Residents near 'illegal' waste tip call for action

The waste at the site near Rochester is yet to be removed

Residents living near an "illegal" waste tip in Kent are calling for tougher action to get the site cleared.

Landowner John Treeby was served with an enforcement notice by the Environment Agency in October, giving him six months to clear the site at Wouldham Road, in Borstal.

But the waste is yet to be moved, with residents saying the area had become a huge mound.

A spokesperson for Mr Treeby said he was a victim of land grabbing and had not given anyone permission to tip on the land.

Resident and former local councillor, Stuart Tranter, said at one point hundreds of lorries were dumping thousands of tonnes of material in there.

“I think the general feeling now amongst people is that they’re fed up to the back teeth,” he said.

The Environment Agency estimates the waste to amount to nearly 34,470 cubic metres - enough to fill nearly 345 double-decker buses.

'Too much for one person'

Mr Treeby's spokesperson said: “He has not given anyone permission to tip on his land and this occurred during a time when he was hospitalised for a life limiting illness and during a time of grief when he lost his son during a car accident. He was subsequently the victim of an armed robbery."

The spokesperson added: “The scale of what has happened is too much for one person to take on so at the moment, no, nothing has been done.”

Kelly Tolhurst, MP for Rochester and Strood, said: "What I want now is for the agencies to not sit back, but to keep ploughing on with that enforcement to make sure that the site gets returned to what it was.

“It should be a message to others that people can't just wreck parts of our countryside and be left to get away with it.”

Mr Treeby has appealed against two enforcement notices served by Medway Council.

The Environment Agency said it would review its response if Mr Treeby did not comply with the enforcement notice. The deadline for this is 9 April.

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