Many residents will be angry at the latest news from the Averies Waste Crisis – that Averies have gone into administration and that the costs of cleaning up their site at Cheney Manor could become the liability of Swindon Council at a cost of £2m – equivalent of a 2.5 per cent increase in council tax.
Firstly it is crucial that the council work together with the Environment Agency to ensure that Averies and not taxpayers pay the costs of cleaning up their site.
The Environment Agency should use their powers under the Environmental Permitting Regulations to recover the costs from Averies or their directors. However, there are some important questions that need to be answered. It is now very important that we can start a proper inquiry into the Averies Waste Crisis.
We need to find out if both the Marshgate and Cheney Manor sites were operated according to their Environmental Permits and whether the Environment Agency could have stepped in earlier to suspend Averies Permit and stop the site from becoming dangerous.
It is also important to understand whether the council could have used their powers as landlord to have stopped the Cheney Manor site to get into the state it did, and therefore avoided the threat of a £2m bill.
I will be pressing the council’s scrutiny committee to start this work as soon as possible. On behalf of the residents of Swindon, I am determined to get the answers that residents deserve.
It is also vital that the law is changed to force waste companies to have mandatory insurance for waste fires and their clean-up costs.
In September this idea was debated in Parliament. It is a shame that neither Swindon MP attended this debate.
I am proud to have worked alongside the community and local councillors to help resolve the Averies Waste Crisis and stop the Council dumping waste at the Groundwell Park & Ride.
If I become the MP for North Swindon I will lobby for a change to the law to ensure that a problem like Averies cannot happen again.
Mark Dempsey Parliamentary Candidate for North Swindon
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