Councillors slam Environment Minister over Mobuoy meeting snub

Derry City and Strabane District Councillors have criticised a decision not to include local elected Councillors from a recent Mobuoy remediation meeting.

Environment Minister, Andrew Muir, recently held a meeting around planned remediation of the site, which is one of the biggest illegal dump sites in Europe.

The meeting took place on May 22. Although council’s Chief Executive, the Mayor of Derry City & Strabane District and the Head of Environment were in attendance, as well as MLAs and MPs from the north west, councillors accused the Minister Andrew Muir of failing to engage with Faughan representatives, independent councillors and local campaigners.

During May’s council meeting, People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin Harkin voiced his disappointment that he was unable to attend the meeting and said there “wasn’t a lot of clarity coming out of it”.

“Other than that we are close, the consultation is over and that next steps will be provided, there's a lot of missing pieces,” he said.

“According to the Minister he hasn't applied for any money, which is very concerning. There's no ring-fenced funding or agreement that this is going to be a priority.

“By not having Faughan representatives, nobody from People Before Profit, independent councillors, the Minister would miss out on some of the questions that are being asked by people who've been very involved in this from its exposure right through to today."

He said Mr Muir should be invited to meet with members as Derry City and Strabane has been “most impacted” by the dump site.

“We should invite the Minister here so that he can directly speak to us because the mandate is ending,” he added. “So in a year's time is there any prospect that all these questions will be answered, or is this simply going to be kicked down the road for the next Minister to deal with?”

Director of Environment and Regeneration, Karen Phillips, said that during the meeting Mr Muir "welcomed members’ requests to engage with him”.

“He said that he didn't feel that the meeting last Friday was the forum to do that, but he certainly in the coming weeks would like to have the opportunity to engage with representatives. He hoped to do that very soon,” she clarified.

UUP alderman Derek Hussey claimed Mr Muir showed a "dismissive attitude towards members”, while SDLP councillor Brian Tierney said his response was "disrespectful".

Councillor Tierney said: “He's happy to engage with MPs and MLAs and Mayors and Chief Executives now, but us councillors will wait and we'll be told when he wants to hear from us.

“I don't think that that's appropriate and I don't think I've ever seen a response, in my time from in this council, from a Minister along that line.

“We genuinely believe that we had something to add to that meeting. We did take the opportunity through our MLAs, but when is he going to come back and engage with councillors in that area?

“We should be requesting that that meeting with councillors takes place sooner rather than later, because we all know Ministers and the Department have dragged their heels about Mobuoy for years, and for me this meeting was a box-ticking exercise because we don't see any tangible outcomes coming from it.

“Engaging with with councillors further on down the line is, if we're going to be honest, another box-ticking exercise, because he didn't want to hear from us at the minute. We need to push for that meeting and we need to make sure that there's tangible outcomes coming out of it.”

The Department said the Minister has committed to further engagement with elected representatives this summer.

Speaking after the recent meeting, Minister Muir said: “Faced with the challenge of remediating one of the largest illegal dumping sites in western Europe, it is important that I and my officials have been able to engage local people and representatives on the way forward and I very much welcome this constructive engagement.

“Today was an opportunity to discuss how we progress this issue and to reaffirm our commitment to protecting water quality and managing the environmental risks posed by the Mobuoy site.

“We have taken on board the consultation responses and undertaken additional technical assessments to strengthen the draft Remediation Strategy.

“I remain eager to progress the plans for remediation and can confirm we will now be moving towards adoption of the final Remediation Strategy including obtaining an updated cost estimate for delivery of the remediation. This will then enable us to develop and put forward a formal business case in relation to remediation works as per required processes.”

Environmental monitoring at the Mobuoy site continues, the Department said.

The Mobuoy Road waste site consists of two distinct parcels of land, located approximately 1.5km east of Derry and covering an area of around 46 hectares.

DAERA has previosuly reported: “Investigations by the Department of the Environment in 2015 have improved our understanding of the nature and extent of waste illegally disposed at the site. At the stakeholder meeting on November 2015, the estimated volume of controlled waste illegally disposed at the Mobuoy waste site was reported to be a minimum of 913,105 m3.

“An additional estimate of 252,050 m3 of controlled waste is present in the area of the former licensed landfill some of which has been deposited illegally. The nature of the illegal deposits includes municipal waste, construction and demolition (C&D) waste and municipal waste mixed with C&D waste.”