Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Bridging Liquid Waste Strategy Review
Scrutiny
15 January 2024
Jersey has a pressing need to invest in the Island’s liquid waste and drainage infrastructure, which is holding up affordable housing developments and posing risks of flooding from surface water. The Environment, Housing, and Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel (the Panel) has been reviewing the Government’s Bridging Liquid Waste Strategy Update 2023-26 (BLWS). While acknowledging the huge task and cost required, the Panel has serious concerns about the urgency of the work and need for a sustainable long-term financing plan to be agreed. The Panel’s review has resulted in 23 recommendations to Government. In order to meet additional housing needs and enable already approved projects to go ahead, significant investment (£52.4m) in increasing the capacity of our ageing sewerage and drainage network is required. The importance of this to the Island, and the investment and strategic approach needed to achieve it, prompted the Panel’s review of the BLWS. The review was informed by key stakeholders and by expert advisers, Indepen UK.
Other key recommendations relate to the funding of the necessary upgrades. The Panel’s review has found that the BLWS will increase charges significantly per household, and beyond those of comparable island states. The Panel believes the strategy is based on a cost and risk approach with limited options presented and risks not quantified. It recommends that there should be a longer-term approach to the planning and funding of key infrastructure capital projects, with Ministers working collaboratively and that the Infrastructure and Environment Dept reviews its risk tools and metrics to improve investment decisions.
Deputy Steve Luce, Chair of the Environment, Housing and Infrastructure Panel, said: ‘We are urging the Government to push ahead quickly with the short-term liquid waste works that have been identified and can meet urgent needs. We are also making several recommendations in relation to surface water management which we feel is currently dealt with in a siloed approach and requires new approaches to the problem.
‘In addition, the Bridging Liquid Waste Strategy 2023-2026, has not been informed by stakeholder and community engagement and consultation. We feel it imperative that this is done to ensure the right priorities are being addressed and the necessary resources can be delivered to do so. The BLWS is more of an asset management plan than a strategy and more consultation and research into alternative options and approaches, should be undertaken. We’ve recommended that a partnered approach is taken between Government and Jersey Water to implement an Integrated Water Management Plan by the end of 2025.
‘Notwithstanding the very long timescales for these drainage works, there is also the question of funding that needs to be resolved. Both these issues must, and the Panel stress must, be a top priority for the Minister for Infrastructure and Minister for Treasury and Resources to address in the immediate future. This issue cannot be left for the next Government to solve, as has been done in the past.’
You can read the full report or a digital summary.
