Illegal dump becomes ‘symbol of north-south divide’ at heart of Makerfield byelection
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- Bickershaw's illegal dump contains 25,000 tonnes of household and trade waste on a residential street next to a primary school, where it has sat for more than 20 months since lorries first arrived in October 2024.
- The dump caught fire for nine days last summer, forcing the local primary school to close and residents to shelter indoors from toxic fumes.
- Residents contrast the lack of action with a similar dump in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, which was cleared within weeks after parliamentary intervention — calling the disparity a 'north-south divide.'
- The Environment Agency was announced earlier this year as the cleanup body at a cost of millions to taxpayers, but the article reports no sign of removal has begun.
- Organised criminal gangs profit from diverting waste to dodge the £130.75-per-tonne landfill tax, with waste crime costing the UK economy roughly £1bn a year.
- The Makerfield byelection on 18 June pits Manchester mayor Andy Burnham (Labour) against Reform UK's Robert Kenyon, with the dump a central campaign issue in a seat the Manchester mayor hopes to hold.
Why it matters: Local residents are using a 20-month-old, 25,000-tonne toxic dump next to a primary school to frame the 18 June Makerfield byelection as a referendum on northern neglect, with the EA's promised multimillion-pound cleanup still not begun. Reform UK is seizing the contrast with Oxfordshire's swift Kidlington cleanup to attack Labour on broken-promise politics.
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