Two men have been arrested after fly-tippers dumped a “mountain of illegal waste”, stacked 10 metres high, in Oxfordshire. Hundreds of tonnes of rubbish appeared in a field between the River Cherwell and the A34 near Kidlington in November last year. The waste tip was so large that removing it could cost more than the local council’s annual budget, the area’s MP said.
The clean-up operation, which concluded last month, took five months. An estimated 22,704 tonnes of rubbish were cleared, with the operation costing an estimated £6m. The Environment Agency (EA) has confirmed on Tuesday that a 21-year-old man from Ashford in Surrey and a 43-year-old man from Stanwell in Surrey had been arrested.
It brings the total number of people apprehended to six, after one arrest in February, two in January and one in November, the EA said. The watchdog shut down the Kidlington site in October after officers discovered continued criminal activity after the first report of dumping at the site in July 2025. Colin Chiverton, area environment manager for the Thames at the EA, said: “The dumping at Kidlington was abhorrent and had no regard for the local community.
These arrests are another vital step in collecting new evidence and delivering justice for the residents of Kidlington.” Dame Angela Eagle, the environment secretary, said: “This government said we’d take on waste criminals and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We are taking decisive action through our crackdown and putting more officers on the frontline to restore pride in our communities.” The two men have been released on conditional bail pending further investigations. The EA previously announced it was to spend millions of pounds to clear the enormous illegal rubbish dump, saying the waste was at risk of catching fire.
Its policy is to refuse to clear up illegal waste dumps across the country, instead pursuing the perpetrators and landowners. But officials said they had taken the exceptional decision to clear up the waste outside Kidlington, which is next to the River Cherwell, because the scale of the fire risk set it apart from other illegal waste dumps in England and presented an overriding public imperative. The agency was given no extra money to clear the waste, and the EA said this would come from “making efficiencies in its operations”.
The cost to the taxpayer would also include the payment of the landfill tax on the waste to the Treasury. The dumping in Kidlington took place under the noses of the EA, which was monitoring the site after being alerted to suspicious activity.
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