I have had meetings today with the Environment Agency, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Minister Rebecca Pow.
It is my belief that the EA need to treat the events of the last week as a specific environmental incident, over and above the general complaints about odour from the landfill. They will be making a statement in the next 24 hours.
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
The EA are still evaluating the data from their site visit last week and should be issuing a statement in the next 24 hours.
The working theory is that the totally unacceptable odour at the weekend was caused by additional gas venting out from the new wells they have asked Red to drill. These new wells should all be connected up by the end of this week and they will mean the operator is able to capture 25-50% more gas from deep inside the landfill, reducing the amount making its way to the surface. In the longer term this should reduce odour, but what it led to at the weekend was completely intolerable.
The EA reported that they had approximately 300 contacts on Friday, 600+ on Saturday and a further 300+ on Sunday.
The EA also accepted that they should have communicated much better with residents, both prior to these wells being drilled, and during last weekend, when their only public communication was a tweet saying they had been in contact with Red. I look forward to their statement tomorrow and hope for much more proactive and understanding communications from them in the future.
NUL BOROUGH COUNCIL
The council confirmed that they had received over 2000 complaints over the weekend (they believe they had more than the EA because many complainants gave up on the EA having been on hold for too long).
They have also had representations from institutions such as the Royal Stoke Hospital and Keele University and will be convening a meeting with them and others.
They are exploring the legal options open to them.
MINISTER POW
In speaking with the Minister (the EA were also present) I outlined my concerns with the enforcement actions so far and the lack of response at the weekend. I stressed that I felt the weekend should be treated as a specific incident, but also the need to address the underlying issue which has grown considerably in the last six months.
I will provide more updates as and when I have them.