The Prime Minister last night (19 August) announced a new crackdown on large-scale illegal waste dumps, including more powers for the Environment Agency, greater police involvement, a new role for regional mayors and taxpayer-funded clear-ups of three more of the largest and most notorious sites. The move comes after Future Countryside and the National Rural Crime Network published a major Countryside Alliance-authored report on fly-tipping and waste crime in June.
News headlines have focused on the pledge to clear three additional dumps, following clearance being authorised at Kidlington-Cherwell earlier this year, which are said to contain a total of around 22,000 tonnes of illegal waste. The sites now to be cleared are at Power Station Road on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent; Aymer Close in Runnymede, Surrey; and Midland Road in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
Otherwise, the plan includes greater use of drones for surveillance, changes to the responsibilities of the patchwork of agencies that have roles in preventing and responding to waste crime, and a new Waste Crime Action Group chaired by the Environment Secretary. It also moots a new strategic role for regional mayors in overseeing local investigation and enforcement activity. According to the government:
“Mayors will lead the effort in their own areas, with a reformed partnership between national and regional agencies and councils which will facilitate better intelligence and capability sharing at a local level.”
Governance reforms are of particular interest to the Countryside Alliance. Our report identified “fragmented and weak strategic oversight” as a key weakness in the national approach to waste crime prevention. It recommended closer monitoring of local authorities, improved working relationships and intelligence-sharing between enforcement bodies, and considering handing responsibility for investigating the most serious sites over to the forthcoming National Police Service, announced by the government in January.
The creation of a new role for regional mayors is encouraging to the extent that in some places it will put someone in overall charge. Initially, however, this new region-led approach will only apply in Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, with no indication of when it might be extended to mayoralties elsewhere.
Furthermore, of the fourteen mayoral combined authorities that currently exist in England, only five are regional or ‘shire’ mayoralties that include a substantial rural population. These are York and North Yorkshire, Hull and East Yorkshire, East Midlands, Greater Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. To that list it is reasonable to add the metro mayoralty of the North East, given its inclusion of Northumberland.
As our report found, rural areas are especially blighted by large-scale fly-tipping incidents because their relative isolation makes it easier for criminals to dump without detection. In focusing on empowering regional mayors, the government must not overlook the 67% of England’s land area (as calculated by the Centre for Cities), a large proportion of it rural, that does not have one. Indeed, of the three sites deemed serious enough within the same announcement to qualify for taxpayer-funded clearance, two are in areas not covered by a regional mayor. Ministers should prepare to answer questions as to how those areas, too, will be served better.
This new plan is a welcome indication that the Starmer government’s Waste Crime Action Plan, published in March, is no longer being regarded as the last word. In considering further action to tackle this despicable blight on our communities, the government should reflect closely on the findings and recommendations of the Future Countryside and National Rural Crime Network report. Above all, it must ensure that rural England is not left behind.