The days of criminal gangs making easy money from dumping waste are “over”, the prime minister will say on a visit to a waste site in Yorkshire later today.
Illegal dumps in West Yorkshire, Surrey and Kent will be cleared up using taxpayer money, Andy Burnham has announced, as he promised a new drive to tackle toxic waste.
Ministers have identified dumps in Bradford, Runnymede and the Isle of Sheppey, which collectively contain about 22,000 tonnes of illegal waste, to be cleared in the next phase of the government’s national clear-up effort.
Meanwhile, fines will be raised for rogue dumpers, and AI-powered drones will be used to detect illegal activity while it happens, as the government looks to prioritise prevention alongside clean-up efforts.
double quotation markThese toxic dumps have blighted communities for too long. I said we would clean them up – and that’s exactly what we’re announcing today.
double quotation markThese mountains of rubbish have been a clear sign to communities that politics hasn’t been working for them or their area.
This government is going to tackle the issues that have been ignored by Westminster for too long and bring back hope.
Hundreds of illegal waste sites have been reported across England, with a BBC investigation recently uncovering 11 “supersites” that contain more than 20,000 tonnes of rubbish.
One of the country’s most notorious sites is in Burnham’s own constituency of Makerfield, where a rotting, rat-infested mountain of waste has remained for more than 20 months. The site was identified for clean-up in March alongside two others, but locals say they have seen little improvement in the site since then.
During the byelection campaign, which Burnham won earlier this year, voters in the area told the Guardian they would vote for him specifically to get rid of that one site.
Andy Burnham has said government money alone may not be enough to get rough sleepers off the streets by Christmas, as he issued a “rallying call” for councils, charities and communities to help solve the problem. Speaking on a visit to the north-east of England, he said he felt “very passionately” about tackling homelessness and wanted the wider society to play a part in wiping it out.
Burnham is “too chicken” to approve the controversial Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gasfields, the Tories have claimed. Production had been approved by the previous Conservative government, but those decisions were quashed after a legal challenge by Greenpeace, leaving Labour ministers to decide whether drilling should go ahead.
Labour could lose dozens of seats to the Green party if the government allows new drilling in the North Sea, according to internal research shared with the Guardian. Green party analysis suggests up to 50 Labour MPs – including key Andy Burnham ally Louise Haigh – could lose their seats at the next election if the government fails to make urgent climate action a priority or allows new drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea.
The Tories believe they can cut energy bills by £540 a year for the next two decades by prioritising cheap energy over net zero. Speaking in London, the shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said, when she was a minister, civil servants had been unable to prove to her that wind and solar energy was cheaper than fossil fuels.
Burnham has warned of the dangers of open-water swimming as he called the deaths of a mother, father and their teenage daughter who got into difficulty in water off Sussex “a terrible family tragedy”. The prime minister expressed his sympathies as a young girl from the same family remained in a critical condition in hospital.
