States may be asked to resolve St Helier waste charges

Saturday 13 May 2017

Should the States pay to remove a legal block on St Helier being charged to dispose of parishioners' rubbish, and so pave the way for commercial waste charges? Despite losing the battle in the courts, the Parish's Constable has now met senior ministers to argue a political case instead.

Parishioners recently voted unanimously in favour of taking their fight to the Privy Council in a last-ditch attempt to preserve the 1952 ‘Bellozanne Covenant’, which was part of the deal when St Helier sold the land to the States, to make way for a waste incinerator.

But now with Ministers keen to usher in waste charges, the validity of that covenant has been challenged, and the Parish has lost both a court case and a subsequent appeal against the Department for Infrastructure.

Legal costs are currently in the hundreds of thousands and could be set to rocket even higher if the Parish loses a Privy Council appeal.

Hoping to prevent that, Constable Simon Crowcroft met Chief Minister Ian Gorst and Minister for Infrastructure Eddie Noel to find out if a, “…political solution that doesn’t leave the Parish out of pocket” could be reached.

Pictured: Constable Simon Crowcroft, who said that the States' will to invalidate the 'Bellozanne Covenant', "...doesn't argue well for the idea that St Helier is a strategic priority for the States or for the Government."

“I said I’ll take a proposition to the States to ask the States to agree a fair price for the lifting of the covenant, and that price of course, will at the very least include paying all the legal fees involved, because it’s in the States’ interest to have the covenant removed so that it can start charging for waste, so I regard paying our legal fees as well as their own as a very small price to pay for clearing the way for waste charges to come in,” Constable Crowcroft told Express.

While the Council of Ministers are yet to pass judgement on whether to accept the Constable’s recommendation, Constable Crowcroft maintains that, although it would be, “a bitter pill to swallow” for the Parish, it may well be the best possible outcome for parishioners, who he says are already angry at the States for having broken the promise made all those years ago.

“I put it to them that it’s just not right that the States can break their word like this, take the Parish to Court, and then we’re facing a large legal bill because the States breaking their word. It doesn’t really augur well for the idea that St Helier is a strategic priority for the States or for the Government.”

If the Ministers agree, Constable Crowcroft says he'll leave the decision with how to proceed with his parishioners.