Nearly 30 illegal waste 'super sites' revealed in new government watchlist

Nearly 30 illegal waste 'super sites' revealed in new government watchlist10 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleMalcolm Priorrural affairs producerGetty ImagesThe locations of 117 illegal waste sites have been revealed on a new national watchlistNearly 30 suspected illegal waste "super sites", each containing tens of thousands of tonnes of rubbish, have been identified in a new watchlist of dumps in England.The list of 117 "high priority" sites, published by the Environment Agency (EA) on Friday, includes 28 so-called "super sites" that contain more than 20,000 tonnes of waste.The largest is a 281,000-tonne heap of contaminated soil in Northwich, Cheshire, which is one of 11 such sites revealed by a BBC investigation in January.The EA said there are about 700 illegal waste sites in total, but it had highlighted ones of a higher priority to "enable residents to see where we are acting".Included on the watchlist are the sites that are currently being cleared up by the EA at Hoads Wood, in Kent, and Kidlington, in Oxfordshire.Huge tips in Wigan and Sheffield - together containing nearly 40,000 tonnes of waste - also feature on the list. They have been earmarked for possible clearance at the taxpayers' expense as part of the government's waste crime action plan.But the EA emphasised that it was not generally funded to clear up the other sites identified on the watchlist and only does so in exceptional circumstances.It said sites chosen for clean-up so far were picked "due to a specific criteria, which includes posing a serious environmental risk and impact on the local community. This was a decision made by the government."Malcolm Prior/BBCSheffield business owner Geoff Howarth said the new watchlist gave him "no more faith" that action would be takenGeoff Howarth, the owner of a business next to the Sheffield site, told the BBC that the new watchlist gave him "no more faith...