Mountain of unused aprons and face masks fly-tipped near nature reserve
Thousands of unused pieces of personal protective equipment have mysteriously been left dumped near the New Forest National Park.
A huge mountain of what are thought to be unused aprons and face masks was left in the town of Calmore, next to the Testwood Lakes Nature Reserve and the Totton football club in Hampshire.
A Hampshire County Council meeting revealed the ‘large-scale’ littering but councillors admitted they had no idea where it came from.
Councillor Peter Latham, who is the chair of the regulatory committee, said: ‘It was a surprise to put it mildly – a reaction of horror.
‘That something like that could have happened in Hampshire and nobody knew about it.
‘It looked to us just like the masks, but there could be aprons as well.
‘It should have been properly disposed of, probably to a recycling centre.
‘We don’t know where it came from and who put it there.
‘Clearly it shouldn’t have been dumped there – we’re looking into the land registry to see who owns the land to see what was agreed between those who dumped it.
‘Ideally we wish to know who owns the PPE in the first place, who was responsible for disposing it, why they disposed of it there.’
He added: ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before. None of us have.’
Shocking images from a drone show the extent of the fly-tipping, with boxes upon boxes of the PPE stretching as far as the eye can see.
The government came under huge criticism for its handling of PPE during the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly its use of a so-called ‘VIP lane’ to allocate supply contracts.
It was revealed the Department for Health and Social Care lost 75% of its £12 billion budget to inflated prices and items which were not up to NHS standards.
Some £4 billion of unusable kit was set to be burnt to ‘generate power’, which has created concerns surrounding pollution.
The county council has now launched an investigation with the Environment Agency, police and the New Forest District Council to find out where the PPE came from.
A report from the meeting reads: ‘Following their own investigations into the use of land as a caravan park, New Forest District Council reported the large-scale storage of packs of old PPE.
‘It became apparent that thousands of packs of medical aprons had been dumped on the land with no obvious signs that they were being protected or stored for some future use.
‘The concern is that they have been dumped with no intention of removal to a proper facility.
‘The Environment Agency has been contacted to see if they can determine where the PPE originated and whether it was discarded by a Health Trust as substandard during the Covid procurement.
‘Enquiries have been made with Land Registry to ascertain land ownership, although this has flagged up a possible Hampshire County Council link as we are mentioned in one clause in relation to a s106 Agreement.’
Julian Lewis, the MP for New Forest East, said: ‘The unauthorised disposal of such a huge quantity of medical aprons should be relatively easy to investigate and its history traced.
‘One long term lesson from all this is that never again should the United Kingdom be caught without strategic reserve stocks of protective medical clothing.’
A spokesperson from the Environment Agency confirmed they were due to visit the site next week, adding: ‘We are unable to comment further in order to not prejudice any investigations or subsequent enforcement decisions.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.