Street stall in Wrexham

Protesters fighting against landfill at Hafod Quarry took their campaign into Wrexham town centre today with a stall in Hope Street. Johnstown residents and members of Hafod Environmental Group including Councillors Dave Bithell and Mark Pritchard were joined by Assembly Member Janet Ryder and a number of other supporters.

Over 600 people stopped at the stall to sign the campaign's petition to the Welsh Assembly and many promised to write individual letters to the Welsh Assembly too.

Apart from a couple of people who said they worked at the landfill site, there was virtually universal condemnation of the council's decision to allow the 1995 planning permission for landfill to stand with modification. "Shocking", "disgraceful", "spineless" and "corrupt" were some of the words used to describe the decision.

Many people were extremely angry that Mersey's waste is being dumped here in Wrexham, blaming Merseyside councils and the directors of Mersey Waste Holdings, along with Wrexham council, for the decision to dump. Several people commented that the needs of councils and big business would always be put before the well-being of ordinary people... which is probably true unless we take matters into our own hands to stop this happening.

There were many comments about the need to provide better recycling services (Liverpool and Wirral are amongst the five worst authorities for recycling in the country, with the other Mersey authorities and Wrexham not far behind). One suggestion for waste minimisation and improving recycling is that shoppers could return all unnecessary packaging (stuff which can't be recycled by Michael - like margarine tubs, yoghurt pots, plastic bags) from whence it came, placing pressure on shops and supermarkets to sell goods with less packaging or recyclable packaging and to provide recycling facilities on their premises for anything which can't be recycled by the local scheme.

There was also anger at comments made by various politicians (including Martyn Jones MP and leader of the council Aled Roberts) in the last few days about the possible cost to Wrexham council tax payers of any compensation claim by Mersey Waste Holdings if their licence was revoked. The Welsh Assembly (Carwyn Jones) has also said that Wrexham council would have to bear the cost of any compensation. Many people felt that this was a cyncial attempt to quash protest about the quarry. If this was the aim of such comments, then it has failed miserably and has probably been counter-productive. We heard many exclamations along the lines of "How dare they try to threaten us with higher council tax bills!" and "The council might put finances before people's health, but we don't! This just shows how corrupt they are." A number of people were aware of MWH's promise not to start landfill until all the planning matters had been resolved, so felt they weren't entitled to compensation anyway.

Lastly, there were many references to future elections and the likely fate of politicians who had supported the decision to landfill at Hafod. As one man said to me: "We have long memories. We haven't forgotten Tryweryn and we're not going to forget the people who let us down over Hafod."

More Hafod photos can be seen here.