For seven years, Kiersten Dunn listened to the sound of owls hooting as she drifted off to sleep on her canal boat next to Stocker’s Lake Nature Reserve in Hertfordshire.
Since January 2023, however, the silence has been ruined by an illegal scrap site on the edge of the lake. All she can hear now is the nearly constant whirring of digger engines and the crunching of metal.
The birds that nested nearby have long since left, and Dunn, 52, is planning to follow suit.
“It’s been three years now, and this conservation area feels more like an industrial area,” she said. “My dog has to be medicated because of all the unexpected loud bangs coming from there. There have been at least two fires. They are usually open on Sundays and bank holidays as well, so there’s no let-up.”
TOBY SHEPHEARD FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
TOBY SHEPHEARD FOR THE SUNDAY TIMESSpringwell Lane Metal Recycling is one of thousands of sites across the UK illegally processing and dumping rubbish in fields, public green spaces and waterways. Every year more than 38 million tonnes of waste, enough to fill Wembley Stadium 35 times, is believed to be illegally managed, costing the taxpayer an estimated £1 billion, according to evidence submitted to a House of Lords inquiry into waste crime.
The tip, which holds about a hundred tonnes of scrap metal, is located in a popular nature spot outside Rickmansworth, tucked between the River Colne, the Grand Union canal and Stocker’s Lake.
It is not fenced off and encroaches on the neighbouring reserve, home to one of Britain’s largest breeding colonies of herons. There is debris on the public footpath that runs alongside the site, pools of dark liquid have been photographed outside the entrance and the air surrounding the yard is heavy with the smell of petrol. Among the large piles of rubbish are smashed cars, white goods and barrels of oil.
Residents say the site has no right to be there. The business never secured planning permission from Hillingdon borough council before opening in 2023 and it has no permit from the Environment Agency (EA).
In September 2024 it was served with a council enforcement notice to “cease the use of the land as a scrap metal yard”. The notice was upheld in March last year, after the business unsuccessfully appealed, but since then neither the EA nor Hillingdon council has moved to close the yard.
The council is now prosecuting the site’s owner, Martin Nolan, 50, for failure to comply with an enforcement notice. But residents, incensed by the authorities’ inertia, face a long wait for justice: a trial will not take place until March 5, 2029, at Isleworth crown court.
“Nobody’s done anything,” said Ian Walker, 61, who helps run a kayak club. “It’s just, ‘I’m not responsible, it’s someone else.’ Then there’s an environmental disaster and then everyone runs for the hills and starts pointing [fingers]. The fact is, they’ve been told to sort it out and they haven’t.”
Baroness Sheehan, who led the recent Lords inquiry into waste crime, said: “This is yet another example of the waste regulatory regime failing to protect the natural environment and residents from illegal waste sites … Hillingdon council and the Environment Agency must therefore act quickly and deal with this toxic eyesore.”
Residents say the site has grown in size in recent months and is potentially leaking chemicals and toxins into the ground, threatening the wildlife of the nature reserve. Depending on the severity of the leaks, soil decontamination can take years, even decades.
Meanwhile, muntjacs and egrets that used to be common in the area are no longer spotted, and there are fears that noise pollution from the yard, which can be heard several hundred metres away, is disrupting the breeding of herons and other animals. “This is a real threat to the environment,” said Mike Sims, 57, a local independent councillor. “We need action now before it gets any worse and the impacts become long-lasting.”
Many residents asked not be named in speaking out about the business, saying that they had been subjected to “threatening” behaviour from people linked to the site. Nolan denied this, saying he answers all the residents’ “questions and concerns as best I can”. He added: “I would challenge anyone to say that I have been rude or threatening to them at anytime.”
There are nearly 5,900 illegal waste sites in England alone, according to analysis of satellite imagery conducted by Air & Space Evidence, which contributed to Sheehan’s inquiry. As of March 18, there were 14 “super sites” with more than 20,000 tonnes of illegally dumped waste, the EA said last month.
The government has vowed to crack down on the problem. The EA has been given £45 million in funding for enforcement and new powers to search premises, make arrests and seize assets. Technology including drones and satellite imagery will be used to monitor illegal sites, the government says.
This month contractors began clearing 21,000 tonnes of rubbish from a site near Kidlington, Oxfordshire, that made headlines after it was uncovered last year. Up to 30 lorryloads of waste will be removed each day and the operation is expected to run until late summer.
But despite rising awareness of waste crime and its impacts, those who call Stocker’s Lake home feel helpless and ignored. “It’s very frustrating,” said Walker. “As a country, we’ve become more scruffy.”
Nolan said Hillingdon council had issued his business a valid scrap licence when he opened and that he had received a waste exemption from the Environment Agency, which allows companies to carry out low-risk waste operations without a full environmental permit. He added that he was reconcreting the site, fitting a drainage system and putting up fencing. “I definitely was not and still feel now that I am not an illegal waste site,” he said.
The Environment Agency said it had deregistered Nolan’s waste exemption and instructed him to remove the waste. “We are working in tandem with the local authority and will use all our powers as necessary to resolve the matter swiftly,” a spokesperson said.
Hillingdon council said it was seeking an injunction from the High Court to force the closure of the site. “We are taking this matter seriously,” it said.
