East Yorkshire residents' fears over M62 rubbish tip
Residents living in the shadow of a towering rubbish tip next to the M62 in East Yorkshire say they have had enough of the "filth, smell and noise".
By Pritti MistryBBC News They fear operator City Plant Ltd might not stop dumping waste at the landfill site in Newport, near Gilberdyke, despite a ban by the Environment Agency (EA) which comes into effect on Monday. The EA served a third enforcement notice to City Plant following two orders last year to reduce the amount of rubbish. "I hope it stops, but I don't have much hope. I don't think it will stop," said 63-year-old Brenda Cross. "Since the notice was issued last week, the wagons are constantly up and down this road dumping rubbish. There's more traffic now then there used to be." 'Affecting health' Mrs Cross is one of a number of residents who have lived alongside the landfill site for more than 30 years. People living near the tip said it had been increasing in size since April, when it was reported to have reached more than double its permitted height limit of 10m (32ft) set by East Riding of Yorkshire Council. Mrs Cross said her quality of life had deteriorated rapidly. She said she now had to stay overnight with her sister in Hull on a weekly basis "to escape". "I'm very stressed by the whole situation. I've been to the doctors because my hands and the back of my neck was very itchy and she gave me some tablets. "I just can't stand it." One resident, a 65-year-old retired engineer who wishes to remain anonymous, lives about half a mile from the site and has a direct view of it from his bedroom window. He said he had seen "more than 100 wagons dumping rubbish" in just one day and said it was "seriously affecting" his health. "The actual smell from the tip is horrendous," he said. "When you wake up in the morning you can smell this sickly smell, it gets to the back of your throat and makes you want to vomit, it's a really, really bad smell. "They're supposed to cover up the rubbish with soil when they finish a day but they don't do, they leave it open." According to the latest figures released by the EA, more than 80,000 tonnes of waste was dumped at the site for the first nine months of 2011. The permit allows a maximum of 70,000 tonnes a year. City Plant refused to explain why the site had exceeded the limit, but said it was "handling the situation". The EA confirmed City Plant had recently submitted a request to increase the annual tonnage of its permit to 200,000 tonnes a year. In December, East Riding of Yorkshire Council granted planning permission for City Plant to operate at the site until November 2013. The original application, submitted in April 2011, was for a five-year extension. In a statement, the council said: "The council is in discussions with the owners of the site, the Environment Agency and the local community through the liaison group to resolve the planning matters at the site including the height of the tip, operating hours and mud on the road." Leigh Sayers, from the EA, said: "We've served enforcement notices and the latest one is for the operator to stop tipping waste from 13 February. "It can start tipping waste again once it's removed the overtipped waste and demonstrated to us that there's sufficient capacity left in the site to start tipping waste again. "When we do our inspections and audits, we do from time to time meet the residents and explain what we're trying to do about things."