Auditor General to Look at Sewage Plans

Manx Utilities says it will be meeting the island’s new Auditor General this month to present him with its work on the Laxey and Baldrine sewage plans.

Stephen Warren was appointed as the island’s first Auditor General, a position designed to find savings in the gov’s spending of taxpayers’ money.

While the MUA has repeatedly stated it is uneconomical for the authority to pump Garff’s sewage to Meary Veg, some residents in the Garff parish dispute that the figures add up.

This reached a new stage in April when Manx Utilities unveiled plans to build a site at Axnfell Plantation, which wasn’t one of the 50 sites it initially said it was looking at after residents and eventually planners rejected plans for a site near the village’s harbour.

At an extraordinary meeting to discuss the plans, the board of Garff Commissioners voted unanimously to lobby MHKs to request for Tynwald to commission an independent engineering evaluation of the proposed schemes and to write to the incoming Auditor General asking him to examine the cost ramifications of the schemes.

It is this request to engage with Mr Warren that has led to Manx Utilities electing to meet with him.

Planning

After the previous failure to gain planning approval, the MUA is participating in the trial of the Major Planning Applications Process, which involve extensive pre-application consultations. It is believed that a full application will be submitted in the autumn.

However, this left Commissioners uneasy, with members voicing their concerns that it will make it harder for residents to have their opinions heard on proposals for a sewage treatment plant.

The total budget agreed by Tynwald for the works in the east, as well as the new sewage works in Peel, is a combined £40.5m.