As clean-up operations begin at a major illegal dumping site near Ashford, we investigate what is driving the national increase in fly-tipping.
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00:00Hello and welcome to a Kent Tonight special. I'm Michael Gorhan and on tonight's show we'll
00:18be taking a look at fly-tipping, a problem that's blighting both the environment and
00:22communities in Kent. We'll be travelling right across the county from the ancient woodlands
00:27of Ashford to the beaches of Sheppey to see the damage that fly-tipping has done first-hand
00:32and to speak to those directly impacted. But first we head to Hodes Wood, which is at the
00:38very heart of Kent's fly-tipping crisis, to a case that's received national attention.
00:43Work has begun there to remove illegally dumped waste from the area, which is a site of special
00:48scientific interest. But it's expected to take until at least summer 2026 before the
00:54job is complete. Our reporter Tessa DeLunay-Martin visited the site.
01:00This ancient woodland should be carpeted in bluebells but it is now buried under an estimated
01:0430,000 tonnes of illegally dumped waste. Contractors have put in place road closures for enabling
01:09works so that lorries can start clearing out the rubbish from the site. Local residents
01:13have been campaigning police, the council and the Environment Agency to address the
01:17problem since summer 2023.
01:48We're at the entrance to Hodes Wood and it may look like your typical ancient woodland
01:52but the grassy banks behind me are actually mounds of illegally dumped waste, some higher
01:57than 12 feet. And if you follow the path behind me, it takes you to one of the biggest fly-tipping
02:03sites in Kent, which local campaigners have described as having a devastating impact on
02:08the community and the environment.
02:11This is one of the main roads leading to the Hodes Wood fly-tipping site where trucks illegally
02:14dumped waste for months. Although the Environment Agency blocked the entrance in January 2024,
02:19this is just one site and fly-tipping remains an issue that cuts right across Kent.
02:24It's costly, it's unsightly and it's just very, very difficult to deal with but it's
02:29an increasing problem. I think fundamentally it's just simply too easy to fly-tip. I think
02:35the penalties are too low but then enforcement has got to be far faster and far more stringent.
02:43It's got to hurt those people in their pockets to make them not want to do this.
02:47The cost of clearing Hodes Wood is estimated to be between £10m and £15m. In a statement,
02:52the Environment Agency said,
02:54A criminal investigation continues in order to bring before the courts those using Kent
02:57as a waste dumping ground for profit. We have tested the waste for any rubbish that may
03:01have caused further harm to Hodes Wood. All clearance must be carried out in accordance
03:05with the law.
03:06Meanwhile, the extensive damage to Hodes Wood will take years to undo and the rural community
03:10will have to remain vigilant to see where fly-tippers go next.
03:16Tessa de Lunay-Martin there. Earlier I was joined by Ian Rickards who's the area manager
03:20at the Kent Wildlife Trust.
03:23Ian, you've seen some of the images from Hodes Wood. We've now learned that it's going to
03:27cost about £15m to clean it up. Should this have been sorted sooner?
03:33It shouldn't have happened in the first place, should it? So it should have been nipped in
03:36the bud. It was being reported by the locals and by the other woodland owners as soon as
03:41it started. It wasn't really a big surprise it was going on. And it was left for months
03:45and months and months before any action was taken.
03:48Frustrating.
03:49And what sort of, a lot's been said about, you know, the toxic waste that's in there.
03:54What actually are we looking at? What sort of thing is in this tip?
03:59Well it's all been processed. This isn't mattresses and tyres and things. This is professionally
04:05processed waste. So it's gone through a machine which basically chips out little bits at the
04:11other end and then collects it in lorries and dumps it off. So technically there could
04:14be anything in there. There's no telling what's in there.
04:18And what sort of damage then has this waste done and sort of might continue to do to the
04:23environment in Hodes Wood?
04:25Well, I mean physically it covers two acres of the woodlands. That's two acres which just
04:31doesn't exist anymore. In terms of damage there's just nothing left of it. It's flattened
04:36under 10 metres of waste. So that's all gone. We don't know then what the impact of the
04:41material seeping into the soil, into the watercourses. That could have massive ongoing consequences
04:48as well.
04:49Yeah, so it's such a beautiful area of woodland. I know, you know, during the spring there's
04:53usually bluebells growing there and that's something that I assume can't happen at the
04:57moment. Will we see bluebells growing there because it's an ancient forest and that's
05:01what sort of makes ancient forests quite famous, the fact that they can sustain flowers like
05:07bluebells. Is that now sort of permanently damaged?
05:10Yeah, I mean it's an ancient woodland. It's been around for so long and it takes such
05:15a long time. I mean trees grow and come and go and live and die and all that sort of thing
05:20and then they go back into the soil. It's a massive long process and for a woodland
05:24like that to establish and develop as an ancient woodland is a hundred year long event.
05:29So for things like bluebells and primroses and these ancient woodland plants, we're not
05:34going to see those back again in our lifetime.
05:37Ian Rickards from the Kent Wildlife Trust there. Now 45 minutes down the road is the
05:41East Church Gap on the Isle of Sheppey, the site of another illegal dumping ground. Josh
05:47McMinn visited the site.
05:50We're here at the East Church Gap on the Isle of Sheppey, which became a fly-tipping spot
05:53in 2020 after a local house fell into the sea. Shortly afterwards, dozens of lorries
05:58a day were seen dumping rubbish onto the wreckage. You can see here that there's different layers
06:02in the pile of rubbish. That's because when the lorries dumped their trash here, they
06:07would dump a layer of earth on top of it to cover up their tracks. As you look across
06:11the beach, you can see different layers of tyres, of plastic and building rubble depending
06:15which lorries dumped what. Right here, the smell is terrible from all the rubbish that's
06:21been dumped.
06:22On my dog walks, I see lots of rubbish. Quite regularly here, we have regular rubbish cleaning,
06:29which is really sad.
06:30It used to be like, when I moved back here when I was like three or four, I used to walk
06:34up here with my family and all that and it was just, it was so beautiful, but now it's
06:37just completely ruined and it upsets me a bit.
06:41But what's the driving force behind dumping like this? Could the problem be the high cost
06:45of getting rid of waste legitimately? Local farmer Paul Vickery told us that most of the
06:50waste dumped on his land is tipped by licensed waste companies.
06:54They're generally licensed tippers, but it's still cheaper not to go to the tip and just
07:01chuck it in a gateway.
07:03To find out about the high cost of getting rid of rubbish legally, we spoke to Perry
07:06Kemp, who runs Rubbish Master in Herne Bay. Perry told us that the things you see fly
07:11tipped most often are the things the council charges most for at the local dumps.
07:16Chairs, fridges, mattresses and sofas. They're the main things.
07:24The licences Perry needs to do his job cost around £6,000 a year, and yet there are no
07:28mandatory checks to make sure companies like his are operating legitimately.
07:33If you is a cab driver, once a year you have to take your cab to the council and get it
07:41inspected. Why can't we do that to people taking rubbish?
07:45How often do they check you at the moment?
07:47I don't.
07:48Whilst greater oversight could help prevent future crimes, it would still be too late
07:51for the people of Sheppey, who've been waiting nearly two years to see their beach cleaned.
07:58And I'm joined now by Stephen Thompson, who is a Green Ward councillor. Stephen, it's
08:04really nice to speak to you. We've spoken a lot on the show so far about industrial
08:08scale fly tipping, and the graphic that's going to pop up on the screen now essentially
08:13shows the state of fly tipping around Kent. Now, Maidstone, between 2023 and 2024, had
08:19the third most fly tipping. I wonder, why is it such an issue in Kent?
08:27I'm not sure that it is any more or less of an issue in Kent than it is anywhere else
08:31in the country. The figures have just come out for 2023-2024. There are 1.15 million
08:36fly tipping incidents in the country, a rise of 6% from the year previous, and Maidstone
08:42number of council officers tell me that this number is still increasing, despite their
08:46best efforts. So it is a symptom of what I think is the creeping normalisation of irresponsibility
08:55across society, from the individual level up to corporates and everywhere in between.
09:03One of the statistics in the data between 2021 and 2023 is that no one was actually
09:09prosecuted in Maidstone. How difficult is it to prosecute people for fly tipping?
09:15You have to put a great deal of effort into the entire process that makes that possible.
09:21So when I first became a ward councillor in what is now called Boxley Downs, which is
09:26between North Maidstone and the Medway boundary, leading up in the direction of where we're
09:31sitting today, then I was a new councillor and I was looking around at my experienced
09:37colleagues and saying, what is it that we do about this problem? And although I wasn't
09:41in the council programme at the time, experienced councillors, as it happens, of a different
09:47political persuasion to myself, said, well, let's put some more effort into fixing this.
09:52We met the officers, some new employees were taken on, some new skills were brought in,
09:59and over a significant period of time, more effort was put in to collecting intelligence,
10:05joining up with other agencies significantly, including the police and the environment agency.
10:10I participated in some group conversations where we shared intelligence. One thing led
10:17to another and now Maidstone Borough Council is reporting prosecutions in progress, particularly
10:24related to the new regime for fixed penalty notices. So the tide has slowly turned.
10:31I believe your party added seven seats in the local elections last time around, so it's
10:36clearly something that is potentially on people's minds. I wonder, going forward, what would
10:40you like to see done to try and prevent fly-tipping in Kent?
10:45On the matter of the democratic process, as you mentioned, the Green Party has received
10:53phenomenal support in the last couple of years. We went from no councillors to one to three,
10:57and now we're the leading party in Maidstone with the Liberal Democrats. People are discovering
11:04that by voting for hard-working local ward councillors, they're able to communicate their
11:11concerns about what's going on in the neighbourhood, get joined-up responses and see a programme
11:18of works come together, which, may I say, is the diametric opposite of the current government's
11:24plans to reorganise local government and reduce the number of councillors. So what I would
11:29like to see is the stopping of the removal of councillors at district level, because
11:36that really is the active heart of information between local residents and the large corporate
11:44bodies that deliver services across the county, without that vital link of political representation.
11:51We are stymied in all manner of ways, fly-tipping being one of them.
11:55Perfect. Thank you very much, Stephen. It's been really great to have you into the studio.
12:00Goodbye to all of our viewers tonight. Thank you very much for joining us. This has been
12:04a Kent Tonight special, and as always, you can see us on our socials at Kent Online and
12:10on our website at kentonline.co.uk.