Rats, flies and maggots: The Wigan homeowners plagued by 25,000 tonnes of illegal waste
“That smell of maggots, rotting food and maggots, my house smells like that.”
For Louise, not her real name, home has become a hell she cannot escape.
“We just couldn’t move for flies, and then we noticed an increase in rats,” she says.
Louise lives near Bolton House Road in Wigan. At the end of a row of terraced houses sits a former scrapyard, which has been transformed into an industrial-scale illegal dump site.
The wagons started coming last winter, “20, maybe 30 times a day,” Louise remembers.
“Eighteen-tonne wagons. Full of all sorts; nappies, black bin rubbish, chemicals, plastic.”
Within a few weeks, she and her neighbours realised the waste was just being dumped, not sorted or managed. It piled up, higher and higher.
They contacted the council, the Environment Agency and the police – but Louise claims no one did anything to stop the lorries.
Her retired neighbour, Tom, says it felt like the authorities “didn’t want to know”.
Though he does remember someone from the council asking him if he could go and “have a look for them” and “report back” information about what sort of waste was being dumped.
Louise and Tom are both so worried about who could be behind this that they are only comfortable speaking anonymously.
The fire which lasted nine days
By July’s heatwave, the site had long been full. The wagons had stopped months earlier, so 25,000 tonnes of waste, several storeys high, sat festering in the sun.
Lorries and vehicles in the former scrapyard lay buried, unseen, beneath the shredded and rotting filth – and then the fire started.
For nine days, dozens of firefighters from across Greater Manchester fought to bring the fire under control.
Pic: Wigan Council
Pic: Wigan Today
The nearby primary school had to shut due to the acrid smoke.
The sheer amount of water needed by fire engines to tackle the blaze left residents without any – while many were forced to keep their windows and doors shut in the 30C-plus heat.
Some were left with chest infections, others were hospitalised.
“I think it’s awful to let people live with that toxic rubbish right next to our house after us all asking for help and nothing’s materialised,” Louise says.
The crime costing the economy billions
Sky News has been investigating how, across the country, waste crime is a growing scourge and a booming business being exploited by criminal gangs.
Being paid to remove rubbish only to dump it illegally without sorting it or paying tax is an easy way of making huge amounts of money, with poorly enforced legal repercussions and a huge cost to the environment.
It’s something the previous head of the Environment Agency called “the new narcotics”.
– It’s thought a fifth of all waste in England is being illegally managed
– That’s around 34 million tonnes a year, enough to fill about four million skips
– It costs the economy around a billion pounds a year, with legitimate operators thought to be losing a further £3bn from missed business
In July, we tracked down a group of suspected organised fly-tippers who waved wads of cash on TikTok after dumping waste in the countryside.
‘Absolutely soul-destroying’
The residents of Bolton House Road are not the only victims of this toxic dump.
Last winter, Neil Hardwick rented out three diggers to an individual, unaware of the growing illegal dump site in Wigan.
By March of this year, he had not received several rental payments and had received a call from the Environment Agency warning him about what was happening at the site.
Neil and Carla Hardwick
With his daughter Carla, he went to Bolton House Road in an attempt to retrieve the machinery, worth approximately £300,000 in total.
At the site, Carla says a group of men slapped her, as well as spat at her. The men allegedly told her father: “We want you to give us £100,000, and we’ll allow you to take your diggers back, or we can cut your throat.”
Carla and Neil say an officer from Greater Manchester Police dismissed their report, and claimed their machinery was not stolen.
That officer also threatened to arrest the pair if they did not leave the area, they say.
“I just wanted us to get those machines back. But the fact that a man can spit in a woman’s face and get away with it, and the police are not interested, well, it is maddening,” Carla said.
The Hardwicks returned to the site 10 days later with officers from the National Crime Agency but found their machines smashed up and destroyed.
Mr Hardwick said the ordeal was “absolutely soul-destroying”.
“It’s caused us so much grief, damage to business, just absolutely brought us to our knees,” he said.
A vehicle used to transport waste to the illegal dump
Greater Manchester Police told Sky News there is an ongoing complaint relating to the incident involving Neil and Carla Hardwick at Bolton House Road, and “this process will take time”.
“As part of this complaint, our Professional Standards Directorate are assessing all elements of the investigation including all crimes and reviewing bodyworn footage,” a spokesperson said.
The £4.5m bill
Finding out how the illegal dump in Wigan happened, and who’s responsible, is hugely challenging.
The landowner has not responded to Sky, nor have the companies which allegedly own the lorries seen by residents transporting the waste.
They appear to be either refuse or haulage companies that boast of their environmentally friendly credentials.
The firms seen moving waste to the illegal dump did not reply to Sky News
One company’s website claims it diverts most of its waste away from landfill, and advertises its “innovative approach” to waste management.
“We’re passionate about the environment,” the website says.
Josh Simons, the local Labour MP, has been outraged by the case.
Speaking before his promotion to the Cabinet Office, he said it is “buck-passing” between Wigan Council, the police, and the Environment Agency.
Mr Simons says he was told at the start of the year that there was a criminal investigation, “and therefore no action can be taken to prevent people from dumping more on the site or intervening”.
“That just doesn’t seem right to me,” he says.
He also says information and financial support from the Environment Agency to Wigan Council has been poor.
“The number [the council] have come up with is about £4.5m to clear the waste.
“Anybody who knows local authority budgets at the moment knows they don’t have nearly five million pounds stashed behind the sofa. So what’s supposed to happen?”
The land itself is not worth £4.5m – and Mr Simons thinks this makes working-class areas uniquely vulnerable to this kind of crime.
The funding and powers of the Environment Agency need to change, says Josh Simons MP
Paul Barton, director for environment at Wigan Council, said: “Our top priority is to ensure those residents feel heard and safe while the Environment Agency carries out their investigation with our full cooperation.
“We want the site to be cleared as a matter of urgency and are continuing to work with the Environment Agency to survey and sample the waste so polluters/landowners – who are the responsible parties – can progress this as soon as possible.”
Paul Clements, director of operations at the Environment Agency, said: “We are prioritising local people, businesses and the nearby school as we work… to deal with this illegal waste site as quickly as possible.
“Our staff continue to visit the site and at the forefront of our minds is the impact the illegal waste is having on the local community.
“We are continuing to progress our criminal investigation as a priority. This includes actively pursuing many lines of enquiry, interviewing under caution and using the enforcement tools available to us.”
Additional reporting by Adam Parker, OSINT editor, and Niamh Lynch, planning producer
The former leader of Reform UK in Wales has been sentenced to 10 and a half years after he admitted accepting tens of thousands of pounds in cash to make pro-Russian statements to the media and European Parliament.
Nathan Gill had “abused a position of significant authority and trust” and was “motivated by financial and political gain”, said Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb during remarks at the Old Bailey on Friday.
Gill, 52, of Anglesey, North Wales, had previously pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery between 6 December 2018 and 18 July 2019, corresponding to his time as an MEP.
Nathan Gill is surrounded by media as he arrives at the Old Bailey. Pic: PA
The Old Bailey heard his activities were linked to pro-Russian statements about Ukraine while he was a member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and subsequently the Brexit Party.
Following an investigation by counter-terrorism police, officers said they believe Gill likely took a minimum of £40,000 in cash and was offering to introduce other British MEPs so they could be bribed. Officers also said they believed some individuals in this case had a direct link to Vladimir Putin.
Nathan Gill pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery. Pic: Met Police
Prosecutor Mark Heywood KC previously told the court the bribery offences related to Gill’s association with pro-Russian Oleg Voloshyn, who had been a Ukrainian government official before 2014 and was sanctioned by the UK in 2022.
Gill’s activities emerged in WhatsApp messages after he was stopped at Manchester Airport on 13 September 2021.
He was about to board a flight to Russia to be an observer in elections there.
Bundles of cash recovered
Police said the messages revealed Voloshyn had tasked Gill to make pro-Russian statements on a reward basis. Counter-terrorism officers said the text of some speeches was provided to Gill, which he delivered almost word-for-word.
In other cases, he was paid to offer commentary to news outlets, such as the pro-Russian media organisation 112 Ukraine.
A search of his home in Wales also uncovered thousands in euros and dollars.
Bundles of cash were recovered from Gill’s home. Pic: Met Police
Pic: Met Police
Greed ‘primary motivation’
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, described Gill as being motivated by money.
“It appears… greed was his primary motivation. But I think there’s an element of him that had a pro-Russian stance as well, but only he can answer that question, to be honest with you, he never told us that.”
Gill was interviewed in March 2022 and made no comment. He was charged and appeared in court in February 2025.
Gill said no comment when interviewed by officers in 2022. Pic: Met Police
‘A grave betrayal of trust’
During sentencing, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb described Gill’s offending as “sophisticated” and “a grave betrayal of the trust vested in you by the electorate”.
She told him: “You accepted payments from foreign nationals, made statements on important international matters at their behest, utilised scripted material presented as your own, and orchestrated the involvement of other MPs.
“Your misconduct has ramifications far beyond personal honour, which is now irretrievably damaged. It erodes public confidence in democracy when politicians succumb to financial inducement.”
Gill was paid to offer commentary to pro-Russian media outlet, 112 Ukraine. Pic: Met Police
Other UK politicians at risk
Commander Murphy said that police were continuing to investigate other MEPs, including some from the UK.
“What we do know from the conversations with [Oleg] Voloshyn is that Nathan Gill actually offered his services to contact other MEPs, mostly UK MEPs, to also make statements that might be supportive of a Russian position in Ukraine,” he said.
He added: “I do believe that some of the individuals in this case do have direct connections to Vladimir Putin. And I have no doubt that if we were able to, we could follow this trail and it would lead straight to Moscow.”
Commander Dominic Murphy believes greed was Gill’s primary motivation
Gill led the Welsh wing of UKIP between 2014 and 2016 and was a member of the Senedd between 2016 and 2017.
He was an MEP between 2014 and 2020, but left UKIP in 2019 to join Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party – later Reform UK.
Political fallout after prison term
Police have confirmed Nigel Farage has not been part of this investigation, but political rivals have called on the Reform UK leader to launch a thorough investigation.
Defence minister Al Carns, a former colonel in the Royal Marines, said Gill’s actions were “a disgrace”. He added: “I just think wherever we see Russian influence in UK politics, it’s got to be weeded out.”
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Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said “a traitor was at the very top of Reform UK”, referring to Gill, but also launched a direct attack on Mr Farage by calling him, and his party, “a danger to national security”.
“Nigel Farage himself was previously paid to be on Putin’s TV channel, Russia Today, and said he was the world leader he admires the most.
“We must all ask – where do his loyalties really lie? We need a full investigation into Russian interference in our politics,” he said.
Reform UK, which previously kicked Gill out of the party, said in a statement: “Mr Gill’s actions were reprehensible, treasonous and unforgivable. We are glad that justice has been served and fully welcome the sentence Nathan Gill has received.”
Liz Saville Roberts, Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader, welcomed Gill’s jail sentence “for his acts of betrayal in taking bribes from Russia”.
In a statement, she said: “If the former Reform UK leader in Wales was part of a broader, co-ordinated effort to advance Moscow’s agenda within our democratic institutions, then the public deserves to know the full truth, and how far Russian money and influence reached into Nigel Farage’s inner circle.”
Britons buying cocaine on a Friday night could be inadvertently funding Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The National Crime Agency has revealed a billion-dollar money laundering network is operating in 28 towns and cities across the UK.
Couriers collect “dirty” cash generated from drugs, firearms and immigration gangs, which is then converted into cryptocurrency.
Officials say these illicit transactions have a direct link to “geopolitical events causing suffering around the world”.
This network was first exposed because of Operation Destabilise – and to date, 128 arrests have been made, with more than £25m in cash and digital assets seized.
A poster put up in motorway service station toilets by the NCA. Pic: PA
According to the NCA, the enterprise is so prolific that it purchased a bank to facilitate payments that supported Russia’s military efforts and helped sidestep sanctions.
Posters have been put up in motorway service stations to target couriers, which warn it is “just a matter of time” before they will be arrested.
The NCA’s deputy director for economic crime, Sal Melki, has warned the threat posed by this money laundering network is significant.
He added: “Cash couriers play an intrinsic role in this global scheme. They are in our communities and making the criminal ecosystem function – because if you cannot profit from your crimes, why bother.
“They are paid very little for the risks they take and face years in prison, while those they work for enjoy huge profits.”
Mr Melki went on to warn that “easy money leads to hard time” – and earning just a few hundred pounds through laundering could lead to years behind bars.
Sal Melki
The NCA says Operation Destabilise has already had an impact in criminal circles, with some members of the network now reluctant to operate in London.
Those involved in the money laundering effort have also started to charge higher fees – reflecting the difficulty of cleaning ill-gotten gains.
Cryptocurrencies are often regarded as a haven for criminals because they are perceived to be anonymous, but it is possible to trace these transactions.
Chainalysis is a company that monitors suspicious activity on blockchains, a type of database that keeps records of who sends and receives digital assets – as well as how much.
Its vice president of communications Madeleine Kennedy told Sky News: “Public blockchains are transparent by design, which makes cryptocurrencies a poor vehicle for money laundering.
“With the right tools, law enforcement can trace illicit funds – whether they’re connected to drug trafficking, sanctions evasion, or cybercrime – and use those insights to disrupt networks and recover assets.”
Read more:
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Crypto scammer jailed after UK’s biggest Bitcoin bust
Ekatarina Zhdanova. Pic: NCA
Last December, a global investigation led by the NCA smashed two networks whose money laundering activities were prevalent in 30 countries.
Bundles of cash were seized during raids, with detectives describing Smart and TGR as the invisible link between “Russian elites, crypto-rich cybercriminals and drug gangs in the UK”.
One of the network’s ringleaders, a Russian national called Ekatarina Zhdanova, is currently in custody in France and awaiting trial for separate financial offences.
Security minister Dan Jarvis added: “This complex operation has exposed the corrupt tactics Russia used to avoid sanctions and fund its illegal war in Ukraine.
“We are working tirelessly to detect, disrupt and prosecute anyone engaging in activity for a hostile foreign state. It will never be tolerated on our streets.”
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