Hinckley and Bosworth District Council has warned that clearing up a major illegal waste dump will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds.
An estimated 5,000 cubic metres of waste was discovered on council-owned land off the A47 Leicester Road between Hinckley and Earl Shilton. The site was previously earmarked for a new crematorium. The council was notified of the dump on 5 August and described it as the largest fly tip it has ever had to deal with.
Organised crime suspected
Council leader Stuart Bray said substantial barriers had been removed to allow access to the site. He described the dumping as the work of an organised crime gang rather than a casual fly-tipper.
Bray said: "I am absolutely appalled, it is going to cost taxpayers significant amounts of money in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. It is clearly an organised crime gang."
He advised anyone using waste operators to ensure they are properly registered, warning: "make sure they are properly registered and not a cowboy operator because otherwise you don't where they are going to end up disposing of it."
Two vehicles found on the site were removed under local authority powers for vehicles suspected of being used in waste crime.
Scale of the dump
Peter Haslock, an enforcement team leader at the Environment Agency, estimated over 200 tonnes of waste had been dumped at the site. He said the dumping appeared to have happened quickly, possibly over several days or a week.
The waste included household, commercial and industrial materials such as plastics, paper and construction materials. Machinery had been used to create earth dams to conceal the waste.
Haslock estimated clean-up costs could run into six figures. He said: "Until we know exactly how much material there is and what else is in that material it's very difficult for me to give an estimate, but it will be many thousands of pounds, hundreds of thousands of pounds potentially."
Bray said he would be writing to the government to seek financial support for the clean-up.