Hoads Wood clear-up will leave 'sterile wasteland'

The clear up of 30,000 tonnes of waste which was illegally dumped in ancient Kent woodland is almost complete.

A year on from the start of the Environment Agency-led (EA) operation at Hoads Wood, near Ashford, only around 10% of the waste remains.

The EA said criminal gangs dumped the waste over a period of six months in 2023.

Ian Rickards, area manger for Kent Wildlife Trust, said the work to remove the rubbish had left a "sterile wasteland" in the middle of what was previously a "thriving woodland".

Hoads Wood had been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) due to its rare plants and wildlife.

The waste was dumped in an area of the wood measuring around 1.5 acres. In some places it was piled up to 4m (13.1ft) deep.

The cost of the clearance is believed to be £15m and has been paid for by the taxpayer.

The EA hopes to leave the site by the end of the year and is currently clearing waste around tree stumps and digging down to the woodland floor to remove the final bits of waste.

Rickards said he now wanted to see a plan to ensure the site had a "chance of recovering some of the wildlife that it's lost" and "protect it for perpetuity".

That work, he said, would be "starting from a real base one".

"Probably the fungi layer's gone, the roots layers have gone, so we're down to nothing," he said. However, he added that "stuff can recover".

Andrea Griffiths, director at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said she wanted to see the compulsory purchase of Hoads Wood, adding: "I don't think it's fair to just clean and leave."

Griffiths hoped a restoration project would bring the woodland "back to the level" it was before the dumping, as there used to be "really biodiverse flora and fauna".

The EA said it was discussing the site's future with Natural England, the Forestry Commission, Kent County Council, Ashford Borough Council and landowners.

A spokesperson from community group Rescue Hoads Wood Campaign said as the clearance works came to an end the woodland was at a "critical moment".

They said the site had become "a national example of systemic failure" but that it now had "the opportunity to become an example of decisive recovery, proper governance and protected restoration".

Environmentalists said they believed there was a risk of future dumping at the site.

"It's got to be secured," added Rickards.

Griffiths said fragmentation of woodland was part of the problem, as there were "these little pockets of woodland where they're open and no one really knows who owns them".

She added: "We need to try and join woodland pockets together, join landowners together so we know who owns land ... so we know what's going on. "

So far, no one has been charged with the illegal dumping but the EA said three men arrested previously remained "under investigation".

A spokesperson for the EA said: "We have secured court orders to prevent access to this and other locations in Kent to stop further dumping."

The spokesperson added that prison sentences and fines had been given to 20 companies and people for waste crime in the South East since 2023.

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