Parish fighting minister’s waste charge plan in court today

Thursday 02 June 2016

Lawyers are fighting it out today over whether the States have the right to levy a £10 million waste charge for commercial waste.

The charge is part of ministers’ plans to fill the £145 million deficit that is forecast to appear in States finances by 2019 – but an old legal agreement from more than 60 years ago is potentially standing in their way.

The sale of the Bellozanne site by the Parish of St Helier to the States in 1952 included a clause that said the States could never charge St Helier residents for waste disposal.

Today, lawyers acting for the States and the Parish of St Helier are due in the Royal Court over whether that clause should be set aside – Infrastructure Minister Eddie Noel wants to scrap the covenant so that he can press ahead with plans for commercial waste charges, but St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft has pledged to force them to honour the agreement.

The position of the Infrastructure department is made more complicated by the fact that as recently as 2005 they admitted that they had been advised that the legal agreement was binding.

In the Solid Waste Strategy from 2005, they wrote: “The legal advice to the Committee is that it is implicit in this obligation to accept the refuse free of charge.

“The Committee has made preliminary investigations into the options for resolving this situation, and will negotiate with the Parish of St Helier to find a satisfactory way forward.”