Manx Utilities has submitted its controversial plans for a new sewage treatment works in Laxey despite opposition from residents.

The authority is seeking to build a regional treatment works on the chalet site at Breeze Hill in Laxey.

If planners approve the application (20/00082/B), it will be the first treatment works in Laxey. Sewage is currently held in a tank, built in 1912, before being pumped out to sea.

The MUA wants to build a treatment facility, storm storage tank, pumping station, screening and a new bridge to provide access to the site.

A new bridge is necessary for the site as access to the site direct from Minorca Hill, which tanker wagons will use to access the treatment works with one trip planned each week day to remove waste from the plant.

The vehicle that the authority is proposing to use for the daily removal of sludge is a 13,640 litre tanker which is about 1.5m shorter, although fractionally taller, than the single decker Mercedes buses used by Bus Vannin.

A larger tanker will be required to visit the site once a week, however design consultants ARCADIS which worked with the MUA on the application has indicated this shouldn’t cause issues either.

Residents in the village have raised concerns about tankers moving in the village, both due to safety issues of passing near to the primary school and the potential for HGVs to damage the village’s roads.

However, ARCADIS has dismissed these concerns saying ’there will be no tanker activities past the primary school’. And it said ’one operational HGV movement per day will not have any adverse impact on the state of roads in Laxey’. Concerns about the new bridge leading to flooding risks were dismissed as being ’negligible’.

Manx Utilities discounted 39 other sites in Laxey before choosing the Breeze Hill location. It also rejected a proposal to pump sewage into Onchan to join the IRIS scheme due to the initial and ongoing costs and the substantial work it would have required.