MP's surprise at £14,000 cost of waste probe

The Environment Agency investigation into the dumping of thousands of tonnes of waste in Newark cost £14,000.

The town’s MP, Mr Robert Jenrick, who has been critical of the agency’s failure to hold anyone to account over the waste pile, said the figure was “surprisingly low.”

It was revealed earlier this month that no prosecutions were to be brought in relation to the waste at 293 Bowbridge Road.

The Environment Agency raided two sites in Newark — at Bowbridge Road and Quarry Farm, Bowbridge Lane — in March 2015 as part of Operation Encore that targeted alleged illegal dumping of waste on an industrial scale nationally to avoid landfill costs.

Rubbish contained in huge sacks began appearing at the Bowbridge Road site in February, 2015, and grew over the space of a month. It has remained there since.

When informed of the £14,000 cost of the Newark investigation by the Advertiser, he said: “That figure seems surprisingly low.

“Either that is a major understatement of the actual cost of the investigation to the taxpayer, which, I was told, involved months of investigation and advice from top legal advisers, or the Environment Agency did rather less than they said they were doing.”

Mr Jenrick said he understood the Newark part of the investigation involved advice from leading lawyers and he had expected it to cost closer to £500,000.

Operation Encore centred around possible connections to an abandoned waste transfer site in Orpington, Kent.

It looked into allegations that operators were taking waste from either legitimate companies that believed they were paying for it to be properly disposed of, or from others that did not care where it ended up.

Clear-up cost could be up to £200,000

There were other raids in Bristol and Scunthorpe and a total of six arrests were made, one in Newark.

None of those arrested will face criminal charges.

The Environment Agency has previously stated that the Bowbridge Road waste was not hazardous to public health.

It has been screened from the road by an earth bund.

The agency seeks clear-up costs from landowners or operators for the illegal dumping of waste following successful prosecutions.

The clear-up cost at Bowbridge Road could be up to £200,000 and there is no indication now of who will pay and how long the waste will remain.

The agency provided the Advertiser with the cost of the Newark investigation but failed to provide the national figure.

It had not responded with a comment as the Advertiser went to press yesterday.