Northumberland County Council's £5m excavation of Lynemouth's historic landfill underway

Kris Jepson went to see the remediation work now underway at Lynemouth following his investigation which revealed industrial waste leaking into the sea

Work is underway to excavate 52,000 cubic metres of land on the North East coastline, following an investigation in 2019 by ITV News Tyne Tees, which found industrial waste was leaking into the sea from an eroding cliff.

The cliffside at Lynemouth had previously been used to dump industrial waste and rubbish at a historic landfill site connected to the coal mining industry.

Northumberland County Council originally told ITV Tyne Tees they could not afford to do anything about the site, but took note of hundreds of campaigners and residents who wanted to prevent more pollution entering the North Sea.

The council managed to secure £5m of funding and, following investigations to see what toxic materials may be lurking underneath the cliff, remediation work has now begun.

Council leader Glen Sanderson said: "This was a key scheme I felt we needed to do. It goes along with all the climate change work and all the work we do in our parks and countryside and nature and all the other things that we do. It’s a thing a council should do, so it was worth finding the money.

"We’re very lucky that we’ve got a remarkably strong financial situation at Northumberland County Council. Five million pounds is a heck of a lot of money to find though and it does take that commitment to find it and then stick with it, but I’m really grateful to everybody whose been involved here and I think this place will be just as attractive as Druridge Bay just up the coast too."

The site will be excavated by the civil engineering contractor, Bam Nutall, who have also been working well with the community, according to local councillors.

A 30 strong team will work on the site, excavating 52,000 cubic metres of land and disposing of 3,900 cubic metres of waste material off site, which includes 1,500 cubic metres of hazardous materials. They team will then have to deposit the remaining 48,100 cubic metres of land back into the cliff.

The waste includes plastics, rubber, asbestos and even small measures of arsenic.

Site manager Jonny Purvis said they are not taking the task lightly.

He said: "It could be very risky, but through the ongoing efforts of the site team and what we’ve developed to date, we’ve got the dust suppression, we’ve got the exclusion zones, we’ve got background monitoring to monitor the air quality for members of the public.

"We’ll monitor that to make sure no-one is exposed to any elevated levels of hazardous material."

Lynemouth councillor, Liz Dunn, coordinated a lot of the campaigners and litter pickers over the years, including gaining the support of the Northumberland Rivers Trust and Northumberland Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority.

She said it is on everyone to "protect" the beach once the remediation is complete.

She said: "Realistically, I don’t think we’re going to be anything like Saint-Tropez or anywhere like that, but we are extremely proud of our coastline and we need to be able to protect that and to safeguard it for future generations.

"It was absolutely diabolical the way it was, it was a danger, not only to people, but to the environment and to the marine life around here, so this is going to bring us in to line with the rest of the coast hopefully. It’s ur duty to now protect it going forward."

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