Top Gear's The Stig halts 'death trap' landfill

Top Gear’s former test driver The Stig is backing calls to stop a landfill site in Devon being created which could affect children’s safety and increase traffic.

Ben Collins, who previously set lap times for cars tested on the hit TV show, fears that the proposed site near Enterprise Avenue in Tiverton will lead to congestion and endanger children and cyclists who use the area.

Waste disposal company Decharge Ltd is seeking council approval to transport tonnes of material – including soil, stones, and inert construction material – to a plot three-quarters of a mile near homes.

The plan would see 40-tonne HGV lorries driving through the estate’s narrow roads ‘every 7.5 minutes’, documents say.

The land proposed for waste disposal was previously used as an illegal dumping area.

Ben Collins, who previously set lap times for cars tested on the hit TV show, fears that the proposed site near Enterprise Avenue in Tiverton will lead to congestion and endanger children and cyclists who use the area

Locals insist the opposition isn’t due to ‘nimbyism’ but they are worried about traffic and fear the plot could be used to dispose of nuclear waste in the future – a claim denied by the council.

Mr Collins, who appeared on the BBC show from 2003 until 2010, criticised the application as ‘absurd’.

He said: ‘I looked at the route and it’s quite clearly a death trap.

‘When there’s an alternative to use a trunk road and build an extra junction, it would save time and money for the project, which is understandable as you’ve got to get the soil somewhere, but you wouldn’t drive it through a tiny lane in a residential area near a kid’s playground.

‘It just doesn’t make any sense.

‘Hopefully, there will be some sense seen at Devon County Council, which will dismiss this, but the fact it’s come back again is distressing for people that live here.

‘Ploughing HGVs through a tiny road through village communities through a high concentration of schools, it just doesn’t make any sense.’

Mr Collins believes it could be more cost-effective and time-efficient to create a new waste junction off the A361 and use the current trunk road.

‘Once it’s established here, it will be a never-ending train of trucks, and there simply isn’t room; there’s already plenty of camera footage here from the residents of Braid Park showing where these trucks would go, and they can’t fit past one another.

‘You can see the structure of this road is designed for low-speed, light traffic, and a lot of people here are riding bicycles.

‘You see lots of kids playing, learning to walk or ride bikes for the first time, and it is that narrow it doesn’t have a white line running up the centre.

‘People who have watched HGVs trying to get through here, they can’t do it on the road they just ride straight onto the pavement where kids are walking or playing and there will be fatalities, and if it comes to it, I’ll lie down in the road if I have to, until they see sense.’

He added: ‘Tiverton has a great history, it’s a market town, it’s growing, and this is also a conservation area near the canal with small and weak historic bridges and a vibrant community which shouldn’t be thrashed and trashed and treated like a motorway.

‘Hopefully, common sense will prevail, but in the meantime, it’s going to be really distressing for the locals to try and oppose this when they shouldn’t really have to.’

In response, a spokesperson for Decharge Ltd downplayed concerns about traffic.

They said: ‘With the small number of vehicles utilising the lane leading to Uplowman Road, the frequency of vehicles travelling in opposing directions due to the proposed scheme is likely to be low.

‘With the majority of these interactions assumed to be those of HGVs hauling material to the fill area, it is proposed that the site operator will utilise vehicles equipped with CB radios to enable drivers to radio ahead to make sure the road ahead is clear.’

Devon County Council also reiterated that the site would only accept inert waste. They said: ‘It will definitely not be for nuclear waste. It will be determined by DCC development management committee at some point in the future, but no date is yet confirmed.’

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