Criminal gangs escalating activity by flytipping toxic waste
Thousands of gallons of toxic sludge has been dumped - costing £25,000 to clean up
Brentwood Council has appealed for help in tackling organised gangs illegally dumping waste – including thousands of gallons of toxic sludge that cost £25,000 to clean up.
In the six months to May 2024, the borough has seen 621 incidents of fly-tipping – the same number of incidents recorded for the whole of 2017/2018.
The council said April had an unprecedented number of large-scale fly-tips with large fuel tanks each containing up to 1,000 litres of waste oil product being dumped in Warley – two in Green Lane, two in Home Farm Road and one in Beredens Lane.
At Home Farm Road one of the tanks split as it crashed to the ground after being pushed off the back of a flatbed truck.
This resulted in the closure of the road and an extensive clean-up operation costing the taxpayer thousands.
The cost of these fly tips alone has been estimated at £25,000 although Essex County Council will cover the disposal costs which are in the region of £12,000.
The problem has led Brentwood Borough Council leader Barry Aspinell to appeal for help in tackling “organised gangs coming out of London”.
He said at Essex County Council Full Council on Tuesday: “Over the last two or three years Brentwood has been subject of a lot of fly-tipping.
“Over the last nine months to a year that has escalated beyond all recognition as what it was before.
“We are the subject of organised gangs coming out of London and dumping lots of their rubbish all over our countryside and all over our lanes.
“And recently this has been escalated into toxic waste that is costing Essex County Council as well as Brentwood Borough Council tens of thousands of pounds to clear up.”
In January a huge pile of up to 20 tonnes of “potentially hazardous waste” was dumped in a Brentwood beauty spot car park used by children as a drop-off point for school.
The huge pile of steaming waste was deposited overnight at the South Weald country park car park in Brentwood.
Councillor Aspinell added: “This is happening on a daily basis. Hundreds of thousands of tons of waste are coming out of London and being dumped in our lanes by organised gangs.
“They dumped tons of contaminated waste in South Weald Park car park not too long ago and we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on new camera equipment to try and deter some of these.
“But when they’re using vehicles with wrong plates and and unmarked vehicles as well dressed in black balaclavas you’re not going to catch them so we need to do something else. We need assistance from everywhere.”