Why waste dumping is the new drug dealing with crooks making £100k

With a family-run pub at one end and a cricket field at the other, the picturesque village of Peopleton might seem to be the epitome of rural England.But for the residents of this sleepy, well-to-do corner of Worcestershire, their idyll has been dragged rather closer to a vision of despair.For more than a year, locals have looked on, helplessly, as a succession of 40-ton trucks ploughs through the country lanes before dumping vast piles of stinking waste onto nearby farmland.As if this weren't bad enough, the mountains of rubbish - which include unpleasant domestic detritus and builders' rubble - are then fed into an ear-splitting grinding machine, an operation that has been known to commence in the small hours of the morning.Then comes yet another armada of heavy trucks to cart the processed waste - which can now be spread more evenly - back through the lanes to a destination unknown. The residents of Peopleton are understandably shattered by this sudden change to their way of life, but they are by no means alone.Rather, they are victims of a fast-growing and highly organised criminal enterprise now spreading like a cancer across Britain's green and pleasant land.Dumping illegal waste is so profitable - generating as much as £2,500 per truck - it has been embraced by organised criminal gangs. According to the police, the unlicensed rubbish business is 'the new narcotics'.Figures from the Environment Agency (EA) illustrate the spread of large-scale tipping. More than 500 dumps like the one at Peopleton scar the British countryside, including a vast 280,000-ton site in Cheshire, 50,000-ton sites in Lancashire and Cornwall and a 36,000-ton dump in Kent. An aerial view of the illegal waste processing operation at Stone Arrow Farm, which neighbours say is blighting their lives with noise, traffic and pollution Carl Powell next to his 'no tipping' warning sign at an entrance to Stone Arrow Farm  Government landfill tax - on top of hefty commercial fees demanded by waste dumps - is now £126 a ton, part of an official drive to encourage recycling.But criminal gangs have seized the opportunity to avoid the tax and thereby undercut legitimate operators.Meanwhile, the EA - the government body tasked with preventing the ruination of the countryside - seems powerless to act.The sheer scale of what residents and law-enforcement agencies are up against was clear when the Daily Mail visited the unfolding disaster in Worcestershire.There we uncovered a network of shady individuals - some with connections to a notorious waste-crime family - who seemed bent on despoiling not just Peopleton, but a series of sites in the surrounding countryside.To follow the trail, we must start at Stone Arrow Farm, a property on the edge of the village owned by a local farmer called Carl Powell.The 80-year-old was already seen as something of a pantomime villain after he made national headlines in 2021 by putting up a sign branding it 'the nastiest village in Worcestershire'.But the feud took a darker turn when, in the summer of 2024, the first of the waste trucks started rumbling on to his land, depositing rubble, wood and various forms of household rubbish, including plastic and discarded vapes. John Bruce pictured running along a beach in a rare social media photo  Stone Arrow Farm pictured earlier this year, with the waste operation taking place on the left and the lorry park on the right  An aerial view of Peopleton, a quintessentially English village with a medieval church, family run pub and a shop staffed by volunteersThat this is illegal is not in doubt: a stop notice was served by the Environment Agency last January. An additional Planning Enforcement Notice was issued by the local council and some of the waste was subsequently carted off. Yet the wagons full of rubbish continue to arrive.Powell himself has made apologetic noises, blaming a tenant for the illegal dump. Speaking to the Daily Mail last month, the farmer said the operation has got 'out of control' and suggested he'd failed to realise what his tenant was up to before it was too late.But a cursory look at who that tenant is puts things in a different perspective. Enter John Bruce: a 53-year-old bankrupt, who in 2003 was named in Parliament alongside his ex-partner, Ann Gartlan, thanks to his disgraceful record of illegal tipping in Worcestershire.Not only is he Powell's tenant, the man responsible for mountains of noisome waste at Stone Arrow Farm, he has form.In 2002, Bruce was sentenced to a year in jail for dumping illegal waste including asbestos, a lethal substance, at unlicensed sites around the county.That proved little deterrent. In 2020, Bruce was ordered to pay £2.1million under the Proceeds of Crime Act after a conviction for dumping 883,000-cubic-feet of rubbish at an airfield less than five miles from Peopleton.Bruce was given three months to pay up, with the threat of seven years in prison if he failed. Yet so toothless are the authorities that, today, the order against Bruce is still to be enforced and the airfield is a rubbish-strewn mess.Had Carl Powell been in any real doubt about Bruce's record, or about the true nature of his business, he could have driven ten minutes down the road to see one of the properties formerly occupied by his troublesome tenant. Mr Powell's notorious sign welcoming drivers to 'Peopleton: a murderous lawless godforsaken place' A ground-level view of the illegal waste processing site at Stone Arrow Farm  First tip: At nearby Mill Lane, a long pile of brown waste can be seen stacked in a field next to what looks like a much larger waste pile lying beneath green sheetingThere, at a site colourfully named The Crabbe Yard, sits a mountain of fly-tipped waste described by locals as 'the size of eight semi-detached houses'. Clearly visible, the vast pile looms over a fence and padlocked gate.As Powell has himself suggested, Bruce's reputation goes before him. Confirming Bruce is the man operating a waste dumping business on his land, the farmer said: '[John Bruce] is against the establishment which I am too. I had him here to stick it to the village after what they had done to me.'It gets worse. The Daily Mail has established this dump is merely one part of a network of illegal tips now scarring the surrounding countryside. A once-scenic landscape has been defaced, with field after field turned over to piles of fly-tipped waste.They are all within a short drive of each other and - using publicly available records - can all be linked to John Bruce and his family. We visited two further sites now under investigation by the EA for 'illegal waste activity'.The first is at Mill Lane, near Wadborough, between Worcester and Evesham. Here, a long brown pile of rubbish lies rotting in a field next to what appears to be a much larger pile of waste hidden beneath green sheeting.Land Registry files show that the owner of land at Mill Lane is Max Bruce, the 23-year-old son of John, a regular visitor to Stone Arrow Farm, according to locals. Bruce Junior - who lives with his mother in a mock-Tudor farmhouse - owns the land at Mill Lane through a company called MB Property Holdings Ltd.Closer to Evesham itself, meanwhile, a mass of processed rubble - mainly building material - has been spread into a long strip along the edge of a field at Haselor Lane.This site, too, is linked to Max Bruce, named on a recent planning application. Is this where the rubbish fed through the grinding machine by his father at Stone Arrow Farm is laid to rest? Second tip: At Evesham, a mass of processed waste - which appears to be mainly building materials - was spread into a long strip along the edge of a field Third tip: At nearby Fladbury, near the River Avon, a long pile of waste has been dumped between two rows of trees. It has since been flattened Wayne and Amy Butterfield with MP Stuart Anderson as he opens Upper Teme Business Park. Mr Anderson is not accused of any wrongdoing and there is no suggestion he knew that land the couple owned was used for dumping waste Then there is dump number four, a long pile of waste between two rows of trees near the village of Fladbury. Here, the plot grows more tangled still.The landowner at the Fladbury site is a firm called Fineranch, which also owns part of the land back at the Mill Lane dump.On paper, Fineranch's Mill Lane holding is separate from the Max Bruce plot. But it is covered with rubbish all the same and is now subject to a separate planning enforcement notice from Wychavon District Council.The sole directors of Fineranch are local business people Amy and Wayne Butterfield. The Daily Mail has contacted the Butterfields to ask whether they were aware their land was being used for waste dumping but - like the Bruces - they have failed to respond.This state of affairs appears to suit some very well. John Bruce might have been declared bankrupt in January 2025, but the evidence suggests he's doing rather well for himself.Take the waste operation at Stone Arrow Farm, where locals have described an average of six articulated lorries arriving every day. One major (legitimate) waste firm estimated fees to be £2,500 for a full lorry of waste.Six lorries a day would equal £15,000, or £105,000 in a week. It is hard to be certain Bruce is charging this amount, but few believe that his waste operation is anything other than highly profitable.Then we come to a 'side hustle' at the 15-acre section of Stone Arrow Farm rented by Bruce: aerial photographs reveal a ramshackle lorry park now sits alongside the waste processing site. John's son, Max Bruce, has years of experience in the waste processing trade, with Facebook photos showing him behind the wheel of a JCB and selling woodchip for £100 per load Max Bruce lives locally with his mother in a chunky farmhouse with a detached garage Some of the cars Bruce is selling from Stone Arrow Farm through his business, UK Plant  Two men, who locals say are Max and John Bruce, directing an articulated truck into Stone Arrow Farm. No vehicle with this numberplate can be found on the DVLA databaseCalled UK Plant, its website listed a total of 195 vehicles for hire, from tractors and trailers to mechanical crushers and a suite of high-end sports cars, including three Range Rovers.Their value appeared to be greater than £2.5million - not bad for a bankrupt. It is also significantly more than the £2.1million Bruce was ordered to pay way back in 2020. It is true that a handful of his assets have been seized, but more than five years on, the full sum remains outstanding.Peopleton, a friendly, prosperous village that was once home to presenter Jeremy Paxman and novelist Barbara Cartland, hardly seems like the kind of place where residents would live in fear of crime.Yet, today, the residents are seriously concerned at the criminal activity on their doorstep.In the words of one villager: 'We are all frightened to go on the record because of what the police have told us.'There are some small signs of progress. On January 8, officers raided Carl Powell's home at Stone Arrow Farm and found £60,000 in cash stuffed in biscuit tins. Police also recovered a suspected stolen car and a series of electrical goods suspected to be linked to money laundering.In another major development, two men were arrested in Drakes Broughton on suspicion of firearms offences, before being bailed under investigation. Six firearms were seized, and around £18,000 in cash. At Bruce's old site, The Crabbe Yard, piles of waste 'the size of eight semi-detached houses' can still be seen behind a padlocked fence The colossal waste pile, which has now been grassed over, pictured from the air   In 2020, Bruce was handed a £2.1m confiscation order over an earlier conviction for dumping 883,000 square feet worth of waste at Throckmorton Airfield, under five miles from Peopleton. The airfield remains a mess today, as shown by these recent photos   Armed police seized £97,000 worth of cash in a series of raids earlier this month. At Mr Powell's house, £60,000 in cash was found in biscuit tins Police breaking into a container during one of the raids, which took place across Worcestershire, Herefordshire and ShropshireA total of £97,000 in cash was seized in the coordinated raids, which also covered neighbouring Herefordshire and Shropshire. Between £200,000 and £300,000 was found in bank accounts. But this is only a small step forward, Tory MP for Droitwich and Evesham Nigel Huddleston tells me, adding: 'There's so much money to be made some of the perpetrators are happy to blatantly disregard the law, even if it means getting fined or going to prison.'For its part, the EA said it was continuing to investigate 'illegal waste crime activity at sites in Worcestershire' and may take 'future enforcement action'.But with so much countryside already ruined by rubbish, will it all come far too late?Additional reporting by Ross Slater and Tom Bedford 

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