Taxpayers cover £15m to haul nearly 40,000 tonnes of illegal waste out of Kent's Hoads Wood

Divide the £15m bill ^[1] by the nearly 40,000 tonnes that criminals tipped at Hoads Wood in 2023 ^[2] and you get about £375 a tonne ^[16]. The dumping took six months. The clear-up took 15, two and a half times as long ^[17].

Kent is the largest of the three supersite clear-ups paid for from central funds so far. £6m has gone on a site in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, and £4.8m is set aside for one near Wigan ^[11]. Add Hoads Wood and the total is £25.8m, about 58% of it spent in Kent ^[18]. The BBC counts Hoads Wood among hundreds of illegal waste sites in England, a number of them supersites holding more than 20,000 tonnes each ^[10]. The government estimates that waste crime costs the country more than £1bn a year ^[12]. Environment secretary Dame Angela Eagle said: "This government is taking action on the illegal waste sites that have blighted communities." ^[15]

Whether this money went on cleaning up after an enforcement failure depends on a timeline that is still disputed. At the peak, in summer 2023, locals said 20 to 30 trucks a day were dumping in the bluebell wood ^[13]. Campaigners have criticised the authorities for not acting quickly enough ^[19]. Matthew Higginson, the Environment Agency's area environmental manager, said the agency did respond quickly but had to investigate "to make sure we had a robust case to take to court in order to get a restriction order which closed the site" ^[20]. The BBC report does not give the date that order was granted. On this record, the claim that slow enforcement produced the bill is plausible but unproven.

The people who campaigned for the clear-up are worried about the cleared ground. One organiser of the Rescue Hoads Wood campaign called it "catnip" to organised gangs and opportunist fly-tippers ^[5]. "Our biggest fear now is people are going to be able to access this site and start dumping on it again and unless the authorities are quick it will happen again," he told the BBC ^[5]. On top of the ditches and the extended order, Higginson's answer speaks to that condition about speed. He said the regulator, police and local authorities have a joint "trigger plan" ^[7]. "That will bring all law enforcement partners to work together closely and much more quickly to stop anything like this happening in the future," he said ^[7].

Removing the waste will not bring back the old wood any time soon. The site is a Site of Special Scientific Interest known for rare plants and wildlife ^[2]. According to Ian Rickards, area manager for Kent Wildlife Trust, the species of the ancient woodland will need decades to come back ^[8]. "It won't recover as it was but there are benefits to this. You've now got open space within the woodland. You've got wet bodies. You've got ponds," he said ^[9]. "All of this will start creating, collecting and attracting wildlife back into here so it'll be fascinating to see how the site recovers." ^[9]