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STATES OF JERSEY
Committee of Inquiry:
Reg's Skips Limited - Planning Applications
FRIDAY, 18th DECEMBER 2009
Members:
Mr. J. Mills, C.B.E. (Chairman) Mr. E. Trevor, M.B.E., F.R.I.C.S. Mr. R. Huson
Clerk:
Mr. I. Clarkson (States Greffe)
Witnesses:
Mr. R. Pinel
Mrs. R. Pinel (Owners of the skip haulage company known as Reg's Skips Limited)
[2:15]
Mr. J. Mills (Chairman):
Can we now move to Mr. and Mrs. Pinel, please. Welcome. We changed the order because I think we had a little bit of trouble with the traffic.
Mrs. R. Pinel (Owner of the skip haulage company known as Reg's Skips Limited): Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
Could I just ask you to stand up while I ask you to raise your right hand, please, and I will read out the oath. Do you swear that you will declare the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the present proceedings before this committee of inquiry which you will do so without favour, hatred or partiality as you will answer to Almighty God at your peril?
Mrs. R. Pinel: We do.
Mr. J. Mills:
Thank you. Thank you very much for coming. I think, as has been explained to you, we are going to concentrate today just on the period leading up to the granting of the planning permission for your operations at Heatherbrae Farm. That was done in May 2005. I think the starting point, really, is when you moved some of your operations to La Prairie a while before that. We did have the benefit of a meeting with you in our committee room when you explained some of the earlier background to us, so we do not really need to go over all that again. I think we have a good feel now of the history of your operations and your company up to that point where the Home Farm situation became too difficult, when you then moved to La Prairie. So, I think what I would like you to do fairly briefly for us, please, is just describe what you did when you ... what the company did at La Prairie when you went there and what contact you then had with the Planning Department about the issues at La Prairie which then led to your identifying Heatherbrae Farm. So, that is really the area I think which we are most interested in. If you could just sort of give us your outline thoughts on that, then we can perhaps ask you some of the questions that we need to. Is that all right?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes. Can I have some water, please?
Mr. J. Mills: You may indeed.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
We moved to La Prairie from Home Farm in April 2004 when it finally became obvious that Mr. Le Ruez could do no more to try and save Home Farm for us. We carried on our business in the same way that we were at Home Farm, which was for skip storage and skip sorting. Unfortunately, because La Prairie was a lot smaller than Home Farm, we had to send some of our mixed loads to a company that is a skip company also, among other things now, down at Rue des Pres Trading Estate, Abbey Plant, which was quite a great loss to us financially. We could not do all our own work. Basically, that was how we carried on for the period of time that we were at La Prairie. From the time that we had to go over there, we started looking for alternative premises immediately. We saw quite a few places; I cannot remember all of them, who they were or exactly where they were, but we went after everything that we heard about. A lot of people that we did visit did say that we could go there but they did not want to get involved with Planning: "Oh, you will be all right, you can come in here, you will be fine." We said: "No, we have made one mistake and learned." Where we were for our first yard at Home Farm did not have ... the land did not have permission for change of use to commercial and we were not going to go down that road again, especially not knowingly. I noticed that this morning it was said that we had prepared the hard standing at Home Farm that we were on with our business, but that was not the case. The hard standing was already in place when we went there.
Mr. J. Mills:
Okay, we will make sure we note that.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
So, that was it, really. We just carried on our business and then we heard about the Homestead, which was not far from where we live in St. John, which again was a farm that had given up and size wise the outside area and the shed would have been ideal for us. But unfortunately it was far too close to private residences. The wall separating some of the properties from the outside area, we would have literally been backed on to that which was how close it was. But as we were desperate to find a better place than where we were we, with the blessing of the people who owned the premises, put in the planning application which was turned down.
Mr. J. Mills:
We have just had a note that we might want you to speak a little louder but I think the secret is to put the microphone a bit nearer to you. Does the microphone come off that end? We will just bring it right to the end. That is probably the best way of ... is that better? Is that better? Can you just do a test word into that? We have got to get this right. Just say who you are.
Mrs. R. Pinel: Testing. Testing.
Mr. J. Mills:
That is better.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Okay. So I will speak to the microphone.
Mr. J. Mills:
That is good if you would, thank you. Could you just describe for us ... you said that when you moved to La Prairie you carried on the storage and sorting business that you were engaged in at Home Farm.
Mrs. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
Could you describe to us what storage and sorting of skips involves, what you are doing on that site in the storage and sorting?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Storage is literally what it says. It is storing your bins. The empty ones are there for collection, for taking out to customers whatever they need to have a skip for and bringing in full ones which cannot be taken direct to the tips, i.e. Bellozanne or La Collette. They have materials that have all been placed in one bin and need to be separated which is a part of the recycling process. Although we do not do recycling in the sense that we cannot recycle rubble as A.A. Langlois or W.P. Skips do but we are separating the rubble from the burnables from the green waste from the other materials in the skips so that they can be taken to the recycling ... we take them to A.A. Langlois at La Collette. The rubble goes to Langlois' for recycling.
Mr. J. Mills:
This is driven by the wider policy on the separation of materials and recycling. So if you took a mixed load down to La Collette full of plastic and rubble, they will not accept it.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
They would not accept it.
Mr. J. Mills:
You have to take them one bin of rubble, one bin of plastics or whatever it might be.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
You could take a mixed load to Bellozanne. A mixed load in the size skip that we have, if you take it to Bellozanne you would be issued with a ticket for about £163, I think it is now, for that size.
Mr. J. Mills:
Compared to a load just of one material, how much would that be for Bellozanne?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
At Bellozanne they will take the burnables. At La Collette ...
Mr. R. Huson:
That costs nothing, does it not?
Mr. R. Pinel (Owner of the skip haulage company known as Reg's Skips Limited): That is free of charge.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
That is free of charge. At La Collette, Monday to Friday you take green waste and recyclable rubble and non recyclable for landfill.
Mr. J. Mills:
That is free of charge because they want the material for landfill?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
No, not at La Collette. The green waste is free of charge.
Mr. R. Huson:
Green waste is free, is it not?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
The recyclable rubble is £3.61 inclusive of G.S.T. (Goods and Services Tax) and the landfill rubble is £11.80 a tonne.
Mr. J. Mills:
This is compared with about £163 you said if you take them a mixed load and they have then got to sort it.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes, and they do not want them.
Mr. J. Mills: No, I understand.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
If you were to start turning up there which would be ... we would not be competitive with the other skip companies because they sort their mixed loads. I think the going rate to the customer for a mixed load is about £62 to £65. If we took all our mixed loads - if they would accept them - to Bellozanne we would be having to pass on a charge of £160-something to the customer.
Mr. J. Mills:
I can see that. Your typical customer - let us say a building firm or someone doing construction with a skip outside on the road - they just put everything in it?
Mrs. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
If they are demolishing a house, everything goes in.
Mrs. R. Pinel: Basically, yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
The kitchen sink and the rubble.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes.
Mr. R. Huson:
Sorry, John. Are most of your customer base not more individual people rather than building companies? What is the percentage mix, because I remember you touched on this last time?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes. We have a good mix of customers. We have regular customers all the year through that have bins but they ...
Mr. R. Huson:
Household customers for horse shavings and that sort of thing.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes, we have the customers for their garden waste. Let us just say that we have a number of customers that just have skips for their stable waste. Then we have a few small builders. We are not big enough to cater for the larger builders on the Island but there are quite a few small builders. Joinery workshops.
Mr. R. Huson: All sorts.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
It is a fair mix, yes.
Mr. R. Huson:
Can I ask you a little bit more about that? You said that at Home Farm you did skip storage and skip sorting, because this is really the nub of the whole problem with this thing. How much sorting and how did you do the sorting? Give me a typical week. How many skips would come in mixed with concrete blocks and earth and bits of trees and that sort of thing? How many would you be sorting in a week and how did you sort them there?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
At which place, sorry?
Mr. R. Huson: Home Farm.
Mrs. R. Pinel: Our first place?
Mr. R. Huson: Yes.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
I was not so much involved in that side of things then at the very beginning.
Mr. R. Huson:
But I mean roughly. Would it be 20 skips?
Mr. R. Pinel:
Say 20 a week possibly.
Mr. R. Huson:
And you sorted them by hand?
Mr. R. Pinel: By hand.
Mr. R. Huson:
So you tip them out, sort them by hand.
Mr. R. Pinel:
No. We used to have empty skips. Then we would have 3 empty skips and the lorry would reverse to the middle one. This was when the driver would do it himself. He would start to empty, tip the bin up halfway and then you would have burnables so throw that in that skip. You would have some blocks and what have you. That was going to be the easy way to do it. You would put it in the middle skip which was underneath you. Then your right one would be for the metal. So the driver would do it until he has emptied his skip. I mean this could take 10 minutes. It could take half an hour. It depends how much rubble he has.
Mr. R. Huson:
But if it is all mixed up together, it could be quite hard work.
Mr. R. Pinel:
That is right. In fact I have brought a photograph here just to show you of what you can get in the bottom of a skip. It is just the one. Just the bottom one. It was hard work.
Mr. J. Mills:
That is just of a big lump of concrete that must weigh a tonne or goodness knows what.
Mr. R. Pinel:
That is just a lump of concrete.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
It is set in the skip. Can you see the shape?
Mr. R. Pinel: Set in the skip.
[14:30]
Mr. J. Mills:
On the model you describe, if you had it tipped up it would slide out.
Mr. R. Pinel: That is right.
Mr. J. Mills:
Assuming it was not ... if it had set on the bottom you ...
Mrs. R. Pinel: It is stuck. Mr. R. Pinel:
That was tipped at Heatherbrae when we were at Chris Taylor 's yard. But this was just to give you some idea of what you can have in the bottom of a skip. No way can a man handle that sort of stuff. So this is where, when we were at La Prairie, if I had a skip, all the drivers would call me and say: "Look we have got a skip. Can we just go and do it?" So I would say put it down and I would call this chap, Mr. Le Neveu it was.
Mr. J. Mills: Mr. who, sorry?
Mr. R. Pinel: Bob Le Neveu.
Mr. J. Mills:
Can we make a note of that?
Mr. R. Pinel:
Who is a drainlayer; he has diggers and what have you. And say: "Bob, I am a bit stuck. I have got a skip that has got - say for argument's sake - a big tree root in it. When you are passing is there any chance of you just ripping that out for me?" "Certainly." I will show you there. But this only sort of happened 2 or 3 times maybe in the time that we were at La Prairie. But otherwise most of the time if we knew that it was really ... because the driver knows when he picks the bin up whether he has to put his stabiliser and legs down or not. About 2.5 tonne you do not need stabilisers so you know that it is pretty light. But if you pick your bin up and you can feel the front of your truck come up, you know it is heavy. In those days we would say: "Right, this goes down to Abbey Plant. Let them deal with it."
Mr. J. Mills:
So Abbey Plant in practice did quite a lot of this for you when you were at La Prairie?
Mr. R. Pinel: About 50 per cent.
Mr. J. Mills:
This is because you did not have the space at La Prairie?
Mr. R. Pinel: About 50 per cent.
Mr. J. Mills:
I presume if you are doing this model with 3 skips side by side, you need a bit of space obviously.
Mr. R. Pinel:
That is right. That is right.
Mr. R. Huson:
So you were using Abbey Plant when you were at Home Farm as well?
Mrs. R. Pinel: No.
Mr. R. Huson:
Your business was small enough then that you could cope with this ...
Mr. R. Pinel:
Sorry, at Home Farm we had plenty of room.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
It was a bigger yard.
Mr. R. Pinel: Possibly 20 skips long.
Mr. R. Huson: Oh, right.
Mr. R. Pinel:
There was loads of room up there. Not like when we moved to La Prairie there was only ...
Mr. R. Huson:
What I am trying to say is it was more the volume of business that was going on at Home Farm was not so much and you had plenty of room so you could physically manhandle this stuff into the 3 bins.
Mr. R. Pinel: That is right.
Mr. R. Huson:
Right. Did Planning know at this stage that you were physically sorting skips?
Mr. J. Mills:
Let us come on to the relationship with Planning in just a moment at the La Prairie plant. Let us just be clear what you were doing at La Prairie first. I think you have explained that. You were obviously storing but you were also sorting. Much of the sorting was by hand but you were also calling in this chap with a digger, a big thing, when you needed it. You did not own your own digger at that point?
Mr. R. Pinel: No.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
We did say, as I said when we met you previously, seeing how much easier it made it when we had the occasional use of the machine, that if we ever got a decent yard where we could be permanently placed we would purchase our own machine, which we did.
Mr. J. Mills:
Had you had such a machine at La Prairie, was there simply no room for it?
Mr. R. Pinel:
There would not have been room.
Mr. J. Mills:
Not to keep it there.
Mr. R. Pinel: No.
Mr. J. Mills:
It is quite a small site.
Mr. R. Pinel:
It was only a little site, that is right.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Also being access from the main road it would not have been safe really. At Home Farm we would have been able to have a machine there if we had not encountered these problems.
Mr. J. Mills:
One other question before we go on to the Planning relationship. You started up the business in 2000. Just under 4 years later you went to La Prairie so you had been at Home Farm for a while. Had your business grown in this time?
Mrs. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
From obviously a zero start. What sort of growth pattern just in broad terms? Was it a good growth pattern?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
It was. It was quick. When we started off it was just Reg, one lorry and 50 bins.
Mr. R. Pinel:
In September 2000.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
In September 2000. Then we took our second driver on.
Mr. R. Pinel: January.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
His lorry arrived in January 2001 and we ordered some more bins. Who came next?
Mr. R. Pinel: Keith came in 2002.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Keith, 2002, and Alan as well the same year.
Mr. R. Pinel:
Alan started in 2002.
Mr. J. Mills:
So by the time you went to La Prairie you had 4 drivers.
Mr. R. Pinel: Four drivers.
Mr. J. Mills:
And 4 lorries obviously.
Mr. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
How many bins would that be?
Mr. R. Pinel: Was it 350 bins?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
We must have been just about on the full amount.
Mr. R. Pinel:
I would say 350 bins.
Mr. J. Mills:
So that was a steady growth pattern, yes.
Mr. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
So there was a real incentive on you to find somewhere else where you could operate and carry on with it.
Mrs. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
Edward, do you have anything else on this aspect?
Mr. E. Trevor:
Not on that. I am more interested in ...
Mr. J. Mills:
Shall we turn to the Planning Department relationship? You said you arrived at La Prairie at April 2004.
Mrs. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
We heard this morning that you received a letter from Mr. Bisson, the enforcement officer, which was read out this morning. That letter was sent on to you on 19th August, which is about 5 months or so later. Can you describe to us, please, when you first had contact with Planning or indeed they with you in this period after April and what, in your recollection, happened leading up in the first instance to Mr. Bisson's letter of August?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Because Mr. Le Ruez was handling everything really over Home Farm, as tenants we had very little contact with anybody from Planning. They were contacting Mr. Le Ruez. I think it is quite possible - but I am not certain - that Gerry Bisson ... and we were also dealing with Mr. Doublet . John Doublet .
Mr. J. Mills:
The other enforcement officer.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes, who Mike Porter replaced. It is possible that Gerry Bisson may have phoned you although I do not recall ... we definitely had the 2 letters.
Mr. J. Mills:
The beginning of Mr. Bisson's letter says: "I refer to your skip storage at the above property." That is La Prairie. "I think Mr. Le Ruez, owner of this land, may have spoken to you following my telephone conversation with him." So Mr. Bisson has obviously had a conversation with Mr. Le Ruez. Had Mr. Bisson spoken with you before he sent you this letter?
Mrs. R. Pinel: Not to me.
Mr. R. Pinel:
I cannot remember speaking to Gerry at all.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
I did not know who he was when I saw him here this morning. We certainly never met him.
Mr. J. Mills:
Okay. But Mr. Le Ruez, who was the owner, had he spoken to you? Did he say to you that Planning had been on to him?
Mrs. R. Pinel: No.
Mr. J. Mills:
So did this letter come out of the blue to you?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes, out of the blue in that we were not expecting to receive a letter like that. But not out the blue in that we were not surprised that people were not happy. We were not happy being on view to the main road. We were not surprised that passers-by might be complaining or even people living across the road in the apartments that used to be the hotel. It was not nice for them.
Mr. J. Mills:
Had anybody complained to you while you were there on site?
Mrs. R. Pinel: No, nobody.
Mr. J. Mills:
Okay. So you had this letter from Mr. Bisson. What happened then? What did you do when you received this letter? You never met Mr. Bisson, you said.
Mrs. R. Pinel: No.
Mr. J. Mills: Never.
Mrs. R. Pinel: Never.
Mr. R. Pinel:
I think Mr. Le Ruez said just to carry on as we were doing because there was no permit needed for that bit of land. I was pretty sure that was what Gerald said.
Mr. J. Mills:
So nothing changed after the 19th August?
Mr. R. Pinel:
Nothing changed really.
Mrs. R. Pinel: No.
Mr. R. Pinel:
Hold on. We took some land at Bonne Nuit, did we not?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes, where we are now in McQuaig's at the top of Bonne Nuit Hill, at that time when we were in Le Prairie, John André, the concrete ... what do you call him?
Mr. R. Pinel:
He was a paver ...
Mrs. R. Pinel: Ready mix concrete.
Mr. R. Pinel:
He had a small area at McQuaig's Quarry at Mr. Pallot's. He said if you want I will rent you half the space which we did. But we spoke with Mr. Doublet , the law enforcement officer, and told him what was going on. He says there are some people down in that area that like to complain. He says: "As soon as I receive any complaints I shall phone you and I will get in touch with you. Please, Reg, move fast." Which I think was probably about 4 months ago really.
Mr. J. Mills:
Sorry, what do you mean: "Please, Reg, move fast"?
Because of the complaints in McQuaig's, that we did not have permits.
Mr. J. Mills:
I see, so find somewhere else.
Mr. R. Pinel: That is right.
Mr. J. Mills:
I see what you mean.
Mr. R. Pinel:
So we were only sorting mixed loads. I think there was room for about 4 skips there. It was right in the corner. So we were taking some mixed loads from La Prairie to Bonne Nuit also.
Mr. J. Mills:
Right. Mr. Doublet , the other enforcement officer, was aware of that?
Mr. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
He was not taking any enforcement action but he was saying to you: "Reg, you need to get this sorted."
Mr. R. Pinel:
That is right. When I called he said ... because I had received some complaints from the neighbours.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
He turned a blind eye to it basically to help us out.
Mr. J. Mills:
Did any complaints come to your attention?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
The gentleman down below in the bungalow must have complained because Mr. Doublet contacted Reg and said: "You need to get out of there quick. We have had some complaints." The reason why we accepted Mr. André's offer to sublet a little area to us to do some sorting was so that we could take back a few of the ones that we were having to take to Abbey because we were losing a lot of money.
Mr. R. Pinel:
The money is in sorting out a few mixed loads.
Mr. J. Mills:
So then you were pursuing the Homestead option but that of course fell into other difficulties and, in a sense, that does not concern us very much, I do not think.
Mrs. R. Pinel: No.
Mr. J. Mills:
Can you describe how you got to know about Heatherbrae Farm and can you remember when that was?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
I will just bring the Homestead application back into the equation because that is where I come to speak with Emma Baxter. It was the first time I met Emma.
Mr. J. Mills:
Right, I am with you.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Our application had been rejected and we asked for reconsideration of the application. Deputy Rondel ... at the time the Planning President was Senator Ozouf . He asked if we could have a visit at the Homestead by the full committee, excluding Richard Dupre who was Constable of St. John who was on the sub-committee. What is it they say when ...
Mr. R. Pinel:
He was conflicted.
Mr. J. Mills:
They were conflicted.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
He knew us personally.
Mr. J. Mills:
Yes, right, I am with you.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
He was conflicted. But everybody else came up apart from Richard.
Mr. J. Mills:
That was after you had been rejected?
Mrs. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
This is after you had requested for reconsideration?
Mrs. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
I see. That is when you met Emma Baxter.
Mrs. R. Pinel: Yes.
Mr. J. Mills:
She was accompanying the committee.
She was with the committee. They went back and decided that the decision to refuse should be maintained. But it was Emma that phoned me to tell me the news that they were not going to pass it for us. She did say that when she had time she would have a look to see if they had anything on their books up at Planning that might be suitable for us and if she did find something she would give me a call. But, as I said, she could not put a timescale on it because she was very busy. Before I heard from Emma again, we had heard ... I think it was possibly Mark Hamon from Ged Sparks that said to Reg: "Why do you not have a word with Chris Taylor from Heatherbrae Farm? He might have a space there for you." Reg made contact with Chris.
[14.45]
Mr. R. Huson:
That was your first inclination that something would be a possibility at Heatherbrae?
Mrs. R. Pinel: Yes, at Heatherbrae.
Mr. R. Huson: That was your first.
Mrs. R. Pinel: The very first.
Mr. R. Huson:
Not even Emma Baxter said ...
Mrs. R. Pinel: No.
Mr. R. Huson:
She had not said anything. She just said: "I will be on the lookout."
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes, she was going to look at what she might have information about at Planning. Once Reg spoke with Chris, I phoned Emma and said that I think we have found somewhere that might be suitable for us. I gave her all the details and it went from there. She said she would get in touch with Mr. Taylor .
Mr. J. Mills:
Which we have heard about earlier.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes. We were out of it then. It all went on with Mr. Taylor and Emma and ... well, she was Miss Clapshaw then, Elizabeth.
Mr. J. Mills:
So you were, in a sense, out of that loop until you heard, presumably from Mr. Taylor , that the application had been granted?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes. I think the next contact we had was from Planning - I think it was Emma - that Heatherbrae would be passed for us but we would have to sign an agreement saying that we would give up the top of
Beaumont, La Prairie completely. That they would not allow us to have 2 sites running in tandem which we were more than happy to do.
Mr. J. Mills:
Did they say anything about the Bonne Nuit site?
Mrs. R. Pinel: No.
Mr. R. Pinel:
That has never been mentioned.
Mrs. R. Pinel: No, that was ...
Mr. J. Mills:
That was never mentioned but you moved from that as well.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
Yes. As soon as John phoned Reg and said: "Somebody has complained. Get yourself out of there." That was it.
Mr. J. Mills:
How long were you at Bonne Nuit for?
Mr. R. Pinel:
I think it was about 4 months, was it not?
Mrs. R. Pinel: Not long.
Mr. R. Pinel:
We would have to have a look what rent we paid. I could tell you if it was 5 months ...
Mr. J. Mills:
But a few months, that sort of period?
Mr. R. Pinel:
Yes, it would be just a matter of a few months.
Mr. J. Mills:
That is very helpful. Edward, anything?
Mr. E. Trevor: No.
Mr. R. Pinel:
That was the only time that we ever met Emma Baxter was at the Homestead. We have never met her before or since. Only once we ever met the lady. Rita spoke to her on the phone.
And you never met Mr. Bisson? You have already told us that.
Mr. R. Pinel:
I knew of Mr. Bisson over the years. I mean on different sites.
Mr. J. Mills:
But you did not meet on this business?
Mrs. R. Pinel: No.
Mr. J. Mills:
You met Mr. Doublet ?
Mr. R. Pinel:
John Doublet at Home Farm.
Mr. J. Mills:
Right. You did not meet the other panel? You met the committee, of course, when they came up to the Homestead.
Mr. R. Pinel:
At the Homestead, yes. In fact that is when Deputy Rondel wanted to take it to the States, to the House, he says because Senator Ozouf was conflicted, if you like, through the agriculture side of things, and also Deputy Mark Taylor of St. Clement at the time was also conflicted because of his involvement with his son-in-law, A.A. Langlois Haulage.
Mr. J. Mills:
That was the link. I could not ... because he stood back from the decision on the complaints.
Mr. R. Pinel:
Phil Rondel wanted to take it to the House, you see. He said that those 2 chaps should not have been involved. We said: "No, we do not."
Mr. J. Mills:
Deputy Taylor withdrew from the Planning Sub-committee. We established that this morning.
Mrs. R. Pinel: He did.
Mr. J. Mills:
He did not take part in the ... that was the decision on the pre-application advice, he did not take part in.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
He came to the site visit but he did not take part in the vote.
Mr. R. Pinel:
I thought they told us in the afternoon it was Mike Taylor , Phil Ozouf and Jacqui Huet that had gone against us and there was Jerry Dorey and Guy de Faye that voted for us.
We will check that out. The lists are all there somewhere. But I understand the point you make. I think we have heard what we needed to hear from you this afternoon. Is there anything else you want to say at this point about this particular part of the business?
Mrs. R. Pinel:
I do not think so. I will just check my notes from this morning.
Mr. R. Pinel:
The guy who was our closest neighbour, if you like, at La Prairie, the Tile Barn, had no complaints whatsoever. In fact we did quite a lot of work together. That was a close neighbour. There was also the other people who rented the house, that was a Miss Syvret. She used to occasionally rent our skips. So the very closest neighbours to ... we were in the same yard, had no problems with us.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
One point that I have already covered was the mention that we had prepared the hard standing at Home Farm which we did not.
Mr. J. Mills:
Yes, we have noted that.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
When Mr. Le Ruez had to make an application in retrospect for us, for change of use to commercial for his piece of land that we were on, I note we thought that being tagged on to the end of A.C. Mauger that had all been covered by Planning. That is probably why we did not think that there was any cause for concern that we were there because we were right on top of A.C. Mauger. But then having looked back more recently I see that A.C. Mauger then at that time, when Planning got involved over Gerald having us there, that they had to make a retrospective application for part of the land that they were on but theirs was passed and Gerald's for us was not. You were mentioning this morning about other skip companies which I notice Planning did not offer very much information on.
Mr. J. Mills:
We have asked Planning for some more information on that.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
You know at the top of Beaumont where we were at La Prairie is still today a skip yard. Skinner's Skips is in there. He does not do his sorting there because he has got quite a lot of empty skips in at the moment. But he does, probably at the weekend like us when you cannot get to the tip because they are closed, sometimes he has some full skips standing there. But just around the corner on the corner of Rue des Vignes there is a farm called Bradford Farm. He has got a yard there as well. That was his original yard and that is where he does his sorting. Of course, you know of Broadlands. That is another story.
Mr. J. Mills:
We note that because it is important for us, as we discussed this morning, to be clear about the overall context and the way Planning dealt with skip companies. That is something, as we said this morning, we will be exploring.
Mr. R. Pinel:
At Home Farm where we were, that field had been dug out. Mr. Le Ruez had permission 5 years previously possibly to dig it out because it was no good for agriculture or anything and it was all in- filled. That is possibly why Gerald thought, it is no good for anything. There was also a big concrete pad where there used to be during the occupation a gun locker. It is not very far from the airport. Of course that has covered with topsoil over the years. But that concrete is still there.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
I do not think there is any more that we can add.
Mr. J. Mills:
Thank you very much for your evidence this afternoon. That is very helpful to us. I think we have got a clearer picture now than we had before of the early events in the issues that we are charged with looking at. We will go away and think about all that. We will ask you to look at the transcript for accuracy so that there are no obvious howlers in it or mistakes in transcription. As I said this morning, we will have our next public hearing probably in the first half of February. We are not quite sure yet. It will be a Friday probably but we have not quite got a date fixed yet. I expect we will ask you to come back again at the point.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
So that will be to carry on from ...
Mr. J. Mills:
We now want to carry on. We want to take it in stages because I think that helps our own understanding. It seemed to us that putting this into sort of bite size chunks was rather easier than trying to do the whole thing at once.
Mrs. R. Pinel:
So this has gone up to the day we moved into ...
Mr. J. Mills:
We have now got to Heatherbrae. We have now got to you arriving at Heatherbrae with the planning permission that was granted that we heard about this morning. We will take the story on from there next time. Thank you very much indeed for coming. It is appreciated.
Mrs. R. Pinel: Thank you.
Mr. J. Mills:
I think at that point we close the hearing. That is the end of our evidence for today. We will be issuing an advertisement for a next hearing which will probably be, as I said, in the first half of February and probably on a Friday. But that is not absolutely fixed yet. Thank you all for your attendance. We appreciate it very much.
[14:56]