Deep water fuel berth ‘is needed by 2020′
Thursday 7th February 2013, 8:30AM GMT.
WORK must begin now to ensure that a deep water berth for fuel and cargo is built at St Sampson’s by 2020, according to harbour master Captain Peter Gill.
The berth is one of three key priorities in the ports master plan, published yesterday by Public Services, and is being put forward for the States’ capital prioritisation programme.
The preferred proposal would see the berth running south from Longue Hougue, costing between £71m. and £143m.
‘In order to develop a solution for 2020, the island needs to start working on it now,’ said Captain Gill, pictured, who acknowledged that the proposal might cause adverse reaction from Belle Greve Bay homeowners.
Other recommendations for St Sampson’s included the adoption of an energy zone.
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Spend spend spend…. Can we afford it??
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Didnt he retire last year?
Anyhow, i havent seen anywhere that has listed the reasons we MUST have this in place by 2020.
so far all ive seen is:
north beach car park will be removed – they know they will get complaints but are going to do it anyways.
they will build a giant quay at the end of the reclamation to deliver fuel and cargo into Gsy. What has happened to both st sampsons and st peter port harbours to have required this?
And that is about all that seems to be known.
More of a joke than an investment i believe.
Is it April 1st?
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bob
I think it’s probably due to the shelf life of our two fuel tankers which are just about the last ones of their kind that can rest on the sea bed at low tides .. they just aren’t making them any more,hence the need for a deep water berth
Could be quite problematic in a South Easterly hooley though!
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Having spoken to two ex ship superintendents I am told by both of them that the above statement is complete and utter nonsense. One stating 98% of the ships he was ever involved with can ALL be laid up on a dry berth no matter what they are carrying. Ships can also be built to any specification.
Slightly off topic buy still relevant is seeing as jersey utilizes the boat why is it that guernsey paid for it? Could it not have been a joint venture?
Of course out incompetent states members know more about shipping than 2 very qualified marine superintendents with a hundred years of experience between them.
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£71 to £143 million that is some gap it would be nice to be able for me to price a job like that plenty of scope for error . Oh and where is the money coming from ?. Back to dreamland again.
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I was thinking just the same and so I went on the link to the masterplan 100 page report http://www.gov.gg/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=81041&p=0
Everyone should read this, it’s paid by tax payers.
As I understand the difference in costs is to do with different types of breakwaters, the first price is for a piled Jetty and the other is a full depth breakwater ie. alot more concrete needed and this is supposed to give more shelter.
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So what suddenly happened to the £31m Black Hole we’re all paying for?
Or is it “In for a penny, in for £143m”?
Bob..its April 1st already, but they didn’t tell us.
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Everyday I look for the front page of the Guernsey Press to see what has been dreamed up again, and each day it gets worse.
“Get rid of North Beach” is this a joke, and what becomes of the Town shops.
I really despair as to what is happening, and the response from island politicians, seems to be strangely absent.
I am retired but I feel so sorry for the youth of the island who in years to come will suffer from the huge financial mistakes we seem to be running headlong into.
Finally, if one reads what is happening in other countries as regards, financial debt, unemployment, etc etc, we should be tightening our belts, not coming up with big expensive ideas.
Just think if we go broke, there is no-one to bail us out.
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JohnT. The reason we are having to deal with these huge financial projects now is because of the lack of foresight and planning during the gravy-train years of the 80′s & 90′s. Why didn’t the Guernsey folk then have a go at their Deputies to make sure that policies were considering and planning for the future when the economic downturn would come…. as it obviously would one day. It seems everyone was too busy enjoying the good times.
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But Rosie no one told us 30 years ago that we would need a new berth or a new runway, or that we would need to recycle stuff… how were we to know?, you can’t blame the public, we just do what were told.
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markB. I am puzzling over your post…… are you being serious or am I missing the irony? Forgive me if it is the latter! Obviously the airport runway should always have benefitted from recurring up-grading and maintenance which would have negated the need for the over-blown project that is now going on. Similarly the harbour quays which I gather have been allowed to deteriorate into a shocking state.
As for recycling, you would have had to have your head buried in the sand over the last 30 years to not know that recycling would become increasingly necessary. And Guernsey’s looming waste problem has been easy to predict for a lot longer than that and yet there were no plans to reduce the amount of waste being generated- in fact the complete opposite was happening. Another big flashy project hatched through lack of earlier planning.
Transport is another issue that, with the implicit backing of the Guernsey public, has been ignored for decades creating a bigger and bigger headache which one way or another is going to cost us plenty.
The good years of any industry in Guernsey are always cyclical- they never last for ever. When the going is good, that’s the time to prepare for the downturn by ensuring that the infrastructure is robust and able to withstand a period of slower economic activity.
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What I’m saying is its only recently that we have been told the harbour is in a bad state of disrepair and should have been looked at long ago… no one mentioned it until it was to late, so how were the public to know to badger the deputies.
Recycling such as curb side recycling was not even heard of 30 years ago.
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MarkB. And what I was getting at in my original post is that there is no point having a go at the current deputies for all the capital projects that now need to be addressed when so often they are a result of poor planning years ago. And in several cases the public could have been more pro-active in making sure sensible decisions were being made. SPP harbour is our busiest and most important port so it stands to reason that it will need occasional hefty investments to keep it current and fit for 21stC usage.
Kerbside recycling might not have been commonplace 30 years ago, but recycling certainly was. Every adult in the island could have worked out that on an island of finite size, you can’t expect to go on increasing waste generation ad infinitum without eventually hitting a brick wall. And yet most people seemed quite happy to increase the amount of waste they put out year on year without giving it any thought. When I returned to Guernsey in the early noughties I was amazed that there were no attempts to ask me to minimise the amount of waste I created. No attempts to make the retailers responsible or even aware of the waste they imported into the island. Everyone I asked or questioned about it made it clear that it wasn’t something that they had even thought about. Obviously with that attitude you are storing up costs for later.
And transport is the same. Everyone ‘wants’ to drive everywhere but precious few are willing to consider the eventual costs and problems that that will result in. Which ever group of Deputies that will have to sort out that hornets nest will be accused of being ‘the worst states ever’ when in reality we are all guilty of creating a problem through lack of long-term thinking.
I do agree tho’ that it is an obvious assumption that both harbour and airports should be receiving adequate maintenance. Not however the fault of the current deputies that it was not.
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And we all thought airport was expensive!
Fair does, this will be needed soon. Mind you by time our beloved States debate it many times over etc etc there could be no petrol deliveries coming in (Ha Ha you tinned can lovers, get a 1 hp now just in case)
Seriously though it will be for gas, diesel and other essentials too. This one has been on the horizon for a long time
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Would it not be cheaper to build two new ships instead? Not buildings them anymore, what a load of tosh. The Chinese are building the Titanic 2 I’m sure their shipyards could copy our tankers.
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If we have to build a new fuel berth, which we will, why not make it such that we can put the liners on it as well, would save having to build two and we could lay pipes to the fuel farm across Belgreve Bay, it was built out of the Town harbour, we could then turn the whole of St.Sampsons into a marina?
This would make St. Peter Port the main harbour for all commercial craft, and may bring life back into the town, and St.Sampsons could stay the home of all the charity shops!
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Plans for a deep water berth at St.Sampsons have been appearing and disappearing on for decades, it’s nothing new.
With the world economy in the state it’s in Ted’s idea of building two new ships instead of spending up to 143 million on a new berth makes much more sense.
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The rules for offloading fuel are changing in the next couple of years where vessels will not be allowed to dry out when so a deep water berth is needed.
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What’s the provision for a mass exodus when the finance collapses like the tomatoes did? We will need more than a deep water white elephant to see us through the recession.
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All the talk is for the need of a new berth for tankers. All over the world tankers discharge to an offshore buoy when a berth is not viable, wouldn’t this be a lot cheaper.
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Good idea, but No…. because it won’t quench the thirst of those in charge who like to spend money faster than we can save it.
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Investment=Privatise.
FTP cost savings.
Freight has decreased due to roll on roll off so port storage is minimised.
Cranes upgraded for deck cargo for maybe one cargo vessel a day thus allowing time for containers to be moved away so no point in extra space.
Fuel Storage-pipe line outside st Sampsons Harbour deep[look at Fawley oil depot Southamton]
FTP- save before you spend what you have not got.
The Enviromental Department will not allow anyway for it will not be in being with surrounding enviroment.
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For ‘is needed’, read ‘is wanted’.
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This is about much more than the loss of a car park – This nonsense really has to stop. We are now paying civil servants to sit around dreaming about ridiculous and fanciful schemes that will never ever materialise – and paying a whole host of consultants to produce reports, publicity material, press releases, meetings, logos and mission statements and research into fantasy projects – in short idle dreaming at huge expense – half a billion pounds of work – we don’t have half a billion, we will never have half a billion so stop the day dreaming and do some real work that we pay you richly to do – concentrate on the one or two elements that actually need to happen – rubbish about cruise liner berths – cruise ship passenges only contributed a miserly 1.3 million to the Guernsey economy last year so it is not worth wasting a torteval shilling on them – and probably cost our infrastructure twice as much by bussing around the island gawping at us locals and avoiding spending anything as they already have paid for their all inclusive meals and coffees on the ship – which incidentally will be pumping out masses of diesel fumes keeping its engines on tickover and clogging our harbour with its tenders . We aslo I note have a 380 million pound hole in our civil servants’ pension pot – how on earth are we meant to plug that – and none of them want to contribute another cent themselves – in short the island is 1 billion pounds short if we completed the harbour wish list with a finance industry that is actively contracting and a retail sector that will inevitably go the same way as our main wage earners find they have no pay rises or even jobs – we need to get rid of any civil servants that are in “nice to have” roles and focus purely on those critical for the islands welfare and day to day existence – such titles as “arts development officer” or “recycling initiative co ordinator” say it all – great while we have oodles of cash to spare but really out of sync with economic reality. So civil servants, please no more sitting around idly staring out over the harbour dreaming about your fat pensions paid for by the taxpayer envisaging all manner of infrastructure projects – otherwise next we will have the Airport Director saying we could have a space travel launch pad to service possible Virgin shuttle trips, a Thunderbirds style cave and retracting swimming pool to house the chief minister’s and his acolytes’ escape pod when it all implodes and don’t even get me started on what our Chief of Police might dream up in an idle moment
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As soon as Torteval introduces the concept of paragraphs I will insert Torteval voice of reason into my top three list of candidates for CM
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Ah, but we haven’t got on to paragraphs yet at Torteval, eh ? – we don’t like any of those new fangled things out West- but in fairness our parish school closed probably 40 years ago as a cost cutting measure so we are only just now getting the hang of inverted commas and those fancy book learning phrases that those Townie Civil Servants use like “final salary pension” , “tax free lump sum”, “paid for by the taxpayer” and “it would be in breach of my human rights for me to contribute any more to my pension”
Well, time to get on my pushang to Town and make sure the North Beach car park is still there – opposite the Royal Hotel if I remember correctly and just up the way from Fruit Export ?
Blimey have I gone and used one of them paragraph things without realising it ?
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Torteval voice of reason.
Why don`t we send them dreaming senior civil servants down to Portlet harbour seeing you have more water to accommodate cruise liners.
You have the bunkers up there for our armed forces to spy on pirates coming ashore.
We will need Portlet harbour for our recycled rubbish to depart for Jersey and import the ash from Jersey to spread on your beautiful upper parish landscape.
ok i am dreaming but they say dreams come true.I think these present senior civil servants are just pie in the sky who cannot read what they write
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Torteval voice of Reason. I enjoyed and agreed with most of your post but have to disagree with your suggestion that a ‘recycling initiative co ordinator’ is unnecessary, although for my money, the title ‘recycling officer’ would do just fine!
Recycling is going to a major part of our waste strategy and sadly, owing to the fact that there is a considerable percentage of our population either not recycling at all, or only recycling a fraction of what can be recycled, we are going to need several ‘recycling officers’ ensuring that the whole population engage with the strategy as intended.
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Rosie
I’m really not looking forward to having ten different bins in order to sort out my weekly half bag of rubbish
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2275963/Recycling-Millions-tons-end-landfill-officials-admit-success-exaggerated.html#axzz2KWlF633K
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If you read the Daily Mail, I doubt there’s much you’re looking forward to…
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IWV. It’s a bitch- I agree. But sadly an inevitable consequence of our consumer and over-convenienced lifestyles.
The best method of collection which I have written about several times on here, is if the collection team sort the recyclables into the different types at the road side as they collect. This would mean that householders would only need to separate into 1. Dry recyclable (paper, cardboard) 2. wet recyclables(tins, bottles, plastics) 3.compostables 4. Waste.
The advantage in this type of collection is that contamination is avoided and the quality of the recycling is the best and therefore a good price guaranteed at the market place. The downside is that compared to other collection systems its expensive because you need 5 or 6 people on the team and also collecting might cause traffic congestion. Price wise tho’, the cost is apparently clawed back by the fact that you get no rejections of the materials in the market place so in the long run, it actually works out as the cheapest method. (Sadly, Guernsey is not very good at looking long term so I doubt that they will do this. Also the mere suggestion that something might hold up the traffic…..well, can you imagine! )
Hope you appreciate my liberal use of paragraphs for the ease and pleasure of your reading experience!! ;-)
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CameraShy
So says a Sun reader ?
You must really miss the Dandy now that it has folded
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CameraShy
Read this and weep
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/is-newspaper-of-the-year-at-the-press-awards/s2/a548461/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276720/Daily-Mail-nominated-19-Oscars-Press-Awards.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490#axzz2KWlF633K
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The hard standing at Marine and General cost a cool million to construct. The revenue generated from this is…. Wait for it…. ZERO! That’s right, the tax payer paid for this so a few speed boat enthusiasts could lay up their weekend racer for free.
Millar and Baired are still owed money for the construction of St Sampsons marina.
We now owe a FORTUNE with the new airport runway – what year will this be paid off by I wonder by the time interest is paid?
GREAT IDEA! LETS BUILD A NEW BERTH THAT THE PUBLIC CAN ILL AFORD TO PAY FOR SO WE CAN SAFELY PUMP FUEL INTO FUEL TANKS LOCATED ON SHORE WHICH WOULD POSE A BIGGER THREAT TO THE PUBLIC IF IT ALL WENT UP IN SMOKE!
Sorry people of guernsey, but the people in charge here are the most useless, incompetant, unacountable bunch of subjects that Carlo M. Cipolla studied!!!!!
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Hbc
Are you sure that Marine & General didn’t fund that reclamation themselves ?
Agreed that It certainly doesn’t seem to have been put to any good use
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Yes I’m sure.
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An answer to Rosies question in an earlier post, “who questioned the deputies back along” no one, would you have questioned the late great Tom Ogier because I certainly would not have, they were the untouchables and were not readily available like they are now on the end of the phone to hear our rants.No radio to hear their interviews, we just let them get along with things, the public did not have an opinion, or if they did they certainly did not air it.
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I personally don’t think he did such a bad job. At least he wouldn’t have allowed Greenhouses to be built disguised as houses.
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