More delays on the future of Jersey's waste site

Toxic waste will be dumped at Jersey’s La Collette headland for at least another six months because a decision on future of controversial site has been deferred.

In 2016, the Jersey's Infrastructure minister put forward a proposal to increase the size of the site.

Last month, the Jersey's Planning Committee recommended this application was refused - which would have meant that from Friday (14 April) people would no longer be able to dump their waste.

But now a decision has been made to defer the application for six months.

Deputy Tom Binet says the decision is very welcome: "People have been kicking the can down the road for too long, we're now picking that can up and dealing with it.

"You can't deal with this overnight and I think to shut the building industry down for as long as it's going to take to resolve this problem would be catastrophic.

"So yes I'm very pleased and greatly relieved as should everyone else be. We have to come up with a something in that six months, this practical problems got to be dealt with."

There’s currently no planning permission in place for La Collette. Credit: ITV Channel

The site currently receives more hazardous waste than it is allowed, and it is expected that this will soon be the case with inert waste too.

A lot of this waste comes from the building industry, that says the situation should have been dealt with sooner.

Ben Cairney, a construction company owner, said: "Everybody's known for a very long time that La Collette has been getting very full.

"When you're digging the foundations we're going to find clay, that has got no value, it cannot be used for anything and it has to be dealt with at La Collette.

"If we can't get rid of it then essentially building will stop, which is madness considering we're in a housing crisis and we need to build more houses."

The pile is made up of a series of metal lined 'pits' made up of contaminated soil and ash, finished off with inert building waste and topsoil.

And though the States dispute their findings, one campaign group has been researching the area since the mound began and say they're seeing seepage into the marine environment.

Environmental campaigner Dave Cabeldu says the pits on the bottom are "being squashed by the ones on the top and they are consistently leaking metals into the bay".

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