Nearly 30 suspected illegal waste 'super sites' identified in England

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, which is one of 11 such sites revealed by a BBC investigation in January.

The EA said there are about 700 illegal waste sites in total, but it had highlighted ones of a higher priority to "enable residents to see where we are acting".

Included on the watchlist are the sites that are currently being cleared up by the EA at Hoads Wood, in Kent, and Kidlington, in Oxfordshire.

Huge tips in Wigan and Sheffield - together containing nearly 40,000 tonnes of waste - also feature on the list.

They have been earmarked for possible clearance at the taxpayers' expense as part of the government's waste crime action plan.

But the EA emphasised that it was not generally funded to clear up the other sites identified on the watchlist and only does so in exceptional circumstances.

It said sites chosen for clean-up so far were picked "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, the owner of a business next to the Sheffield site, told the BBC that 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 added, that sites should only be cleared up using public money if the land is owned by criminals themselves - and seized and sold off to recoup the cost.

Some of the sites identified - which contain a wide-range of materials, including household waste, construction materials, asbestos and tyres - are tips that are operating without the correct permits.

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

The EA urged members of the public to come forward if they had any concerns or information about the sites named on the watchlist, which it would aim to update every month as part of its ongoing action to track waste sites.

But, it added, the level of detail published in the watchlist would remain limited, with only broad locations and the nature of the sites given, as it did not want to prejudice ongoing investigations and future enforcement action.

"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 explained.