A CASE OF FLY TIPPING by Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC?
It was back in June of 2015 that a local resident noticed some building waste that was being tipped at a local beauty spot known locally as “The reservoirs”, in the village of Glynhafod, at the top of the Cwmaman Valley. The land reclamation site of the reservoirs was done back in the late 80’s/90’s after some serious flooding there prior to the land reclamation. The local resident was thinking that surely this was not correct, these contractors tipping all this waste at this beauty spot?
The local resident enquired with Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council (RCTCBC) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) about building waste being tipped up at this beauty spot, the Freedom of Information (FOI) was used to acquire the details.
Firstly, the land was found to be owned by RCTCBC who had applied to the NRW for a U1 exemption. Now under this U1, RCTCBC was allowed to store and re-use a total of and not exceeding 1,000 Tonnes of waste material: 170504: soil and stones not containing hazardous substances.
Now, I hear you asking where did all this building waste material come from to be tipped up onto this beauty spot? Good question, and the answer to this is, it is all surplus material from the new “Super School” that is part of the Sobell Redevelopment Site in Aberdare
The total amount of waste that was transferred to the beauty spot in Glynhafod was…123 Twenty Tonne lorries which equates to 2,460 Tonnes of Waste according to the “waste transfer documents” that were asked for under the FOI! Now, if you live in the villages of Aberaman, Godreaman, Cwmaman or Glynhafod, you may remember back last April\May 2015 that there were a lot of “Tom Pritchard” 20 ton lorries back and forth through the aforementioned villages which created complete and utter chaos for the people living in the villages, not to mention the safety of our children, thankfully there were no accidents. RCTCBC did not put in any sort of traffic control to alleviate the chaos that was created, even though, according to the Head of Corporate Design & Maintenance at RCTC they informed the local councillor prior to carrying out this operation and the councillor was OK with the arangment proposed.
RCTCBC did re-use some of the material for resurfacing the road.
I must add, through no fault of the haulage contractor Tom Pritchard, they were just carrying out instructions and I asume a contract of the transfer of the 246 lorries through our villages.
RCTCBC were only allowed to tip and reuse 1,000 tonnes of this waste under the U1 exemption? And that’s according to NRW in their FOI response, so how/why did they tip all the other 1,460 Tonnes of waste there? well, Was it tipped there illegally (fly tipped) by your very own council? Who, wants to (and rightly so) prosecute you if you fly tip any waste material or anything else! But it seems perfectly reasonable for RCTC to tip the waste there on the basics of “this was an economical method of dealing with the spoil given the time and budget constraints” as stated in a FOI request. Now as a resident of RCT I have tried to get the RCTCBC to release the figures showing the full cost of this complete operation, but they are refusing to release them “We believe that this information is commercially sensitive and is exempt information under Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which deals with prejudice to commercial interests”.
Since the NRW has got to hear about this fly tipping in the beauty spot of Glynhafod, NRS have informed myself and RCTC in an E-Mail copy below.
Dear Mr xxx,
Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your email.
Natural Resources Wales have given advice and guidance to RCT with regard to this site. We do agree that the transfer notes equate to 2,460 tonnes of waste and so we will expect RCT to remove from site 1,460 tonnes in order to comply with the 1000 tonne limit for the U1 exemption. The agreed date that the work will be undertaken is 31st March 2016. We would not expect the works to be carried out by this date if the works were to damage the ground or pose a risk to the environment or human welfare due to circumstances for example weather conditions. If this target date is not met we shall agree a new date with the local authority for the work to be completed.
Regards
National Resources Wales
RCTCBC has now got to remove 1,460 Tonnes of illegally tipped waste from the site at Glynhafod, that they have already paid private contractors to transport it up there from the Sobell Redevelopment Site in Aberdare, now they have to pay another private contractor to remove it from where it was fly tipped!! I have asked the local councillor Tina Williams if she can mediate with the RCTCBC to put into action some sort of traffic control for the removal of the 1,460 Tonnes of waste that got to come out from there, and be transported through our villages by the means of 150 loads in Twenty Ton Lorries, but as of today she has not got back to my E-Mail! The waste has got to be taken to the land fill site in Llwycoed, Bryn Pica, is my understanding, all at a cost of public money, that they are wasting on paying contractors to put right their own mistakes. All this is happening while they take away our children’s free to school transport, while they are shutting down our library’s, and lots of other austerity measures.
E-Mail sent to Cllr Tina Williams Aberaman South
Dear Cllr
I would like to thank you for coming to the meeting that we arranged, also at the meeting were David Powell (Head of Corporate Design & Maintenance) who you brought along with you and & Mr Elwyn Thomas who accompanied myself, regarding the illegal dumping of building waste from the Aberdare School development at the beauty spot of Glynhafod Reservoirs.
The first thing to come out of the on-site meeting was the fact that Mr David Powell admitted that the RCTC had unintentionally tipped 1,460 Tonnes of waste there by mistake and apologised for this.
Due to this fact that RCTC has illegally fly-tipped this building waste on a local beauty spot in the Aman Valley. I have been informed along with RCTC, by National Resources Wales (NRW) that the waste has been illegally transferred/tipped and has to be removed. I think that we need to try and ensure that RCTC need to put some sort of traffic restrictions/control whatever that may be to ensure that this removing of 1,460 Tonnes of waste, which equates to 75×2= 150 twenty tonne lorries back and forth through our villages again. We can’t just leave the RCTC to move this waste through our villages creating the complete and utter chaos that they created the last time when they fetched 123 twenty tonne lorries from the new school in the sobell development site in Aberdare! This may cost some money to put into place, but that’s the price RCTC has to pay for their complete incompetence for illegally dumping it up there in the first place illegally! Even if it was done by “mistake”. Can you communicate with RCTC to confirm that this will be put in place, and could you please keep me fully informed of the details, and also let me know when the work to remove all the waste is going to start.
Secondly, as you being my councillor, you are entitled to know the total cost of this “unintentional” “mistake”. So I would be grateful if, as we discussed on Thursday 21 Jan 2016, you can let me know the total cost of this “mistake” done by the RCTC. I would like to know the total cost from the fist shovel full of building waste that was moved from the new school at the sobell centre site in Aberdare, to the last load that has to be removed by the 31 March 2016 from the reservoirs in Glynhafod. The total cost with all the contractors that are/were involved in the chain of work that had to be done…Peter Simmons, Tom Pritchard Haulage and any other contractor involved, plus any other costs including any work done by RCTC, including any traffic control that hopefully they are going to put in place. If you aren’t allowed to have the total cost in ££ of this “mistake”, then I shall have to ask the auditors to see if they will give it to us.
Also, could you please let me know, where the waste is going to be transferred to, from the Glynhafod Reservoirs? I don’t think that David Powell answered that question on Thursday.
