Controversial plans for a new sewage treatment plant in Laxey are set to be published in the New Year.

Manx Utilities chairman Dr Alex Allinson said the design for the new treatment works at the Cairns site was ’progressing’ and a planning application would be submitted early in the new year.

He told the House of Keys: ’The proposed works have been designed to take into account both fluvial and tidal flood conditions, and the impact of the recent flooding in Laxey has been analysed and taken into account with respect to the final proposed design.’

But Martyn Perkins (Garff) said his constituents were angry it would be a regional treatment plant -as part of a strategy approved by Tynwald - rather than linked to an all-island network as in the original IRIS proposals.

He warned the proposal could be thrown out, ’because there are a lot of angry people in Laxey and I know there will be great opposition to this plan, because they do wish it to be connected through to IRIS’.

That would leave MU having to start from scratch and, if the plant had to be connected to an island network, it could be ’something like 2025 before Laxey has clear bathing water’, he said.

His constituency colleague Daphne Caine (Garff) also had concerns.

’The biggest impact on the water quality of Laxey Bay is from the Baldrine outflows, which are untreated sewage,’ she said.

’It seems odd and there is much concern that they are progressing with a plan for a regional sewage treatment works for the Laxey site only.’

Dr Allinson said MU already owned the Cairns site so was in a position to progress that scheme quickly once planning was approved.

There were ’various options’ for Baldrine, but Manx Utilities was waiting first for a decision on a planning application for a treatment plant in Peel.

Once planning approval had been obtained for Peel, MU would be ’moving, fairly shortly, towards getting a solution for Baldrine’.