Council yet to recover £1m illegal tip clean-up costs

Alec Doyle, Local Democracy Reporter

Two years after a major fire triggered an investigation into an illegal waste site no-one has been held accountable for the £1m clean-up operation.

Flintshire County Council paid over £1m to clean up the site on Riverside Way in Queensferry after it became an unlicensed rubbish tip, with 1,200 tonnes of waste deposited on the site with a pledge to recover the cost from whoever was responsible.

But two years on none of the agencies involved are able to confirm that anyone responsible has been identified.

Action was originally prompted by a huge fire at the site on November 8, 2024.

That incident triggered a major emergency services response and led to Flintshire County Council electing to stump up the money from its reserves to clear the site action.

Meanwhile Natural Resources Wales and North Wales Police agreed to work in partnership to investigate the dump to identify who was responsible for operating it. Those individuals were then supposed to be prosecuted with Flintshire County Council seeking to recover some or all of the clean-up costs.

But two years on mystery surrounds whether those investigations are any closer to identifying who is responsible and holding them to account.

When the local authority agreed to clean up the site the original estimated cost was around £400,000.

In a revenue report from March 2025 detailing the need to take money from Flintshire County Council reserves to fund the clean-up it stated: “The incident is being investigated by external agencies with those responsible likely to be pursued through legal channels.

“The cost of the clean-up operation will be pursued as part of any associated legal action.”

As NRW and North Wales Police conducted their joint investigation, the cost of clean-up escalated and by the end of the process Flintshire County Council had spent £1,010,000 on remediating the site.

There are now boulders and CCTV preventing the site being used for illegal dumping again – but still no sign of an arrest, a prosecution or any cost recovery for the local authority.

When asked for an update on the investigation North Wales Police said they were not the lead investigating agency and could not provide an update.

Flintshire County Council said that NRW was leading the investigation and it couldn’t comment any further.

An NRW spokesperson said they were unable to provide any information as the investigation is still ongoing.