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The Environment Agency is to spend millions of pounds to clear an enormous illegal rubbish dump in Oxfordshire, saying the waste is at risk of catching fire.
But the decision announced on Thursday to clear up the thousands of tonnes of waste illegally dumped outside Kidlington has drawn an angry response from a Labour MP in Greater Manchester whose constituents have been living alongside 25,000 tonnes of toxic rubbish for nearly a year.
In Bickershaw, Wigan, criminals dumped the waste in a residential street adjacent to a primary school. During the summer heatwave the rubbish caught fire and burned for nine days, forcing the school to close and residents to stay indoors.
Josh Simons, the MP for Makerfield, said: “This decision throws mud in the face of my working-class constituents in Bickershaw, Wigan, but also of people across the country suffering from toxic, illegal dumps that don’t have the privilege of living in middle class Oxfordshire. I am so angry about it.”
“My constituents will feel this is unfair, unjust, and once again like a public body is ignoring working-class communities in the north.”
The EA’s policy is to refuse to clear up illegal waste dumps across the country, instead pursuing the perpetrators and landowners. But officials said on Thursday they had taken the exceptional decision to clear up the waste outside Kidlington, which is next to the River Cherwell, because the scale of the fire risk set it apart from other illegal waste dumps in England and presented an overriding public imperative.
The agency has been given no extra money to clear the waste, the cost of which is likely to run into several millions of pounds. The EA said this would come from “making efficiencies in its operations”. The cost to the taxpayer will also include the payment of the landfill tax on the waste to the Treasury.
Simons said. “What is not ‘exceptional’ about a toxic waste dump on fire right next to a primary school and bunch of local businesses? Could it be because the kids and businesses are not in Oxfordshire? I will fight tooth and nail for the Environment Agency to treat my towns equally and clear the Bickershaw site – and treat us like the good people of Oxfordshire.”
This week ministers rejected all recommendations of an inquiry into waste crime by the House of Lords environment and climate change committee.
Lords highlighted how organised criminals were making millions every year from illegally dumping rubbish. Peers called for the government to carry out a “root and branch review” of responses to waste crime. The report said 38m tonnes of waste – enough to fill Wembley Stadium 35 times – was being illegally dumped every year, mainly by established organised crime groups often with links to other criminal activity such as money laundering and modern slavery.
But the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, rejected the call for a review and all other suggestions in the report. She said the government would be announcing policies in the New Year that would drive criminality away from the waste sector, informed by previous reviews, investigations and intelligence.
The dumping in Kidlington took place under the noses of the EA, which was monitoring the site after being alerted to suspicious activity. Similarly in Wigan, Simons alerted the EA in January to dumping taking place on Bolton House Road, and was told it would monitor the site. Over the course of several months, lorryloads of waste were dumped in the residential street. Part of the illegal waste has been tipped into a field where the primary school children played sport.
The EA said: “In both Kidlington and Wigan, we are laser-focused on finding the offenders and bringing them to justice.”
