£50m. needed to save sewers from collapse
Friday 10th February 2012, 3:00PM GMT.
A worker makes his way through a Guernsey sewer. The States has been told that it could cost £50m. to improve the network. (Picture supplied by John Marley)
SEWAGE could flood streets and homes if £50m. is not found to improve the network, Guernsey Water warned yesterday.
And islanders should also brace themselves for the possibility of roads collapsing.
If the States does not allow the utility to borrow the much-needed funds, homeowners could face a £300-a-year hike in water charges to cover the cost between now and 2019.
Nearly a quarter of the island’s sewage pipes – about 18km – are damaged or at risk of collapse.
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This is an interesting development.
PSD were assuring me and I’m sure many other concerned islanders last year, that the effect and impact of hundreds of thousands of tons of material that Lagans lorries would be transporting up here would not cause any damage to our roads or utilities underneath them on the route during the next 2 years of Airport runway work.
I was also told that they had consulted with all the utility providers who had all given assurances that everything would be fine despite such a massive increase in heavy vehicle traffic.
Now we’re being told a completley different story, which is that our roads could collapse, swallowing up unsuspecting road users because the sewage system could give way beneath us at any moment.
So. Is this just PSD’s attempt to get its way by scaring us all into believing that unless the utility is commercialised (and thus can borrow money for this work) that its all going to go horribly wrong, or is it true, in which case we could be seeing alot less of those lorries (mainly the top half or back wheels) on our roads in the near future!
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Reading this story is like reading the portents of doom.
Forgive my short memory but has any of this been raised before or has someone just woken up one morning and decided that our sewage system on the verge of collapse and we’re in danger of wading through effluent in our homes?
Sometimes I do wonder whether the words “preventative maintenance” were omitted from local dictionaries.
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Better get this sorted otherwise Guernsey will be even deeper in sh**
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So, GW have said that they’re really well run and privatisation is a bad thing then the next we hear is that they’ve failed to budget for repairs and maintenance and now need £50m.
Hmm.
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Mark
Wrong on so many levels. Firstly Guernsey Water say they are very well run but would do even better if COMMERCIALISED (as opposed to privatised, which no-one wants), and secondly, they have been officially responsible for wastewater for two days (the date of the States debate approving the merger) and shouldn’t really be held to account for failing to budget for repairs and maintenance.
Mark’s grasp of things is a bit….hmmm.
Let’s also not forget that ANY States department gets a finite budget from Treasury and can’t spend any more, so there will always be things that don’t have money thrown at it – perhaps because sewers aren’t “sexy”, that’s happened here.
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There seems to be an agenda set by a few to push Guernsey PLC into a position where it is forced into borrowing a large amount of money. Why was this sewer work or the Harbour work not mentioned before the airport extension or even the airport building. I think there is more to it than Roger Berry wanting his name infront of an airport not a new sewer of harbour crane.
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Schools, Airport, Harbour, Sewers and who knows what else to come out of the woodwork, all in a state on needing serious repair work. Is this endless list not telling us something about how Guernsey has been run for a number of years?
Why, and how, have these important parts of our infrastructure been allowed to get to such a state? Why has money not been found to maintain and repair these facilities over the years? Vast amounts of money have been spent on other less essential projects and trying to portray our image around the world. What image does this give to the world who we are continually trying to impress with how well run we are and administer things? Would you leave your home until it is falling apart before you did anything? No of course not so why have we left our island to go this way? Shows what a shambles our governing system, politicians and civil servants, have really been and let the populace down badly.
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The facts about the dreadful state of some of our sewers should be known by deputies and anyone else who read the Wastewater report in the recent Billet. This was discussed by the States. Strangely no one has highlighted the problem until the Press of today (10 Feb)
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Rooster thanks for confirming this.
If that is the case then the waste water charges we are paying would be better re-directed to fund these repairs. At the moment we are all paying a fixed fee of £51.44 per annum to fund ‘sewage treatment investigation’ which has now been thrown out by the states this week as they believe its ok to just pump it untreated in the sea.
There is also another fixed charge on top of this of £30.84 which I understand is earmarked for ‘operational costs’ so that brings us to
£82.28 for every household and business in the island.
Times that by 25,000 homes (not including businesses) and you have over £2 million a year. I know it’s not anywhere near the £50 million required but it would at least mean that this could be ring fenced every year for ongoing repairs and upgrades rather than hitting us yet again for money alot of islanders simply cannot afford.
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I think we can safely ignore this one as another scam for money, last week there was a scam for money for sewage treatment and a cruise ship berth.
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eddie44 & Geoff in posts 5 & 6 have hit the nail on the head. Vanity projects have held sway and the more mundane maintenance of the islands infrastructure has been ignored. In the process we are at risk of losing everything that makes Guernsey Guernsey.
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I wonder if there is a connection with any deputies who have stood for a number of years with any of these projects and/or rather also a lack of investment in infrastructure.
Seeing as April will be voting time perhaps time to consider who has been responsible for what in what positions over the last couple of States assemblies.
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Eddie, don’t know about the terminal, but I do recall (as I was VERY interested in seeing if Beaucamps was going to be done) that both the Airport AND Harbours project was in the capital debate a few years ago. So there you go.
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I live in St. Martins and all our sewage flows downhill so even if they collapse it`s St Peter Port that will be the ones to have to wear waders to walk to work.
Perhaps the SIS (surfers in sewage) could run courses in case a flood wave comes shooting down Charroterie Road and how to avoid the lumpy bits and “log” jams.
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Calm down dears.
This is a very cynical attempt to do two things, one is to scare States members into agreeing to the commercialisation of the Water company, the other is to find a way to hang on to the £50 investigation charge that was supposed to be a very temporary charge on all households.
These two things are being driven by what I call the English disease of forming companies that the public have very little control over and are forced to fund because the utilities are things we cannot live without. They then need regulation at further huge costs together with paid directors with the money to pay for all this added to your water bills.
Remember that commercialisation is the first step to complete privatisation and once all Guernsey owned assets have been commercialised, the Harbours, Airports and Water are the ones left to do, then the next process to complete privatisation will begin. It is no accident that we are spending millions on these assets, getting them ready for that event.
Report after report has said that our water company is very well managed under the present system and PSD know that the ONLY way they can get around this un-deniable fact is by telling anybody who will listen that is all going to collapse around our ears if we don’t do something quickly. Also if the Water Company are saying that they have to commercialise in order that they can borrow then that too is rubbish, there is nothing stopping them from asking T&R for funds to finance a sewer upgrade programme tomorrow if that’s what they want to do.
Well its hogwash, trust me there is a much bigger picture here.
And yes we do have to constantly upgrade our sewers and if you remember we had a massive relining programme a few years ago to address those sewers that were likely to collapse.
Those liners which fed down, inflated and then hardened in a brilliant process are solid resin liners we were told had cured the problem. I spoke at length to the contractors who did our section along Northside, as I was hugely interested in the process being a bit of a civil engineering anorak.
It was a fantastic system and saved hundreds of hours digging and replacing these drains.
I asked what the cost comparisons were? The Forman said that there was just no comparison between lining and open trench replacement and the savings by using this method ran into millions.
I believe him, having worked in the excavation business for most of my life.
These scaremongering stories do nothing to help PSD’s case I remember the same tactics being used to scare us all into buying a huge incinerator. Millions were spent on trying to persuade the States to by a plant we didn’t need and could never have afforded to run efficiently. We would have put in a 70,000 ton plant, when we have already reduced our waste through recycling down to 35.000 tons. So stay calm and we will do what Guernsey has always done and work our way through these problems, remember it was only a couple of years ago when we were told we had to spent £50 million on a sewage treatment works. So with the money we have saved on that plus not building £100 million pound incinerator we should be able to get our drainage sorted out.
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… and the deputies feeding us this bull are..
Deputy Flouquet..Castel
Deputy Ogier .. St Sampsons
Deputy Le Pelley .. Castel
Deputy Spruce .. Vale
Deputy Kuttelwascher ..St Peter Port South
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Well put, but not spending money isn’t really quite the same as saving it is it!
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I don’t understand the rationale of this ‘commercialisation’. The Billet talks about making Guernsey Water more commercial but it is a monopoly, there will be no competition. Instead there will be increased costs as a result of funding a board of directors (will the selection process be transparent?) and having to create a whole new regulatory structure. I can see more can be done to recover costs with waste water through the ‘polluter pays’ principle, but this can be managed without commercialisation.
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Absolutely, Heidi. And then the OUR will get more involved and there will be more red tape and more bills. We must resist the urge to run this island like a mini-UK, (a) because it is not the UK and (b) because they have not exactly been a model of best practice!
Those wanting to move away from States ownership of essential utilities seem to be driven by ideology rather than rational argument.
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Heidi
The truth of the matter is that commercialisation was held up at the time as a radical new way of running the publicly owned utilities. We were told at the time that it would lead to more efficiency, better services and the efficiencies would produce cheaper prices to the consumer. I did not believe it then and I don’t believe it now.
The evidence of commercialised Post and Electricity (We gave our phone company away) shows exactly the opposite is true in post we have fewer deliveries and much higher prices and with electricity one of the highest tariffs we have ever seen. Some of that I accept, will be down to world energy prices and we might accept that if we had not had added to that the cost of regulation and board salaries. The cost of regulation is now 6 times more than we led to believe, at one time the OUR fees were more than the profits of Guernsey post and we all got to pick up the bill.
You are absolutely right, turning a publicly owned monopoly into a commercialised monopoly in terms of electricity and water will not produce any tangible benefits whatsoever to the consumer. One other fallacy put forward for going down this route, was that it would allow the utilities to make decisions quicker. What they really meant, was it would allow the utilities to do things without the scrutiny of the States and any mistakes made by the commercial boards would be paid for by the consumer.
I cannot remember a single instance when the States has needed to act swiftly, that it has not done so. This madness needs to stop and while I am not opposed to more efficient public services and utilities, there has to be some benefit for the taxpayer/consumer and for the life of me up to now I cannot see where it is.
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The same scare tatics for our oversized airport project…
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Dave Jones
Very honest and also well said. We are lucky to have you as a deputy.
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As we had a flourishing finance industry a while ago, that used to pay taxes, why didnt anyone think of saving some of this tax revenue to use in time of need, they could have called it a “rainy day fund”.
Oh I remember now, the bankers moved on to phase two of their plan and helped themselves to the biggest tax refund in Guernsey history.
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Dave Jones – please stand for election again!
As Ray intimates we truely need a massive shake up at the next election – we must rid ourselves of the self serving megolomaniacs that appear to be a canker on most things we hold dear.
Once they’ve gone we then need to clip the wings (brutaly if necessary) of senior civil servants many of whom appear to have aspirations way beyond their remit or useful purpose.
Come April, use your vote wisely!
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Gilthead
I to think the PSD board have not had the best advice.
I will be throwing my hat in the ring in April and if I am returned to the States by the people of the Vale i will stanf for Minister of PSD.
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Your first sentance is probably understatement of the century!
Excellent and good. And good luck too!
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If we can’t have IWV, perhaps we could spend the £50m on cloning you a few times and then we could have a Dave Jones in every parish ;-E)
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Excellent, and about time PSD had a rocket shake up!
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Though I should be fair and say that the final waste programme did show that eventually PSD did listen, though we do need to see the initiatives sustained and not fail through lack of department commitment.
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Guern Abroad
Don’t forget that whilst PSD did indeed listen in the end,they still have to put up with Deputy Spruce’s constant whinging at PSD meetings about the loss of the Suez incinerator
That’s Deputy T Spruce, elected member of The Vale mini district
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Unfortuneately deputy Spruce I read today is again kicking off about the waste strategy! Please use your votes wisely in the Vale.
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you would have my votes both for deputy and minister of PSD, if I had them.
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@Dave Jones
Stand for PSD Minister eh? Cor that’s fighting talk, does your compadre Bernard know?
Anyhang, calm down you – I don’t think think it is just a matter of standing for a ministry, I thought you had to be invited by the CM…
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Stiletto
He does and he knows my views, We are both grown up enough to agree to disagree on occasions.
Also anyone can put their names forward for any of the seats at PC.
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Sadly I can neither vote for Dave or vote against Bernie. Which is a shambles.
Cloning Dave is an option but more than one Dave Jones…one is probably enough!
If Bernie stands and gets in I’d be more surprised than if my lottery ticket came up trumps.
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Dave Jones – if your cynicism (post 12) about the motives behind this proposal are correct – and you have been in and around politics and government long enough for your judgement to be well founded – this for me is further evidence that politicians and civil servants may be capable of running States-owned businesses, but should not necessairly be doing so.
The States Water Board – as it then was – suffered years of underinvestment through a well-intentioned (or cynical) policy of keeping prices ‘low.’ This resulted in several years of above inflation price rises to fund the re-lining programme.
I agree entirely with you that there is no merit in incorporating and then regulating (at considerable cost through a quango) a monopoly you already own. It is possible for the States as owner to control monopolistic tendencies without a separate regulator. We need to have fresh thinking on how we own, manage, finance and control States-owned businesses – as both models (States-managed and ‘commercialised’) are discredited – much as you and others did in relation to social housing with the Guernsey Housing Association. For example, why not consider a tri-partite co-operative model between the farmers, the States (for the consumer) and the suppliers for the Guernsey Dairy? We also have circa £1.8bn in various States’ funds. Part of this could be used to invest in a local infrastructure fund for local infrastructure developments on commercial terms. This could avoid, for example, Aurigny paying – as it now does – interest on loans to third party banks rather than paying interest on commercial terms to the States.
As an aside, should you become PSD minister, one initiative you might wish to push is having Guernsey Electricity and Guernsey Water combine their billing and accounts functions which duplicate each other.
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There are always interesting conflicting views on the uses for States funds:)
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Here’s a thought….To all you Deputies out there that voted to up your Salary by £10,000.
Instead of lining your own pockets at PUBLIC expense, use that money to help pay towards issues like this one. GUERNSEY needs it MORE than YOU!! I for one will not be voting for ANY Deputy that supported this ridiculous and selfish pay award! Being as i only earn £18,000 a year and having to pay constant increases in bills due to your cock ups (e.g Zero 10) I would be more than happy to be paid your current salary.
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Sapphire
If you want to be paid the same salary as me, then stand in an election, of which you will pay all the costs for yourself (several hundred pounds), get elected, join the States and take on the same responsibilities as me.
Work the same hours as I do, and be on call 7 days a week.
Take the same flack as I do and the same stress and hassle that my wife and children have to put up with as the family of a Deputy and current Housing Minister.
Our pay scales are decided by somebody else, an independent pay review panel. As deputies, we can either support the proposals or throw them out and in that event everyone elected will be working for nothing after the next election.
Also we did not vote “ourselves” a pay rise because the salary package agreed is for the next assembly not this one and we have a small matter of an election in between. So many who voted for the panels proposals may not be there in the next assembly. It is certainly definite that won’t as they have already said they will not be standing.
Also you might explain how the high cost of energy and water treatment has to do with Zero 10. I accept indirect taxes have gone up and I voted against those increases in the last budget.
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