Tag: Wcas

Excellent Service Isn’t a Myth—It’s a Choice

I know that many of you are very concerned about the provision of services in Patrick, particularly the ongoing situation at the Western Amenity Site. I share your concerns. While a reasonable service is expected, I believe we should be aiming for an outstanding service.

Excellent Service Isn’t a Myth—It’s a Choice

Before the laughter starts and the endless tirade of jokes about services across the Isle of Man begins, I want to highlight something important: I have seen what excellent performance looks like, and it is achievable. I wrote extensively about this in a blog post on my site last month.

So, where does that leave us?

The government has published a Waste Strategy 2025-2035 (available on my site), and I have highlighted the most important sections of the report below. Arguably, one could say that if the public throws their support behind this, we should see better services, as many improvements will finally be legislated.

However, legislation alone will not produce excellent services. That requires much tighter oversight from Local Boards.

Currently, the will for that oversight just isn’t there. In my observation, local boards only make changes when there is “blood in the streets”—figuratively speaking. If you want better services, you need to make it very plain to your commissioners that you demand improvement. You probably need to remind them at every occasion you get—at least once a month.

What a drag, hey? But it’s the only way things move.

Below is a summary of the report below.

The new Waste Strategy 2025-2035 introduces several proposals that directly affect waste management in the West, particularly concerning the Western Civic Amenity Site (WCAS) and regional disposal facilities like Wrights Pit North.

The key proposals in relation to the West include:

1. Transformation of Civic Amenity Sites

The strategy aims to standardize and secure the future of the four regional civic amenity sites, including the Western site:

  • Legal Duty: The Department of Infrastructure (DoI) proposes making the provision of Civic Amenity Sites a legal duty for Local Authorities to ensure the service is secured for the long term.
  • Performance Standards: The DoI intends to introduce set service levels and performance standards to address the current differences in service provision and recycling opportunities across the four regional sites.
  • Mandatory Reuse Centres: The strategy proposes that all sites, including WCAS, incorporate reuse centres where items like electrical goods can be collected for reuse rather than disposal.
  • New Governance Model: A waste service governance and oversight model will be developed to report on compliance with these new standards.

2. Regional Landfill Changes (Wrights Pit North)

The West is currently home to Wrights Pit North, one of the Island’s two operational landfill sites:

  • Expected Closure: The strategy notes that Wrights Pit North, which currently accepts asbestos, plasterboard, and contaminated soil, is expected to be full within the next five years.
  • Shift to the South: To replace this capacity, the Government plans to construct a new engineered landfill facility at Turkeylands (in the South), which will have an estimated lifespan of 20 years. This suggests a major shift in where Western waste of this type will be disposed of in the future.

3. Regional Recycling and Collections

  • Expanding Recycling Duty: The strategy proposes making it a duty for Local Authorities in the West (and elsewhere) to recycle materials that provide an environmental and economic benefit.
  • Review of Kerbside Items: A review will be conducted to determine the most appropriate items for kerbside collection to minimize environmental damage, which will then inform regional service levels.
  • Drop Banks: For rural or hard-to-reach areas in the West where kerbside collection isn’t feasible, the strategy encourages the use of local drop banks for key recyclables.

4. Financial and Operational Accountability

  • Polluter Pays Principle: The strategy reinforces that those who generate waste should bear the cost, which may influence how local rates in the Western parishes are calculated for waste services.
  • Cost Efficiency: While Local Authorities remain responsible for household collections, the DoI suggests that rationalizing or combining services between authorities could achieve better economies of scale and efficiency.

The full waste strategy report is here:

9.2 Waste StrategyDownload

Southern Amenity site tour running outstanding services

Sometimes the oddest things happen when you least expect them. Today I found myself giving an impromptu tour of the Southern Amenity Site.

I’ve been very vocal about the failings of the Western Civic Amenity Site. In my view, it hasn’t been run productively for quite some time. It seems to have operated with one overriding goal: not to spend any money. On that front, they succeeded. But if the aim was efficiency, they failed 10 times over.

Can a waste site make money? Can waste save you money? Can a subsidy be super-efficient? The short answer to all of these questions is yes.

That’s exactly what I saw at the Southern Amenity Site today. From recycling schemes to composting, from breaking down WEE to sending just a single skip to landfill, everything was geared toward value creation. Inert rubble is transformed into concrete bollards. Every item that can be recycled is put to use in generating revenue from old phones to reusing walking sticks. (Nobles can repurpose them)

We’ve long known that phones contain many metals, some of which are now skyrocketing in value across the world. The Southern site is tapping into that reality. Meanwhile, the West has a lot of work to do.

We should be excited. It is sheer nonsense to suggest that we cannot have outstanding services at a reasonable cost.

As I was shown around, I cobbled together some video clips to give a taste of how this is done in practice. The Southern Amenity Site demonstrates that excellence and efficiency are not mutually exclusive, they can go hand in hand.

WCAS – Patrick Commissoners vote

A quick update:

We must expect and demand much better services. This situation is simply not acceptable, as the site continues to be shut on Mondays and Tuesdays and at lunchtime for the rest of the week.

We still do not receive monthly running accounts. Despite submitting two Freedom of Information requests, the information has not been provided. The recycling bays also remain closed.

Given this repeated failure to provide reasonable information and adequate service, I will be requesting a vote at the December meeting on whether we should continue paying our contributions to the WCAS site until the situation is rectified

Waste Management: A Strategic Imperative in Patrick

I’ve been reviewing the numbers—particularly the waste-related expenditure, which didn’t sit right. Based on unaudited accounts and last year’s ledger, waste costs actually represent 67.01% of our total expenditure. That’s a striking figure.

We did incur some open costs last year, which may have skewed the accounts slightly. But the core issue remains: nearly two-thirds of our spending is going toward waste management.

If we’re serious about running an efficient enterprise, we need to dedicate a similar proportion of our time and strategic focus to defining what waste management means for Patrick—and how we can be a happy, effective provider of that service.

There’s also talk of taking out loans to cover unexpected contingency costs. Before moving forward, we need to ask: are we comfortable saddling future generations with debt due to poor management decisions today?

Here’s a breakdown of the figures:

  • Refuse collection: £79,842
  • WCAS: £40,685
  • Total waste cost: £120,527
  • Total expenditure: £179,842
  • Waste cost as % of total: 67.01%

We also know they’re running 10% over budget. Given their reluctance to share monthly figures, it’s reasonable to discount that by 20% for planning purposes.

And let’s not forget: the increased refuse collection will take time to show in the system. In my view, it’s almost certainly going to be higher—especially with the site not fully operational.

Thanks for your attention to this. I hope it helps inform the next steps.

—Leo