Three of the country’s worst illegal dumps are due to be cleaned up using taxpayers’ money, the government has announced.

Sites in Kent, Surrey and West Yorkshire will be assessed for clearance, with Prime Minister Andy Burnham saying the “toxic dumps have blighted communities for too long”.

Fines for waste offences will also rise from £300 to £5,000 to deter, catch, and punish those who dump illegally, and the Environment Agency will have more powers to seize assets bought with the proceeds of crime by those involved.

But opposition parties said illegal dumps were a small part of a much bigger issue with smaller scale fly-tipping and landfill all posing big problems for communities.

Burnham is looking to build on work started by his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer to tackle waste crime, with an action plan published in March detailing a series of measures – including using drones to map illegal waste sites.

Sir Keir’s administration had announced that sites in Wigan, Sheffield and Lancashire would have government clean-ups – alongside Kidlington in Oxfordshire where removal of 20,000 tonnes of waste started in April.

The government said the new sites identified for clearance contain around 22,000 tonnes of illegally dumped waste.

They are: Power Station Road, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent; Aymer Close, in Runnymede, Surrey; and Midland Road in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester will be the first areas with new region-led approaches to waste crime.

The government said this will give mayors and council leaders the lead in co-ordinating councils, police, regulators, and other enforcement agencies.

Burnham said: “The days of making easy money out of waste are over. We’re giving authorities the powers to hunt down the people responsible. We will seize their assets and shut their operations down.”

A new “waste crime crackdown group”, chaired by Environment Secretary Angela Eagle, will bring regulators and law enforcement together in a bid to dismantle criminal operations.

Eagle said: “We are cleaning up sites, but we are also stopping the cycle, driving faster prevention and disruption, better intelligence, and stronger coordination across the system.”

A Green Party spokesperson agreed a crackdown was needed, but highlighted that smaller-scale dumping was a bigger issue and called for extra ring-fenced funding.

“We also need to boost the circular economy, so households and businesses are better able to reuse, repair, repurpose and recycle goods and make manufacturers and producers responsible for the safe disposal for the goods and packaging they produce,” they added.

Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson Tim Farron welcomed tougher fines but said waste crime was only one part of a bigger problem, and called for an independent review of the waste system.

“Andy Burnham needs to wake up and smell the landfill,” he said.

“New mayoral powers won’t cut it if the National Crime Agency isn’t empowered to clear these illegal sites, and stop legal sites spiralling out of control.

“We need an independent review of the whole system to crack down on these organised gangs once and for all.”

The Conservatives and Reform UK have been contacted for comment.

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