A council in Cornwall has written to the Environment Agency (EA) and the area’s MP raising serious concerns about the impact on its parish of one of the country’s largest industrial waste crime sites.
We reported last October that a House of Lords committee had revealed that one of the six largest illegal flytipping dumps in the UK was “near Camborne”. The cross-party Environment and Climate Change Committee called on the Government to get tough on serious and organised waste crime.
We approached the EA at the time which said the site required additional investigation, so it was unable to share more information on its precise location.
Despite our own investigations, we weren’t able to pinpoint the exact site of the criminal dumping ground.
We can now reveal that the site – which is understood to stretch over 25 acres – is at Trevoole Moor, between Troon, Crowan and Leedstown, adjacent to Pendarves Woods.
The dump is estimated to hold up to 50,000 tonnes of commercial and industrial waste (“inert construction waste” according to the EA) making it one of the largest illegal “supersites” in the UK.
A concerned member of the public raised the issue with Crowan Parish Council, which was initially unaware that the crime site was in its area.
The resident told the council that dumping on 25 acres of land dates back 20 years, with much of the area being filled, rolled, then flattened ready to be dumped on again.
The parish council has now written to both the Environment Agency and Andrew George MP, whose constituency includes the location, with its concerns about the environmental impact.
The council has told the EA that it understands that enforcement action can take a long time. However, it says the scale and length of time the flytipping site has been created means that action is long overdue and should be accelerated.
It has demanded an urgent update on the current position.
Mr George has been told by the parish council that the people behind the huge dump appear to have benefited from its remoteness and a lack of urgency/resources deployed by the Environment Agency.
It has led to it growing into an “absolutely enormous environmental problem”.
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Mr George, the Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives and West Cornwall, told us: “I’ll be raising this not only with the EA but also with ministers. As you’ll be aware, there have been a large number of scandalous cases around the country where this has occurred and it is absolutely shocking that cowboys like these believe they can get away with it.
“It is vital that an example is made of people who fragrantly abuse the rest of society by polluting the countryside in this way.
“We need much stronger action and powerful enforcement, otherwise criminals like these will continue to take advantage of an extremely lack system.”
Cllr Loveday Jenkin, the Mebyon Kernow councillor for the area on Cornwall Council, raised the matter at a meeting of the local authority’s community and wellbeing committee yesterday (Thursday, June 4).
She told committee members: “I have one of the illegal waste dumps in my division. I want to know how you are liaising with the Environment Agency about this because as the local member I haven’t been involved at all.
“I’m concerned that I don’t know if there’s any move towards cleaning this up or where the Environment Agency is with the issue.”
Cllr Thalia Marrington, the cabinet member for community safety and public health, verified that the council is liaising with the EA about the Trevoole Moor site and other illegal flytipping locations.
She added that the council is introducing a dedicated officer to focus on enforcement, is purchasing additional cameras to aid enforcement action and is developing a flytipping campaign.
Following the meeting, Cllr Jenkin told us that the site in her division is “a right mess and in a floodplain”.
The extensive patch of land is in close proximity to Pendarves Woods, which is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall and managed by Cornwall Wildlife Trust, and Boswyn Stream, which runs through it, leading to concerns about the spread of pollution.
The EA has verified that a criminal investigation is underway and nearing completion.
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We have taken action to stop large scale deposits of waste at the site, including issuing Illegal Waste Stop Letters to the landowner, hauliers and operator.
“Our investigation is nearing completion, and we will take strong action against perpetrators of waste crime.”
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