Nearly 30 Illegal Waste ‘Super Sites’ in New Government Watchlist

Nearly 30 suspected illegal waste “super sites,” each containing tens of thousands of tonnes of rubbish, have been identified in a new watchlist of dumps in England.

The list of 117 “high priority” sites, published by the Environment Agency (EA) on Friday, includes 28 so-called “super sites” that contain more than 20,000 tonnes of waste.

The largest is a 281,000-tonne heap of contaminated soil in Northwich, Cheshire, one of 11 such sites revealed by a BBC investigation in January.

The EA said about 700 illegal waste sites exist in total but highlighted higher-priority ones to “enable residents to see where we are acting.”

The watchlist includes sites currently being cleared by the EA at Hoads Wood in Kent and Kidlington in Oxfordshire.

Large tips in Wigan and Sheffield, together containing nearly 40,000 tonnes of waste, also appear on the list.

They have been marked for possible clearance at taxpayer expense as part of the government’s waste crime action plan.

However, the EA stressed it is not generally funded to clear other sites on the watchlist and only does so in exceptional circumstances.

It said sites chosen for clean-up so far were selected “due to a specific criteria, which includes posing a serious environmental risk and impact on the local community. This was a decision made by the government.”

Geoff Howarth, owner of a business next to the Sheffield site, told the BBC the new watchlist gave him “no more faith whatsoever” that greater action would be taken.

He added that the agency needed “to step up” and do more to tackle illegal waste and stop criminals from reoffending.

But he said sites should only be cleared using public money if the land is owned by criminals themselves, then seized and sold to recoup costs.

Some identified sites contain a wide range of materials, including household waste, construction materials, asbestos and tyres, and operate without correct permits.

Others are land, often privately owned and in the countryside, used to dump huge piles of rubbish.

The EA urged the public to come forward with concerns or information about named sites, and said it would update the list monthly as part of ongoing efforts to track waste sites.

But it added that published detail would remain limited, with only broad locations and nature of sites given, to avoid prejudicing investigations and future enforcement.

Philip Duffy, the EA’s chief executive, said waste crime was a “serious blight” on local communities and the environment.

“Publishing this watchlist is a deliberate act of transparency – communities need to know that we are acting, and we want those committing these crimes to know that we are coming for them,” he said.

“We are using every tool at our disposal to find those responsible and encourage anyone with information to come forward.”