Turkeyland Quarry (next to the airport) could be used as an alternative to Wright’s Pit North, the tip in the Point of Ayre.

The Department of Infrastructure has applied for planning permission to use the landfill at Wright’s Pit North for another 10 years.

Garff MHK Daphne Caine had asked Infrastructure Minister Tim Crookall what the delay was about, considering that his predecessor Tim Baker had said that Wright’s Pit North would be closed in 2020.

In response, Mr Crookall said that ’if things work out’ Turkeyland could be available soon as an alternative site.

Original approval for the landfill operations at the site known as Wright’s Pit North stipulated that the depositing of waste should end in 2019, with an additional year for site restoration works to finish by the end of 2020.

Mr Crookall said that he was unable to give a date for the completion of the new special waste and landfill facility at Turkeyland Quarry, because the department was ’currently reviewing the best procurement route’ [for a contractor to do the work].

Once this is complete, designs and plans for the new facility could be looked at.

In the meantime, waste will go to Wright’s Pit North.

Mr Crookall said that hopefully an alternate site should be ready to take waste from Wright’s Pit North by 2030 (the planned extension for it) or before then.

Ayre and Michael MHK Tim Johnston, who had asked Mr Crookall about when Turkeyland (an engineered site) will be ready, pointed out that construction firms are currently having to pay costs to export their waste.

Mr Crookall said that the construction industry is being encouraged to use brownfield sites (with waste from these ending up in Wright’s Pit North), and that he was ’well aware’ of the exportation issue, which was affecting government as well, as in the case of the Peel Harbour silt.