Diolch, Lywydd. Last week there was a packed meeting in Heol-y-cyw community hall. I guess there were over 150 people because, as well as every seat being full, people were standing in the aisles and around the walls. People, young and old, voiced their concerns over a fire that had raged in the Heol-y-cyw premises of South Wales Wood Recycling Ltd, causing a thick, unpleasant smog to billow out across the village and neighbouring areas. I’d first spotted it when I looked down the Llynfi valley early one morning from my home several miles away in Maesteg—a thick spume of smoke, very evident from the hilltop. It was like groundhog day and I instantly thought, ‘My goodness, it’s another wood fire just like the one near Coytrahen earlier that year’. Indeed, earlier, in March that year, I’d driven down the lower Llynfi valley into a similar dense, white smog that was slowing traffic down to a crawl. The whole of the valley bottom was engulfed in a foul-smelling and cough-inducing mass of smoke that lingered and settled in the valley bottom. Residents of nearby Bettws, Shwt and Coytrahen had to put up with the worst of this for days, but people as far afield as Bridgend were reporting effects.

What links these two fires is a company called South Wales Wood Recycling. Residents want to know what’s going on and so do I. Investigations are ongoing, so nothing I say today will risk compromising those investigations and any related actions. However, I will be robust in articulating the concerns of my constituents and demanding action as their Assembly Member. And, as a legislator in this Parliament of Wales, I will be specific in suggesting improvements to the current legal and regulatory regime.

Here’s the essence of the matter: South Wales Wood Recycling, a company with a recycling base in Heol-y-cyw in my constituency, have now had three fires in piles of biomass or contaminated wood waste over the last year, in three different locations. One may be regarded as unfortunate, but three? Well, this raises significant concerns. The first fire started in Newport in November last year and it burnt for over two months. I watched this on the news with interest and with concern, but, ‘Newport’s a long way from Ogmore and, well, it’s an isolated incident, surely’.

The second was in March, as I said, between Coytrahen and Llangynwyd in the lower Llynfi valley. It’s only a couple of miles from my home. This was not a site that I and other local people understood was being used for processing or storage of biomass or wood waste, and people locally are concerned that this and the fire in Heol-y-cyw is not burning biomass at all—as in, clean, virgin wood—but may, instead, be contaminated low-grade wood waste from processed and recycled wood, including plastics and PVCs and other materials. We’re waiting to find out, but the health concerns are clear.

When the material on the Llynfi site caught fire in March, this low-lying valley was smothered in deep, unpleasant and nauseating smoke and smog for days, causing real fear of health impacts. Local councillors, like Martyn Jones, took a lead role with local residents and worked closely with me and with Chris Elmore MP and others to get to the bottom of this to encourage the various agencies, including the fire service, Natural Resources Wales, the local authority and Public Health Wales to co-ordinate their response better and, crucially, to communicate effectively to residents.

The local authority ultimately played a key role in liaising between agencies and with local residents. But Councillor Jones and I and local MP, Chris Elmore, subsequently met with senior staff at NRW, who have responsibilities for permitting and environmental regulations and enforcement, and, more recently, with the local authority, which has planning and environmental health responsibilities. We wanted to understand what had led to wood waste being present on the Llynfi site and without informing residents, without informing elected representatives or any regulatory agencies. We wanted to know whether the disposal of materials on the Llynfi site was authorised. But this meeting also allowed us to reiterate some of the concerns of residents over the operation of the main processing site several miles away in Heol-y- cyw—matters that had also been raised with us by residents and by local councillors like Gary Thomas and Alex Owen. We did not realise at that point that, before long, a third fire would occur at that very site in Heol-y -cyw. Once again, at the Heol-y-cyw fire, fire attenders were sent, the local authority and NRW attended, and residents, understandably, feared for their health and their safety and their homes. Some, as with the earlier fire in the Llynfi valley, were forced to leave their homes while others, with disabilities and mobility issues, were unable to leave, but they suffered the horrendous nauseating smoke inside and outside their homes—it got everywhere. And, once again, despite the excellent work, at great cost to the taxpayer by the emergency services, the residents were left in a literal smog, but also a smog of confusion over, ‘How could this happen again?’

Local councillors, like Alex, himself a fireman, who’s been engaged in directly responding to these events, I, Chris Elmore and others were there, once again, asking on behalf of residents, ‘How did this happen? Who’s in charge? Who is communicating with residents?’ That brings us to that packed meeting in Heol-y-cyw community hall last week, which was—Suzy Davies was there and other colleagues here—standing room only. At that meeting, we heard local residents allege that stockpiles of wood waste regularly exceeded the permitted height and dimensions, contravening planning consents and the environmental permit. That’s what residents said. They said that this was a disaster waiting to happen.

The investigation is ongoing to determine the causes, and we must let those investigations run their course, but let me turn to the wider responsibility of the directors of the company, South Wales Wood Recycling. Reassuring statements after the event have appeared on the website, but they’ve been otherwise absent from the scene, not playing their part in engaging with the community, explaining what is going on and helping to give reassurance.

But, I am advised they do leap to action in other ways. I’m led to understand that they do hire top-notch legal experts to challenge enforcement orders and stop notices, leading the local authority and Natural Resources Wales on a merry dance, trying to delay and obfuscate. And meanwhile, the money for recycling rolls in, and yes, as the Cabinet Secretary knows, there is money in waste. There is money in recycling. In fact, there are millions if not billions to be made. The latest data suggest that the UK recycling industry as a whole was worth £23.3 billion in 2015, up 15 per cent on the year before.

In the wood recycling sector, there are fortunes to be made as wood waste of different types of grades is diverted from landfill to biomass and energy projects and to recycled uses such as chipboard and value-added products such as equine and public pathway servicing and garden mulches. The public net worth of South Wales Wood Recycling rocketed from £313,651 in 2013 to £1,303,675 in 2015. They have plans to expand. This company is going places, it seems.

We need recycling companies to succeed. We actually want them to do well so we are sending less to landfill, wasting less and helping us to become a more sustainable Wales and world. But they have to do this properly. Any company involved in this needs to care for their communities, not just their profits. Of course, we have to let any investigations into these activities follow their course. But let’s be clear too: any company, regardless of this one, that does not show respect for their local communities or any company that demonstrates indifference or even contempt for their communities in their actions or inaction will ultimately be held to account. They must be held to account. For any such company to appeal every challenge, knowing that this delays the process by months, to hire fancy barristers to tie knots in enforcement agencies while the money continues to roll in is just rubbing the faces of residents in it.

I want to see responsible waste recycling companies in Wales that do good by the planet and do good by their communities. So, I say to the directors of South Wales Wood Recycling Ltd, ‘You are looking pretty irresponsible and cavalier at the moment. You’ve got your work cut out to get local people back on your side, and I’m one of them.’ Meanwhile, Cabinet Secretary, I do have some specific suggestions, and I know you’ll be constrained from commenting on the details of these incidents and this company because of ongoing inquiries and investigations, but I believe there is more we can do as a legislature here.

We can put more power in the hands of regulatory and enforcement bodies and in the hands of local people, and I’m more than willing to help take this forward. We have the powers in Wales already over many relevant areas of waste management, landfill, planning, environmental enforcement and more besides. Other powers are reserved currently and we’d need to work with the Westminster Government, but I and local government colleagues in Wales and others are keen to work with you to tighten up the regulatory and legislative regime so that the good waste management and recycling companies are rewarded and the bad are rounded up, sanctioned and put out of business if necessary.

So, here are some specific suggestions. Firstly, let’s set up a small, time-constrained task and finish group to review the legislative and regulatory framework for licensing and planning controls of waste and recycling operations, and look at the scope for extending the framework of criminal law in this area. Second: seek to strengthen significantly the financial penalties on breaches of planning and environmental permits, which are currently so insignificant, frankly, that they’re often regarded as puny and petty by the offenders. The higher end of penalties for those who wilfully or repeatedly offend should cause extreme financial and personal embarrassment to individual company directors as well as owners or shareholders. Third: explore ways of putting sanctions directly against named company directors and owners, including the possibility of suspending or banning individuals guilty of repeat or serious offences from holding any positions in related industry sectors—name and shame for a first or lower offence, but bar them from holding such positions for serious or repeat offences. Fourth: bring forward proposals for streamlining and improving the co-ordination of investigations between organisations such as enforcement agencies and planning authorities. The better sharing of intelligence data and legal expertise will help balance the scales of justice.

Five: develop new ways to entirely remove parts of this process from legal and judicial proceedings, which are costly for the taxpayer and time-consuming for enforcement agencies, frustrating for residents and others affected by ongoing issues. For example, if a company proceeds to operate illegally or in contravention of permits whilst appealing a stop order, they know they’re trying to dance rings around people. It’s also risky for enforcement agencies, who know they could face even higher legal costs and claims for operational losses if they’re unsuccessful. Let’s find a way to make a stop order on paper a stop order in practice and put the balance back in favour of the enforcement agencies and of local people. Corporate lawyers and barristers are trying to run roughshod over democratically elected Ministers and councillors and local people. Let’s get the balance right.

Six: extend stop notices and other enforcement powers to cover existing consents, not just new offences and new developments, so that stop notices and other sanctions can be enforced on existing operations where they contravene the permitting or the planning conditions. And seven: examine the scope for extending criminal law to cover new areas covered currently by planning and environmental law, such as serious risk to amenity, and allow local authorities to determine what is constituted by that serious risk. This would allow the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to be applied to breaches, so that profits made by criminal behaviour could be sequestered to the public.