The government has announced it will fund the clean-up of three large illegal waste dump, including a site on land owned by the King’s estate.
As part of its new waste crime action plan, the government promised to fund the clean-up of some of the ‘most egregious illegal waste sites’ in the country, including in Wigan, Sheffield and Lancashire.
The dump on Bolton House Road in Bickershaw, Wigan, is spread across land owned by Wigan Council and the Duchy of Lancaster, the King’s private estate.
Under environmental regulations, landowners are typically responsible for clearing waste that has been illegally dumped on their site.
However, the Duchy, which inherited the land due to an ancient law, said it is exempt from regulatory obligations as the estate did not inherit any liabilities attached to the property.
The Environment Agency has declared a critical incident at the site, which caught fire last year, forcing nearby businesses and schools to close before going on to burn for ten days.
The local MP, Josh Simons, has called on the Duchy to pay for its share of the clean-up costs, and a petition calling on the King to fund the clearance of the waste site has reached almost 20,000 signatures.
Now, the government has committed to clearing the site, along with the illegal dumps in Sheffield and Lancashire, at the taxpayer’s expense.
The decision comes after the Environment Agency and the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) previously resisted calls to clear the site in Wigan.
Just two days before the announcement, Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds said the Environment Agency were keeping the site under review but has a ‘very high bar’ to whether it clears an illegal waste dump.
Reynolds was being questioned by the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee, whose Chair, Baroness Sheehan, has been vocal in calling for the Environment Agency to clear the site.
Baroness Sheehan told the committee that ‘more than one resident was hospitalised’ because of the fumes released when the dump caught fire.
Reynolds was asked why funding had been made available to clear a large-scale waste site in Kidlington, which is set to cost £9 million, and not the dump in Bickershaw.
She told the committee that there were ‘differences between the sites’ and said that if the Environment Agency cleared every site, it could create ‘unintended consequences and perverse incentives’.
In December, Defra announced it would take the ‘exceptional decision’ to clear the Kidlington waste dump as the scale of the fire risk set the site apart from other illegal waste sites in England and presented an ‘overriding public imperative’.
Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service has refused a Freedom of Information request to release its fire risk assessment report, which led to the Environment Agency’s decision to clear the site, citing public safety concerns.