Kent ancient woodland cleared from ‘worst waste dump’ ever seen in £15 million operation

A 15-month clean-up operation has successfully removed nearly 40,000 tonnes of illegally dumped waste from an ancient woodland in Kent, the Environment Agency has announced.

Clearing the household and construction waste from the beauty spot at Hoad’s Wood, near Ashford, required 2,500 lorry-loads. Officials estimate the overall cost of the project will reach approximately £15.5 million.

Recognised as a "site of special scientific interest", the protected area provides a habitat for rare plants and wildlife. However, organised criminals targeted the site in 2023, piling rubbish up to 15 feet high until authorities closed the illegal operation down.

Led by the Environment Agency, the clearance work began in June 2025 and involved Acumen Waste Services Ltd alongside more than 50 specialist workers.

The regulator confirmed that public access will remain restricted to allow the woodland time and space to recover naturally.

Matthew Higginson, an Environment Agency area environmental manager who has worked in waste regulation at the organisation for over ten years, stated that Hoad’s Wood was "arguably the worst waste dump I’ve seen".

“This was appalling,” he said.

“When we first got to the site, everything was grey where the waste had been dumped.”

The smell was “quite revolting”, trees had died, and black liquid from rotting waste was running into the environment, he added.

“The look of it was bad, but the smell and the complete scale of environmental impact was quite staggering.”

As a protected area, Mr Higginson said the clean-up was complex, taking place in a “dynamic environment” that required different organisations, authorities, project managers, waste professionals, archaeologists and nature experts to all work together.

They all approached the operation with the aim of giving nature “the best possible ways to try and recover”, he said.

This included clearing out natural ditches to allow water to flow back through the area and creating interconnected ponds where diggers had to remove pockets of buried waste – both encouraging a wet woodland environment to flourish.

Teams also imported foliage from trees so that it would rot down and help condition the soil to further support plants.

“At the start it was very hard to envisage what the site was going to look like at the end because of the state that it was in,” Mr Higginson said.

“So the position that we got it to is really, really satisfying,” he said, adding that local residents and campaign groups, who visited the site this week, have praised the work.

The Environment Agency began a criminal investigation in 2023, working with the Joint Unit for Waste Crime and Kent Police to track down suspects, with three men being arrested last year.

It comes as part of a wider Government crackdown on waste crime, which has soared across the country in recent years.

Several high-profile dumps – including Hoad’s Wood as well as Bolton House in Wigan, Kidlington in Oxfordshire and Midland Road in Bradford – have sparked a public outcry.

These sites have been prioritised for clean-up operations because of their scale, risk to nearby communities, environmental damage, and links to persistent non-compliance and organised waste crime, the Environment Agency said.

A £6 million operation to clear the Kidlington site, located near the River Cherwell, was completed in August.

Ministers have announced a series of measures such as the increasing use of drones, giving mayors and the police a bigger role, increasing fines for illegal dumping and providing regulators with more powers to confiscate assets from waste criminals to pay for their actions.

A new Waste Crime Crackdown Group, chaired by Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle, will also aim to bring regulators and law enforcement together to dismantle criminal operations.

The Environment Agency urges anyone with information that may assist the Hoad’s Wood investigation to call the 24-hour hotline on 0800 807060 or report it anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555111, or their website.