A MINISTER has pledged to seek to improve communication with residents after around 100 people attended a public meeting in St Peter to express ongoing frustrations over a giant sewage storage tank in the parish.
Infrastructure Minister Jonathan Renouf and officials from his department attended the parish hall meeting to discuss concerns of those attending.
Deputy Arlene Maltman said that the attenuation tank project, which is part of a wider upgrade of St Peter’s drainage network, intended to increase capacity for future housing development and reduce flood risk, had been the main focus of the 90-minute meeting.
“The number of people who came out showed the high level of angst about the project – residents are fed up and it was good that they had the chance to express themselves,” she said.
Specific issues included the noise and dust from the site, leaving some parishioners unable to sit outside their homes during the summer, with some complaining that an undertaking to provide window cleaning for those affected had not been actioned.
Other concerns included those who used well water in their homes saying that their water supplies had been affected by contractors pumping out groundwater, as well as criticism about communication.
Deputy Renouf told the JEP there were two particular areas of focus he had identified after attending the meeting.
“It shows you can never do too much communication,” he said. “We thought people would have been able to find out info via the weekly newsletter, but there had obviously been a gap.”
The minister said he had not previously been aware of the well water issue – he acknowledged this was an “important” matter and said that work was underway to find out more and identify solutions.
An issue with missed window cleaning was believed to stem from a change to the schedule resulting from the August bank holiday, he added.
St Peter Constable Richard Vibert, who was unable to attend the meeting due to being on holiday, said in a written statement that “the project has had a significant impact on some of the residents and will continue to do so over the next few months”.
He added: “At the same time, without this work the urgently-needed 170 family homes planned for St Peter and further homes in St Ouen cannot be delivered.
“Sadly we are in this position because of the failure to upgrade our infrastructure over the last couple of decades.”
Another topic raised during the meeting was the impact on residents and local businesses of the long-running roadworks project in the centre of the parish, closing the Grand Route de St Pierre for much of the year until its recent completion.
