Action looms for firm over dust menace

Enforcement action could be taken against a waste company where dust is said to be blowing on to gravestones at a nearby cemetery.

The issue of dust billowing from AB Waste and settling on the headstones at James Bridge Cemetery in Darlaston has been a long-running concern for families and visitors.

But Walsall Council officers could now take action after it emerged two of the sites being used by the waste firm do not have the required planning permission.

A report set to go before planning chiefs says the expansions of the Cemetery Road firm onto the site of the former Railway Inn pub, in Kendricks Road, and the Junction Works site, off Cemetery Road, have had a "number of serious adverse impacts."

This includes complaints from visitors to the cemetery about dust collecting on and damaging headstones, the report says. Neither site has the relevant or required planning permission for the range of their current uses.

Councillors on Walsall's planning committee will tomorrow night decide whether enforcement action should be taken to force the company to cease operations at those two sites.

The report says this could happen if "current steps to re-locate the company do not succeed by May 31, 2012".

"It is recognised that the 40 staff employed by the company makes it a significant employer and maintaining the expanding business and jobs is essential," the report says.

Councillor Paul Bott, for Darlaston South, said: "Of course there is a need for this kind of business and nobody wants to stop an expanding firm. But this is in the wrong place."

AB Waste declined to comment.