Telford waste fire site cannot be cleared until blaze investigation is finished
A Telford site holding thousands of tonnes of waste still cannot be cleared – almost a year after it was ravaged by fire.
Investigators looking into the huge blaze at Greenway Recycling site in Ketley, say nothing can be done until their work is complete.
The site, alongside the M54, is still storing thousands of cubic metres of waste. The fire in April last year took a month to control and sent plumes of smoke high into the sky.
Today the Environment Agency has confirmed that no action will be taken over clearing the site until its probe into the fire is complete.
Greenway had been managed by two brothers from Northern Ireland but they went out of business in January 2017, leaving 26,000 cubic metres of waste at the site.
Although not responsible for the fire, the pair – Jonathan and Mark Nicholson from Armagh – have been given suspended jail sentences for breaching the terms of their environmental permit.
To complicate matters, the Environment Agency granted a permit for another firm to process pulverised fuel ash into products at the site in 2018.
Amid community concern over the use of the site, Telford & Wrekin Council refused a planning application for Johnson’s Aggregates & Recycling Limited to set up at the location, but a planning inspector overruled the decision in December 2019.
Despite the move the firm has not taken up the option to set up at the site, and ultimately the waste left at the site from Greenway's collapse was involved in the 2021 fire.
An Environment Agency spokesman said the next steps would have to await the outcome of the investigation.
He said: “Much of the waste related to the previous investigation and attributable to Greenway Waste Recycling Ltd remains at the site.
"The Environment Agency is in regular contact with the site owner. An investigation is underway into the circumstances of the fire, and until the investigation is concluded the Environment Agency is not able to take any action to clear the site at this time."
Telford & Wrekin Council leader Councillor Shaun Davies said he wanted to see the site cleared and would oppose any move to run a waste transfer business from the location.
He said: "We continue to be really frustrated at the fact the burned out waste is still on the site.
"As I understand it that can only be moved off that site with the Environment Agency granting a permit to an operator, and that has not happened.
"I know the EA are continuing to investigate what happened and that's taking a lot of time. My pledge to residents down there is we will do all we can to ensure that is never a waste transfer site again."
