore the expert opinion of experienced contractors involved in the waste industry. We need to take heed of their warnings on cost and explore the alternatives.
Some Deputies claim our reputation will be damaged if we back out of our Letter of Intent with Suez, what about the damage to our reputation if go ahead with this white elephant, after all the warnings against it. We will become a laughing stock. The Island with money to burn.
Our Health service is already suffering, what about the airport runway, new schools, elderly care, pensions and social services. How will all of these be paid for? The cost of the incinerator over its lifetime will more than cover the cost of these vital services.
I believe it is a disgraceful waste of public funds that the Island can ill afford at these difficult economic times.
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The 8M is sunk… gone… we cant do anything about that regardless of what we do now.
Going forward, however, we can most definately influence how much we spend, 260M vs 0M with the same end result.
So which is it Parky??? 260M or 0M?? Surely our tresuary minister can work through that equation.
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better to ‘waste’ 8 mill, on making the right decision, than 90+ on a primitive, backward thinking waste solution. Well done Jan! keep up the fight!
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Thats great, were 8mil down so might as well carry on with it?.
The bookies love guys like that. A good gambler never plays with more than he can afford to lose and knows when to get out when things are going wrong.
Also summing up all the negative info and prominet people comeing out against the incinerator i cant believe (actually i can) Flouquet and his blind follwers are not even flinching in their decision to carry on full steam ahead with this.
Flouquet is a dissgrace, he listens to everything thats being said it`s just that he doesen`t care, why?.
I wonder how many of these amateur poloticians would make the sam decision if it was their business that was parting with the money?.
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My requete does NOT propose a delay. It merely asks that PSD return to the States for final approval of the contract with Suez. This is not expected to be the case until June. If it is successful then there will be four months in which to consider credible alternatives. If it is not successful then there would be no point pusuing any other options. It appears that the last bastion of support for PSD is within the States.
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Deputy Kuttelwascher says ” It appears that the last bastion of support for PSD is within the States”.
On the assumption that those of the last bastion of support are not totally bonkers, it raises the question why.
The letter of Andy Hall and the comment “Throughout these last eight or nine years we have worked very closely with the process contractors, CNIM, Energos, WRG and Imtech.
All their waste experts, to a man, believe that what Guernsey is currently proposing is ‘mad’ and that we must have money ‘to burn’.
They all believe it is far too big and expensive for an island of our size and not the solution any of them would put forward if only they could be given that opportunity”.
How can the last bastion of support still support the Suez proposal, given the Andy hall letter, and especially as we are now told by Roy Bisson that St James’s Chambers wanted the financial risk of the project to be placed on the taxpayer, rather than Suez.
Now the last bastion have a face saver gifted by St James’s Chambers, what is keeping them in the Suez fan club?
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Well I’ll ask it if no one else will.
Had RG Falla got the Suez contract would Mr. Hall have written his letter?
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Neil
The letter written by Andy Hall says “I have no vested interest.
More the opposite, in fact, since our company would probably have some involvement in the construction of the Suez incinerator should it be built.”
The answer therefore seems to be yes.
I also assume that the letter would have the support of his Chairman Stuart Falla as it comes from Andy Hall as CEO of Garrene Group.
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Rihoys have the Suez contract
http://www.jwrihoy.com/index.php?page=3
“Our role in the project will be to undertake the majority of the construction work required for the proposed facility. We shall do this in partnership with Norwest Holst, Vinci Group, a major construction and civil engineering contractor.”
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Neil.
Andy Hall has been against this project since before the tender went out and openly came out and said so then, long before any building company was given the job.
You might well ask.. ‘How can he have been against it before the tender doc went out’? ……. and the answer would be because the tender doc clearly pointed to Mass-burn incineration as being the obvious technology that would meet all the criteria. It was quite obvious then that we would end up with a version of what we have got
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Re the title of this story…
The inference is that by spending another £93m, the £8m already spent will no longer be wasted money……. that’s crazy!! Does ploughing on with a wrong decision, digging oneself in deeper and deeper suddenly mean that you un-do all the earlier mistakes? Err….no! It would just demonstrate to anyone who might care to take notice that our politicians are not brave enough to recognise when they’ve made a mistake. It would show that they would rather stick with a big flash project…. no matter what the cost, wether there are cheaper alternatives or even wether the project is needed at all, than own up to earlier mistakes.
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I may be wrong, but it seems like two months have now been wasted deciding whether to look into alternatives.
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j.
You would be wrong…… There has been no time delay and none suggested. We are waiting for the Planning Application to come out for Suez. The contract cannot be signed until that is done. IN the meantime, while we wait it would have been time well spent if they did look at alternatives…. but that is not what they are doing.
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That doesn’t stack up Rosie. RGF were in joint tender for the original rejected plant.
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Everyone, reasonably, asks what would the alternative be. However most make the assumption, no doubt in part due to the perceptions created by PSD that we need some massive plant to magically make all our waste vanish.
The reason we have the wrong answer in Suez is that we asked the wrong question.
If we source separate our waste, as many communities do, then about half the problem disappears. There are new recycling routes for some of the remainder and by that time we have got down to an amount not much more than the ash that will come out of the other end of the incinerator.
We need a whole new mindset on this – not the one that has been steering towards this outdated, unenvironmental eye-wateringly expensive one for over a decade.
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Neil
If by original rejected plant you mean Turgi Or whatever they are called, then Andy Falla makes that fact clear in his letter to the Press.
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Neil,
I didn’t say before the Lurgi tender. I said (or meant) before this current tender went out. Andy Hall was one of the group who put forward the option of using Les Vardes quarry. They put the idea forward because they could see that the tender would result in a plant that would be too expensive for us.
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In 1969 I got married despite having second thoughts! The church had been booked, the guests invited, so much money already spent (not millions but you get the picture) I did not want to look as if I was dithering etc etc
It was the worst thing I ever did and cost so much more to extricate myself later – house, family etc
Compare this to Suez and Guernsey. This is a marriage that should never take place.Do the honourable thing. Walk away from the altar now!!
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Dorothy
That’s a very sad story.Hope everything turned out OK in the end.
The difference with PSD is that they seem to think that not thinking is part of their mandate.
The 8/2/10 headline says it all … ‘PSD has no mandate to get involved in the waste debate’
GO … For the sake of Guernsey … JUST GO !
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Dorothy,
Great analogy. Unfortunately, we seem to have too many Deputies worried about disappointing the guests.
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Why will PSD not hold another public meeting? Just saying they are going to do another Trelade-type PR schmooze where they can spread out the public over 3 days instead of 3 hours shows they have no real desire to engage with the people who pay their salaries or indeed to answer questions.
The trouble is they have gone so far down this road that, in their position, I can see it must require an enormous amount or character to actually turn around and say ‘we got it wrong’ but there would be cheering across the island if that happened. (Of course maybe they really do still think it is the right solution, in which case there is little hope short of revolution)
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Oh come on, Islander!
A huge fan I may not be, but they’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t!
People said, where are they and why won’t they put their side accross and answer questions. So they do a Sunday phone in, and all of a sudden it’s a PR stunt.
They offer to do a 3 day display to allow people who might not be able to make a one off meeting have a look, and to talk quietly to people who might not want to speak in a room full of people, and they have no real desire to engage!
Perlease!!!!
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Billy,
It is a requirement of the overall planning process that they have to be shown to have ‘consulted’ with the public. This is what the Trelade style presentations are for. They are obliged to do it to get a tick in the ‘public consultation’ box.
So there is no damned if they do/damned if they don’t. It is all about process and achieving the end result.
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