The huge blaze, which involves large piles of abandoned waste, has burnt by the side of the M54 since midday on 26 April (see letsrecycle.com story).
In a letter addressed to residents and sent on 7 May, the council’s leader Shaun Davies said that with no operator available to put out the fire and clean up the site the local authority felt duty-bound to step in.
The money has been put towards activities including the demolition of the building, the installation of a concrete bund to be filled with water to extinguish the fire, and the removal of materials from the site.
Cllr Davies’s letter reads: “The severity of the fire was such that it could have taken months to extinguish. The reality of the situation is that there is no insurance on the site and the companies that were operating on the site have gone into administration.
“We faced the possibility of several months of air pollution and disruption for residents, businesses, schools and passing traffic on the M54.
“This was something we deemed unacceptable and in the absence of an operator in the situation we felt that we could not allow this situation to continue.”
Cllr Davies said every effort would be made to recover costs.
Air quality
Telford and Wrekin council began monitoring air quality on 30 April after obtaining the necessary equipment.
UPDATE 20.00hrs 9/5/21
An evening update from the scene in Ketley. @shropsfire @TelfordWrekin @BBCShropshire @bbcmtd pic.twitter.com/6qX0y0b9MD— Craig Jackson (@SFRS_cjackson) May 9, 2021
Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service and Public Health England have urged nearby residents to keep doors and windows shut.
In an update on 9 May, station manager at Shropshire Fire and Rescue service Craig Jackson said: “Over the next couple of days contractors will start to remove the waste from the building and we’ll continue to damp that down and extinguish the fire.
“What that means is that in the next couple of days you may see an increase in smoke as that material’s being moved out of the building.”
Greenway Polymers
The site was previously operated by recycling business and refuse derived fuel (RDF) exporters Greenway Polymers, formerly known as Johnson Aggregates & Recycling Ltd, Greenway Waste Recycling and Pink Skips. The company dissolved in 2017.
Below is a shot of the site in June 2018.
The site is still privately owned and not under council control. Telford and Wrekin council twice refused planning permission for operations on the site. On both occasions, the council’s decisions were overturned on appeal by government planning inspectors.
The council says it has held meetings with the landowner to discuss the future of the site.
In his letter Cllr Davies said he wanted to reiterate his opinion that the site “should never have been used for this purpose” and that it “should not return to its current purpose”.
In a statement published on 7 May Telford’s Conservative MP Lucy Allan said she wanted to see the government “getting tough on the perpetrators of waste crime and on those authorities that look the other way”.
She said: “We now know the previous operators went into liquidation four years ago and the operating permit expired at that point. Residents report that the site was open and continuing to operate, with more waste being brought on site up until the time of the fire. The site did not have a permit for this purpose. It was unregulated.”
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