AN Islander with a terminal illness that she attributes to the stress and “intolerable suffering” caused by two electrical substations close to her home has testified to an official complaints panel, alleging that the Government has ignored “overwhelming” evidence that the noise and vibration from them break the law.
Michelle Le Cornu, who has lived in a cottage on Drury Lane near the bottom of Trinity Hill for more than 50 years, made a formal complaint to the States of Jersey Complaints Panel, which investigates complaints from members of the public regarding ministerial decisions or ‘maladministration’ by Government departments.
Mrs Le Cornu believes that Environment Minister Steve Luce should have issued an abatement notice to the JEC to stop the noise and vibrations emanating from the substations, which Mrs Le Cornu argues has ruined her life.
However, this is disputed by Deputy Luce and his department, who say that legal nuisance thresholds have not been met to take formal action, based on evidence gathered.
Neither Deputy Luce nor his officers attended yesterday’s [THU] hearing, “due to concerns regarding the way in which the panel was conducted” at a previous hearing.
“I am not prepared to put my officers in a position where they could be subject to personal attack,” he said.
Yesterday, Mrs Le Cornu described in detail about how the low-frequency noise and vibration had impacted her life since they began in September 2021, when she first reported the “spectacular disturbance” to the Environment Department.
She claimed that an Environmental Health officer had initially acknowledged that the noise and vibration – which intensified in the evenings and over the winter, when more electricity is typically consumed – were both real and unacceptable, but had then backtracked.
Mrs Le Cornu said that she had become sensitised to the noise and had not slept for long periods, often having to sleep in her van to escape the noise, the rattling pipes and fixtures, and the high pressure in her home.
Exasperated at the official response, Mrs Le Cornu launched her own investigation, commissioning an engineering firm to conduct tests.
She told the panel: “At the end of 2023, by which time a number of experts had identified a resonance phenomenon with amplification in situ at the property, and we had a first-class structural engineers report confirming this, along with a separate document, with evidence, showing interference between the substations was indisputably the source, we presented this evidence to two Environment officers, expecting that once they’d had time to consider it, they would serve an abatement notice on the JEC.
“They set about making a very poor attempt to trash the engineer’s report. And no-one in the department has ever discussed or mentioned the document of evidence which points indisputably to the source, despite my protestations.”
She added: “This terrible ordeal that I’ve suffered, which I have so desperately sought help to resolve, has now led to my death.
“I have been diagnosed with a terminal illness which a Consultant Oncologist has stated is very likely to have been caused by the excessive and extreme stress of this ordeal over a prolonged period, an opinion backed up by a number of other medical clinicians.”
Friends of Mrs Le Cornu also spoke at the hearing, saying that the “clever, kind and talented” artist and teacher had been deeply affected by her ordeal.
“It is a cruel irony that the fight for her home has become a fight for her life,” said one. “She has been made to feel that she is the problem but, amazingly, she stills the good in others, despite going through what can only be described as a living hell.”
The complaints panel does not have the power to order the minister to act but it can make recommendations should it find the department has not followed the rules and standards by which it must abide.
