St Helier calls time on legal fight with States

Wednesday 12 July 2017

The Parish of St Helier has voted to drop the legal fight with the States over removing the Bellozanne Covenant - a 65-year-old deal granting Parish residents free waste disposal - paving the way for new commercial waste charges.

At a parish assembly last night at the Town Hall, parishioners voted 29:4 to take no further action in a fight with the Department for Infrastructure (DfI). Previously, parishioners had opted to take the issue of the Bellozanne Covenant to the Privy Council after two court decisions in Jersey went against them.

As the Parish lost the original case and a subsequent appeal, parishioners are now faced with paying both their own legal bill of £256,000 – which has already been settled – as well as that of their opponent, the DfI.

Prior to the parish assembly, Constable Crowcroft urged parishioners not to continue the legal fight any further, telling Express: “…in view of the uncertainty of a successful outcome and the potential high cost to the Parish of further legal proceedings at the Privy Council, a line should be drawn under the matter."

St Helier's Parish Assembly voted 29:4 this eve to take no further legal action to overturn cout rulings that Bellozanne Covenant is spent

— Simon Crowcroft (@SimonCrowcroft) July 11, 2017

Parish Assembly @StHelierJsy voted this evening to drop appeal to Privy Council & rely on Ministers' support re payment of legal fees

— Geraint Jennings (@GeraintJennings) July 11, 2017

In the lead up to the vote, town Constable Simon Crowcroft said in a Parish assembly proposition that he had “received assurances” from the Chief Minister and Minister for Infrastructure Eddie Noel that the Parish would not have to take on Infrastructure’s costs too following a “verbal agreement” on Friday.

This was then disputed by Deputy Noel, who told Express that no agreement had been reached. He said that the Constable had been “premature” in publishing the proposal and that, upon further investigation, it turned out that it would be illegal.

Pictured: Minister for Infrastructure Deputy Eddie Noel said that the Constable should not have assumed that DfI would pay for their own legal costs, following a months-long battle in the Royal Court and Court of Appeal.

“We told him that we’d like to [cover our own legal costs], but we needed to check whether we were legally allowed to… I was quite surprised that the Constable lodged it when he did and that it was tweeted by one of his Procureurs and publicised when we hadn’t been able to give him any confirmation,” he said.

The only way to “trump” this law, Deputy Noel explained, would be to secure a majority of votes in the States Assembly.

Constable Crowcroft told Express that he now has a proposition “ready to go” to the States Assembly in which he asks that the States help to cover the legal costs of the DfI, rather than the Parish footing the bill.

He hopes to secure the backing of the Chief Minister and Deputy Noel, as well as the parish’s 11 representatives - one of whom, Deputy Richard Rondel, may have a difficult decision ahead, given his dual role as St Helier politician and Assistant Minister in the DfI.

The overturning of the Bellozanne Covenant has wider implications as it clears the way for the DfI to bring in commercial waste charges, now Parish residents are no longer afforded free waste disposal.