£4.5m approved for Lynemouth beach pollution cleanup
Video report by Kris Jepson.
Northumberland County Council has agreed to kick-start clean up work on an old historic landfill site that is eroding industrial waste, plastics and pollution into the sea at Lynemouth beach.
The cabinet agreed to release £4.5 million to begin the works nearly two-and-a-half years after ITV News Tyne Tees exclusively revealed the extent of erosion and pollution.
It comes after an initial £500,000 was released in 2020 so that essential pre-construction activities could be progressed.
The council is seeking an additional £2.5 million from 'external sources' to enable affected land which doesn’t belong to the council to be included in the clean-up scheme.
It is hoped excavation of the 280,000 tonnes of landfill material will get underway in the autumn and will be sensitively disposed of.
The site has already been prepared, with the top layer of ground being removed to stop migrating birds nesting at the site over the spring, as this would result in the works having to be delayed.