Novichok police cars buried in landfill site

EMERGENCY service vehicles used in response to the Salisbury Novichok poisoning have been buried in a landfill site on the fringe of the Gloucestershire Cotswolds, the Government has confirmed.

An undisclosed number of police cars and ambulances were sent to Wingmoor Farm, one of the few landfill sites in the UK to take hazardous waste. The site is near Bishop’s Cleeve, a village north of Cheltenham that is home to 13,000 people.

However, residents were last night urged not to be alarmed by the announcement, with the Government insisting there was “absolutely no risk” at the “potentially” contaminated vehicles being buried there.

A Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said the decision had been made to ensure life could “get back to normal” for people in Salisbury, Wiltshire. Earlier this year, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury. They have since been released from hospital.

Three months later in the nearby town of Amesbury, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, two members of the public, fell ill after coming into contact with the highly toxic nerve agent. Ms Sturgess later died from the incident.a Defra spokesman said: “The clean-up work in south Wiltshire has been under way for some time and any potentially contaminated items continue to be removed and stored securely before being disposed of safely.

“As part of this work, following review by specialist teams, some of the vehicles involved... have been moved to a hazardous waste landfill site. There is absolutely no risk to the public of using hazardous waste landfill sites.”

The site has been operated for more than 20 years by Grundon Waste Management Limited, which declined to comment.

Tony Mackinnon, of Bishop’s Cleeve parish council, who has attended meetings of the Wingmoor Forum, said the vehicles would be covered in “a metre or two of clay”, and added that he lived in Bishop’s Cleeve and would not lose any sleep over the latest news.