Battle plan to stop dumping in mines

8:47am Saturday 19th April 2008

Comments (1)   Have your say »

By Chris Brayshay »

BATTLE lines are being drawn up to stop a firm dumping waste in disused anhydrite mines running below a town.

Patrick Jenkin, Margaret Thatcher's Environment Secretary in 1985, gave Billingham, near Stockton, an assurance that nuclear waste would not be tipped in the exhausted underground workings below the town, following a community battle.

Now, more than 20 years on, Glasgow- based NPL Estates wants to bury inert incinerator waste in the mines.

Jim Vaughan, a former member of the group Band (Billingham Against Nuclear Dumping), which spearheaded the successful Eighties campaign to stop the mines being used, said last night there would have to be stringent controls to ensure anything buried in the mines was incinerator waste.

But Prospective Labour Parliamentary candidate for Stockton North, Alex Cunningham, a member of Stockton Borough Council's cabinet, fears NPL's move could be the "thin end of the wedge".

He said: "They could then follow that up with a series of applications to dump other wastes."

More than 3,400 people have signed a petition protesting against the plan.

The company wants to dump ash, builders' rubble and computer screens in the mines and insists any waste operations would be safe.

However, a Tees Valley strategy framework document advises "a more sustainable approach to the management of the waste" would be a site in nearby Port Clarence - not the mines.

NPL has sent leaflets to 4,000 houses sitting above the old workings, promising not to store waste immediately below their homes.

But Councillor Cunningham said: "I don't think this will make any difference to the people of Billingham.

"Their principal worry is that once the mine is reopened, it could be used for anything. And I will be continuing to campaign against the use of the mine."

NPL managing director Simon Towers said the firm had listened to residents. "We have identified an area for disposal that isn't under residential areas. The source of all the waste entering the mine would be known and recorded, it would be tested on-site and stored in special conditions under licence from the Environment Agency," he said.

He said waste dumped in the mine could generate £300,000 a year in landfill tax, to be spent locally.