The Environment Agency has “very serious questions to answer”, an MP has said – as Britain’s latest large-scale illegal dump remains open 12 months after the agency’s investigation first started.
Alex Burghart, the MP for Brentwood and Ongar, where the 300m-long dump is situated, said the site was “absolutely disgusting”.
The Conservative politician said: “It’s completely disgraceful that this site should ever have been allowed to get into this condition.
“We know that it’s been under investigation for some time, but how it’s being allowed to accumulate in this way is beyond me.”
Mr Burghart, a shadow minister, added that “something has clearly gone badly wrong in this case”.
He said: “There should have been preventative measures put up… this is clearly a sign of some sort of breakdown in process.
“Ultimately it’s going to come down to the taxpayer to fund cleaning it up. Whereas if it had been stopped sooner, the cost of clean-up would be smaller.”
This shocking illegal M25 waste site has kept on growing – despite an Environment Agency investigation
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Zack Polanski, the Green Party leader, told Sky’s Trevor Phillips that policing waste crime may result in “an arms race of surveillance”.
“Unless we’re going to surveil people 24/7 all the time, and I think that has to be the last resort, I’d much rather look at behaviour change and get people to feel pride in their place,” he said.
Photographs previously obtained by Sky News appear to show tonnes of rubbish being dumped from a lorry just last week at the site in Stapleford Tawney, southeast of Epping, and right next to the M25.
But 48 hours after Sky News’s report, and 12 months after the EA investigation began in February 2025, the site remains open, with no gates, cameras or signs.
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The images of the recent dumping were shared with Sky News by a local man who does not want to be named – who only stopped at the site after noticing a lorry stuck in mud.
The man called 999 and two men were arrested last Friday, 6 February. Essex Police confirmed that they had arrested a 55-year-old from Horley in Surrey and a 25-year-old from Mullaghbawn in County Armagh.
Satellite imagery analysed by Sky News shows the land in October 2024, when it was green and full of trees.
On 19 September last year, there is clear activity at the site, with possible dumping taking place in the top-left corner of the site.
The seven-acre site is now completely covered in tens of thousands of tonnes of waste, which is buried several metres deep and backs on to a tributary to the River Roding – which feeds into the River Thames.
Sky News has been investigating how, across the country, waste crime is a growing scourge and a booming business being exploited by criminal gangs.
Being paid to remove rubbish, only to dump it illegally without sorting it or paying tax, is an easy way of making huge amounts of money, with poorly-enforced legal repercussions and a huge cost to the environment.
It’s something the previous head of the Environment Agency called “the new narcotics”.
– It’s thought a fifth of all waste in England is being illegally managed
– That’s around 34 million tonnes a year, enough to fill about four million skips
– It costs the economy around a billion pounds a year, with legitimate operators thought to be losing a further £3bn from missed business
Last July, we tracked down a group of suspected organised fly-tippers who waved wads of cash on TikTok after dumping waste in the countryside.
Laura Reineke, chief executive of Friends of the Thames, told Sky News she believes the EA is “not fit for purpose”.
“They’ve been hollowed out, they’ve been defunded, their teeth have been removed. We need real overhaul of the entire system so that things like this do not happen.”
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Ms Reineke said there were serious environmental concerns at the site: “There is nothing protecting the public from this hazardous waste, there’s nothing protecting this river from this hazardous waste.
“This could combust at any time. This should be a multi-agency job that comes in, swoops in the moment it’s heard about and blocks it off, makes it safe, cleans it up,” she said.
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Sky News understands the Environment Agency is urgently seeking a restriction order to close the site down – and is continuing to gather further evidence.
Barry Russell, from the Environment Agency, said: “I share the public’s anger at waste crime, where those responsible have no care for the environment.”
