Campaigners in vow on centre

A campaign group which successfully fought for a waste recycling centre near Stourbridge to be closed has vowed to continue acting as a "watchdog" over the site.

Norton and Iverley Action group battled for three years to stop operations at the Simpro Ltd site, at Iverley Park Farm, amid claims it was causing severe health problems for some residents. Environment Agency officials last week refused to renew an operating agreement for the site meaning work there can no longer continue.

But members said while they would no longer be working as a front line action group they planned to carry on as a watchdog for the site.

They will also be supporting residents from the area who are now planning civil action against Simpro.

Hugh Digger, technical officer for the action group, said: "We have been fighting for a long time and have done extremely well to achieve what we have.

"It has been a lot of hard work.

"However, we will not rest on out laurels and will be keeping an eye on what happens at the Iverley Park Farm site in future.

"We want people to know we are not going away and will be ready to take action again should anything happen at the site."

Mr Digger said he personally also planned to look at other matters affecting the Norton area in the future.

Simpro had been operating under an exemption from a waste management licence because the site was deemed to be small scale.

But the exemption was withdrawn in November last year after officials found more compost than allowed on the site. Environment Agency officials said Simpro had put in a new application to continue operating but this had been refused.

After consulting experts they also believed the operation had a risk of causing harm to human health. Simpro was unavailable for comment.