Member

I will make a brief reference, although I expect we will touch on this in the next group, to the Kidlington illegal waste dumping incident. It is absolutely unacceptable and wrong. A criminal investigation is ongoing, on which I cannot comment in detail, but a total of four arrests have been made to date. The Environment Agency has taken action to limit the impact of this waste crime on the environment and the local community, which goes to the points that the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, mentioned. It directly awarded a contract on 19 January to a company called Acumen Waste Services Ltd, which is looking at how it can remove that waste as a matter of urgency. Site mobilisation will commence on 2 March and waste removal is predicted to commence in early April. The mobilisation will consist of removing the material, importing aggregate to create access tracks for heavy vehicles, the building of site compound and cabins, and erecting further security fencing. There will also be a number of issues to do with water sampling and putting traffic management plans in place.