In a once scenic ancient woodland outside Ashford, an enormous biohazard cleanup operation is under way to remove the toxic aftermath of the criminal dumping of 35,000 tonnes of rubbish.
Tankers come and go along a new road, built for the purpose. Behind metal gates away from public view, specialists in hazmat suits dig through the mountain of waste dumped on an industrial scale in a woodland that is a protected site of special scientific interest.
The £15m cleanup of Hoad’s Wood in Kent began this summer, five long years after local residents first started to complain about illegal dumping in the protected woodland. In some cases they provided the names of companies involved and footage of the activities to the police, the local authority and the Environment Agency.
It took a tenacious high-profile campaign by residents and environmental NGOs, and the threat of a legal class action, to force the Environment Agency to clean up the woodland after government intervention.
An aerial view of thousands of tonnes of illegal waste dumped within the ancient woodland, Hoad’s Wood. Photograph: PA Images/AlamyA view of thousands of tonnes of illegal waste dumped within Hoad’s Wood in Ashford, Kent. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
But as organised criminals increase their involvement in waste crime, labelled the “new narcotics”, the scale of the environmental disaster they are creating is spreading.
Across the country there are another six illegal waste dumps of similar size to Hoad’s Wood, or bigger, stretching from Lancashire to Cornwall, whose locations and activities are known to the Environment Agency.
But the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste, from household rubbish to toxic rubber, building materials and heavy metals, remain in situ with little or no prospect of any multimillion-pound cleanup in the foreseeable future.
Asbestos and household waste illegally fly-tipped overnight on a country lane in Wexham, Buckinghamshire. Photograph: Maureen McLean/Alamy Live News
In some cases, hazardous, polluting waste on farmland and business estates has been there for several years. Two of the large dumps – one near Sittingbourne in Kent and one in Camborne, Cornwall – appeared more recently and are still receiving illegal waste despite the activities being known to the agency.
The EA says that in Kent investigations are ongoing “with a view to stopping activity”, and that in Cornwall large-scale deposits have been stopped. But many argue stronger action needs to be taken much sooner by authorities to stop the dumping and prevent further environmental damage and hazards to the public.
In its recent inquiry into waste crime, the House of Lords environment committee found the Environment Agency was slow to respond to even the most flagrant and serious illegality, while the environment and communities suffered.
For many, Hoad’s Wood has become a symbol of the broken system; infiltrated by criminal gangs drawn by the promise of huge illegal profits and allowed to operate with impunity.
“Broken systems create broken results and what we need is a fundamental change,” said John Russell, a Liberal Democrat peer who was a prominent campaigner for the cleanup of Hoad’s Wood. “I don’t want us to become like Italy where some kind of mafia is controlling all of this. It feels a bit like we are using the Keystone Cops against this criminal activity. I just want a serious organised crime approach applied to the problem of serious organised crime.”
An illegal dump site in Wigan. The local council estimates it will cost £4.5m to remove the 25,000 tonnes of putrid waste. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Today four of the big illegal dumps known to the Environment Agency are closed and inactive. But the agency, which is the lead investigator of serious waste crime, does not have the money or the inclination to clear up the equivalent of six Hoad’s Woods itself. Its tactic is to force the perpetrators to clear up their pollution. Yet even where perpetrators are arrested, and successfully prosecuted, a cleanup is far from certain.
In Burnley, Lancashire, the Environment Agency successfully prosecuted 77-year-old John Allison in 2021 for waste crime.
Allison oversaw the large-scale dumping of mixed household and commercial waste, including hazardous materials, at two sites in Colne, which reaped him illegal profits of more than £800,000. He was jailed for three years in 2021, and later ordered to pay £368,682.50 after the Environment Agency pursued him under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
But Allison has failed to pay up, and two years ago was sent back to prison for three years and five months with no money recouped.
Matthew Scott, the police and crime commissioner for Kent, said the six large illegal dump sites across the country that the Environment Agency has identified were the tip of the iceberg. “I know of six in Kent alone,” he said.
Scott said Hoad’s Wood showed how even the most egregious illegal waste dumping was not dealt with quickly enough. “Everyone was aware of it for years, while there was back and forth about who was responsible,” he said. “It is now costing the agency £15m to clear it up, that is just not going to be a sustainable amount to pay for all these other six large sites.
“This activity needs to be stopped much earlier, prevented from happening. That £15m is money that could have been spent on investigators to prevent this.”
Labour has increased the Environment Agency budget for tackling waste crime by 50%, to £15.6m. But critics say it is just not armed for the task, either with the capability to tackle organised criminals or the investigators required to deal with the crime on such a scale.
The agency has a small team dedicated to waste crime, and it is now focusing its efforts on the latest shocking example of organised criminals apparently dumping waste with impunity in a three-acre field alongside the River Cherwell, outside Kidlington, Oxfordshire.
A large pile of fly-tipped waste is seen dumped in a field between the River Cherwell and the A34 near Kidlington, Oxfordshire. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images
The mountain of waste, which contains household rubbish collected by local authorities, poses an immediate risk to water quality, and is already seeping into the river.
Calum Miller, the local MP, has called for an urgent ministerial direction to the Environment Agency to start a cleanup as an environmental disaster unfolds in his constituency. The agency was alerted to suspicious activity on the site and in July issued a cease and desist notice to the landowner. But under the noses of the authorities, criminals dumped what is thought to be thousands of tonnes of household waste in September, before the agency finally blocked the gates to the field with a court order last month.
When images of the vast Kidlington waste mountain emerged a few days ago, Russell said he found it unbelievable. “It felt like Hoad’s Wood has been allowed to happen all over again,” he said. “The EA first knew about Kidlington in July. They responded at the time, but didn’t leave a trail cam or anything.
“And now, I don’t know how many thousands of tonnes of waste has been dumped with impunity and these criminals have got away with it yet again. It is just not good enough. It is an environmental disaster.”