Residents threaten legal action over smell

Villagers close to the site in Gilberdyke have had to endure “awful” smells coming from the tip, which has been uncapped twice in the last year.

Locals say they are considering legal action because the authorities “don’t seem capable of enforcing their own rules.”

Earlier this year operators City Plant Ltd were allowed to resume taking in waste in spite of scores of complaints.

An enforcement notice was due to come in force which would have prevented any more waste coming onto the site at Leatherdog Lane, which had mushroomed in size.

But the ban was lifted after City Plant set out plans to move 70,000 cubic metres of waste from overtipped areas to other parts of the landfill site.

Chairman of Newport parish council Roy Hunt said uncapping the tip twice had “unleashed huge amounts of smell on the village”.

He said: “We are in the process of forming an action group to take legal action through no win no fee solicitors. Residents are considering taking this action because the authorities don’t seem capable of enforcing their own rules.”

All the residents that are most directly affected are being written to and it is hoped to have a meeting next week.

The site is meant to be controlled by East Riding Council through a planning consent, and the Environment Agency through an environmental permit.

According to the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Local Government Ombudsman, both are “required to work together in a co-ordinated joint approach on waste enforcement”.

But Mr Hunt says in their case there has been “chaos and confusion”.

The tip is still twice the council permitted height of 8m. But the Environment Agency has agreed a height of around 16m with the operators.

Mr Hunt said: “One might ask what East Riding Council (ERYC) are doing about the flagrant breach of their planning conditions, to which you get two replies.

“The first is that ERYC are not legally obliged to enforce their planning conditions and secondly that the subject is complicated and they need time to work through the complexities. This would be OK except that I first told ERYC of my concerns about the height of the site over a year ago.

“But the real question is what effective action has the EA and ERYC done to protect the local community from the traffic and noise from a site that is being operated unlawfully, and what are they doing to protect the environment from an operator who has now twice ripped apart significant areas of the site to expose the rotting matter that was previously capped, thus releasing large volumes of stench to pollute the air for miles around? Answer: nothing!”

Howdenshire councillor Paul Robinson said: “I fully support the residents in taking action - enough is enough. Quite clearly they are being let down, particularly by the Environment Agency enforcing an action which is in breach of a legal planning condition.”

Consultant for City Plant Kevin Wanless said people “should be careful what they wished for.”

He said: “People wanted us to lower the height, so we had to move the waste. If we are moving waste round the site that is going to increase the odours slightly. You must be careful what you wish for. We inherited an issue which we are now trying to regularise. I get the impression speaking to the regulators that the majority are happy - there’s always the minority you can’t keep happy whatever you do.”

He said they had agreed with the EA’s enforcement notice to bring the site down to a level of “a bit higher” than 16m and were seeking a variation of their licence to allow them to tip up to 200,000 tonnes a year from their current 32,000 tonnes “otherwise every month when we submit the quarterly returns we would be breaching that condition.” But he said there was only 150,000 cubic metres of void capacity left.

As for the council, they were going to put in a retrospective planning application to regularise the situation around the height.