BY NOW, all of us will have been hit by Guernsey’s new ‘toilet tax’. The claim was that the average payment under this unwelcome new charge would be £150 per household.

I must have been very unrepresentative in my attempt at a mini-survey as it’s been hard to find anybody paying less than that. And, of course, the thousands of islanders with cesspits will pay the new tax and still pay to get their pits emptied – albeit at a lower rate. So they’ll end up paying more for a lesser service.

Undoubtedly many islanders are unhappy at this further, unavoidable escalation in living costs at a time when household budgets are already being squeezed. That must be particularly true of the elderly on low or fixed incomes. But that pain might be softened slightly if the Guernsey public were really convinced that this new States revenue steam would be used solely for the purpose for which it was proposed.

The new waste-water charge was sold off the back of a strong desire among many islanders to see the introduction of some sort of sewage treatment. While it was never going to be completely ring-fenced, the clear moral pact with householders was that if they paid this new tax then the money would be used to stop dumping raw sewage in the sea.

I doubt I’m alone in my scepticism over whether or not the States will strictly adhere to its side of the bargain.

It may well be that the Public Services Department faces huge costs in sewer rehabilitation – which begs the question why there has been such under-investment in this area over many years. It may also be true that without this work to separate sewage from ground water it’s not practical to build a sewage treatment plant. But if this is used as an excuse for ‘mission creep’ where our new toilet tax is simply used for sewer upgrading over the next five or 10 years, then it has been a classic case of misrepresentation.

More than that, it would represent a subtle and hidden shift in the burden of public spending. It’s true that the capital costs of water mains have always come out of our water rates/charges, but the money needed to invest in our sewerage system has traditionally come from general revenue. That meant those who could afford to contribute more, paid more. Under the toilet tax that will be largely lost, as a poor family with three kids will probably contribute a lot more than a millionaire bachelor if they are both on meters. Maybe that’s unavoidable in this post zero-10 world but it’s regressive and it should have been made clear from the start, instead of pretending it was all about a shiny new sewage treatment plant.

Moving from liquid to solid waste and the chickens of political weakness look like they are coming home to roost. Well over a year ago the States did an astonishing volte-face and ditched the waste disposal package they had contracted to buy just a few months earlier. In the process, it cost Guernsey taxpayers several million pounds. Many of our deputies had clearly been on the road to Damascus [a dangerous place right now] as their views seemed to have swung through 180 degrees in those few short months. These included some members of PSD itself who, by voting against their own project, ensured it lost by the narrowest of margins.

Of course the change of heart came in the face of a very large, vocal and articulate campaign against the Suez waste disposal system – and in particular the incineration element of it. If the reason for the sudden, puzzling change of direction from the States was that the campaign had genuinely convinced members there was a better option available for getting rid of our waste, then there was some logic to it. But if they couldn’t really see an alternative, safe and sustainable solution and changed their votes only to deflect the anger of a large and vociferous group of islanders, then it was not only incredibly weak but also incredibly stupid.

Alas, the murmurs coming out of the much-lauded waste disposal consultative panels suggest the latter is more likely to be true. The suspicion among some participants is that PSD is returning to Plan A – minimise waste where possible, aim for 50% recycling and incinerate the rest.

If that’s true they have wasted a lot of time, money and landfill space.