Fly tippers dug up underground electrical cables near a substation supplying half a million homes and the headquarters of GCHQ – causing ‘millions of pounds’ worth of damage.
The astonishing incident at Walham in Gloucestershire took nine months of painstaking work to fix.
As the county’s main electricity substation, the site is considered so critical to Britain’s energy supply that a Cobra meeting was called in 2007 when it was nearly swamped by flood water from the nearby River Severn.
Among the buildings it powers is GCHQ’s famous ‘Doughnut’ HQ in Cheltenham – although the signals intelligence agency uses back-up generators.
‘Unauthorised digging’ linked to fly tipping damaged four of five cables that connect to the substation in March, a council representative told residents.
The Mail can reveal that the damage occurred on land owned by Sean Steven Gorman, a member of a prominent traveller family behind several local businesses, including a nearby trailer park.
One of his relatives, Marshall Gorman, was recently named locally as the operator of a vast fly tip at the nearby village of Over – identified by the Mail as potentially Britain’s largest.
But speaking this week from the passenger seat of his Range Rover 4×4, Marshall denied being responsible for the tip at Over or disturbing the cables at Walham, saying: ‘This has got nothing to do with me.’
Four electrical cables running to Walham substation (seen on the right of this image) were disturbed by fly tippers. The wider area – pictured last week – is covered in illegal dumps. The spot where the cables were disturbed is to the left of this image
A smouldering pile of rubbish filmed by the Daily Mail during a visit to the site this week
Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service was called out to extinguish a burning pile of waste illegally dumped close to the substation on Wednesday.
Aerial photos taken by the Mail reveal the astonishing scale of fly tipping on the surrounding land, with multiple piles of smouldering rubbish defacing what was once pristine countryside.
During our visit, foul-smelling smoke from burning plastic rubbish could be seen drifting across the busy A40 and towards a Premier Inn and two restaurants.
There are at least four illegal waste sites in the area, which is on the floodplain of the River Severn and just a couple of miles from the historic cathedral city of Gloucester.
As soon as one fly tipping site is finished with another one starts up, leaving a another scar on the landscape, which is also close to Alney Island, a 200-acre wetland habitat home to wading birds, raptors and several species of rare fish.
The Environment Agency said it had visited the area where the cables had been disturbed and found ‘small amounts of illegal waste deposits’, with an investigation now underway with the local council.
Hamzah Ahmed, Managing Director of Denville Energy Consulting Ltd and a former power system engineer for National Grid with knowledge of Walham substation, said the cost of repairing the four cables could have run into the millions.
‘When it comes to anything that’s buried you’re talking seven, eight or ten times the usual cost because of the need for digging,’ he told the Mail.
‘Cable repair costs can be quite high. It could be in the multiple millions. A nine-month turnaround is actually quite quick, believe it or not.’
Marshall Gorman was recently named locally as the operator of a vast fly tip at the nearby village of Over. He denied responsibility for the tip at Over of disturbing the cables at Walham
There are several fly tips in the countryside surrounding the substation. Here, piles of waste cover an area of woodland next to a group of prefabricated huts
In another area, rubbish is seen lying in an area of wetland. The whole stretch of countryside is on the floodplain of the River Severn
In 2007, the British Army was called out to help hundreds of firefighters stop the substation being knocked out of action as part of the so-called ‘Battle for Walham’
Mr Ahmed said any disturbance to the cables could have affected power supply to the local area but would have not led to widespread power outages due to ‘resilience’ built into the system.
The National Grid said: ‘In March last year, an incident caused damage to underground transmission cables near our Walham substation.
‘The network has since been repaired and restored.
‘We continue to manage the situation carefully and liaise closely with local stakeholders, and while this process is ongoing we cannot comment further.’
The land where the cables were disturbed at Walham – which runs alongside the A40 motorway – is less than 330 yards away from the 6ft-high concrete flood walls that now surround the substation.
The tip at Over is less than a mile away.
Satellite images suggest it is now more than two acres in size, which would make it at least ten times the size of the notorious fly tip in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, which was previously said to be ‘Britain’s biggest’.
The site is next door to the popular Countryside Adventure Park at Over Farm, which is regularly affected by clouds of smoke.
Tens of thousands of tonnes of rubbish have been deposited since 2018 at the illegal tip since 2018, which is located on the floodplain of the River Leadon, a tributary of the River Severn.
If it is ever fully cleared, the bill is likely to run into the millions.
Additional reporting by Tom Bedford.
Waste crook blamed for soiling river
Another area that has seen vast amounts of illegal dumping is Oldham in Greater Manchester, centring on an industrial estate owned by local businessman Ervan Connell.
Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council served him with an enforcement notice relating to illegal waste tipping at the industrial estate way back in 2006 but the issue continued unabated for years – providing fresh proof of the authorities’ failure to stop criminals cashing in from fly tipping.
Finally, in 2002, Connell received a one-year suspended prison sentence in 2022 for using his skip company, CK Waste Limited, as a front for an illegal dumping racket.
Videos shared with the Mail show vast piles of disturbed earth leaching into the River Beal, a local beauty spot that runs through his land that locals remember playing in as children.
Ervan Connell, a convicted waste criminal who owns an industrial estate in Oldham, Greater Manchester
Connell has been blamed for ruining a stretch of the River Beal on his land. Pictured on the left is one stretch of river, while on the right is a ruined section yards downstream
The whole area has now been flatted to prepare for development work, but neighbours said they are still being affected by smoke coming from burning waste.
Oscar Rockingham, 35, said: ‘The burning and smoke comes on average once every few weeks.’
A second nearby resident, 31-year-old Lewis Voucher, said he had reported the issue to the local council, adding: ‘The smoke is bad. It covers the entire estate.’
However, Mr Connell claimed he was not responsible for the waste burning, which he blamed on other businesses near to his site.
He also denied claims by neighbours that he had simply buried all the waste he had previously dumped illegally under a layer of topsoil in preparation for a new development.
The EA said it had set Mr Connell a ‘strict deadline’ to clear the site by March and it would take ‘enforcement action’ if he did not.
A satellite photo from 2022 showing waste dumped on Connell’s land
A spokesman added: ‘We are working with the landowner to ensure the safe and swift removal of historic waste from this site which includes regular site visits to track progress.
‘An exemption is in place to allow the landowner to build a haul road to assist with this clearance.
‘We have had no further reports of waste being brought onto the site but urge anyone who suspects illegal waste activity to report it to us.’
