History

19th Century to the Present Day

Historically the network was developed as an open channel surface water network through the town's streets, then progressed to becoming a closed pipe system in addition to accepting foul water flows as this was thought to be a contributing factor to the Cholera outbreak of 1832. This historical combining of flows is now a stumbling block in the way of expensive sewage treatment systems and the separation of these flows has become a priority for Guernsey Wastewater.

The network was progressively extended through the towns of St Peter Port and St Sampsons during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and then into St Martins and the Vale areas until the mid 1960's when a pumping station and long sea outfall was constructed at Belle Greve. About 99% of the foul network now is pumped or gravitates to the Belle Greve pumping station while the remaining 1% is pumped through a short sea outfall at Fort George.

The Island’s surface water drainage system has been developed through the years in order to drain land for development such as the Mare de Carteret School and playing fields. The urban network was generally combined with the foul water until the 1970’s and the need to separate the flows in order to prevent flooding and to reduce foul flows to a future treatment system has resulted in surface water drainage being installed in some of the major streets in St Peter Port. This programme is continuing and has reduced the incidence of flooding in the St Peter Port area.

Following the commission of the Belle Greve pumping station and long sea outfall, a trunk sewer (a larger-diameter length of pipe transferring sewage from one catchment area to another) was constructed westwards across the Island to enable west coast properties to be connected to the network. This required the construction of major pumping stations at Vazon and Cobo.

More recently, the network has been extended to Creux Mahie to intercept the flow being discharged to sea, and a pumping station installed to divert flows back to Belle Greve. The Public Services Department (of which Guernsey Wastewater is a business unit) has been instructed to bring a report to the States of Guernsey by early 2012 indicating how (if necessary) the Island’s sewage should be treated.

In order to bring about a more orderly development of the surface and foul water networks, a Business Plan has been developed to cover a 10-year programme of work. When this has been approved, long term planning will bring about efficiencies and cost savings and result in an improved and more comprehensive service to the general public.