It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I commend my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) for securing this important debate and for his continued work standing up not just for the people of Silverdale but for those in wider north Staffordshire who are affected by Walleys Quarry. I want to highlight the great work of another neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) in starting to clear the Twyford House site in Etruria of 30,000 tonnes of commercial and illegal waste.
This is a serious issue. I could not agree more with my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) when he talks about fly-tipping. It is blighting Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, whether that be in Goldenhill and Sandyford, Burslem Park estate or the alleyways of Tunstall. The scumbags who continue to litter in our local area need to be brought to heel. We need to make sure that they are sent out in high-vis chain gangs, litter picking and cleaning up their community. It is simply unacceptable that those people who obey the law, do the right thing and love the local area that they live in should have to suffer because of a mindless minority of morons.
Sadly, the blight of the waste industry is continuing to spread. The latest case in north Staffordshire involves the landfill on Porthill Road in Longport. It is affecting the constituents of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke in particular, and locals are already having to deal with the disgraceful way in which Price and Kensington Teapot Works has been allowed to rot by its rogue landlord.
In nearby Burslem, people recently saw a key part of mother town heritage, the Leopard pub, go up in flames, and now residents are having to live with the disgusting smells coming from the landfill on Porthill Road in Longport.
Staffordshire Waste Recycling Centre Ltd is digging up Stoke-on-Trent’s past at the landfill, seemingly digging for materials. It has never had permission to do that, yet the company has now applied for retrospective planning permission to work on the landfill—something that I and the residents of Longport, Middleport, Dale Hall, Burslem and the surrounding area are absolutely opposed to. I will shortly be making clear my objection to that application in a letter to Stoke-on-Trent City Council.