REGULATORS have been accused of presenting “flawed and misleading” evidence to a Senedd inquiry into a stench from a tip which has plagued people’s lives for nearly 20 years.

Steve Gittins, a campaigner from Johnstown, Wrexham, submitted a petition calling for the revocation of Enovert’s environmental permit for the landfill site at the old Hafod quarry.

Giving evidence to the Senedd’s petitions committee today (November 10), Mr Gittins said people would accept nothing less than the site being closed after 20 years of “inaction”.

Criticising “flawed and misleading” evidence submitted to the inquiry by Natural Resources Wales (NRW), he suggested graphs and figures were manipulated to downplay problems.

“I think there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors going on here,” he said.

He warned an 18-year history of “noxious odours” and “unacceptable statutory nuisance” has got incrementally worse over the years. He told Senedd Members the problem has not improved since NRW issued an enforcement notice in 2023.

Asked about claims the number of complaints has reduced significantly, Mr Gittins pinned the fall on “complaints fatigue” – with people burned out from reporting problems for years.

He said: “It’s well-documented, especially with nuisance issues, where complaints fatigue happens. I mean we’ve been complaining for two decades, remember, and the thing has never got any better… there’s been inaction all along.”

Mr Gittins criticised NRW’s “rather apathetic” response, which advised him to report up to ten incidents a day, adding: “What a burden that is… we’ve got better things to do.”

He told the committee: “Interestingly, all the witnesses… who have said ‘there’s nothing to see here’ – none of them live in Johnstown, none of them… We put up with this daily and all we get is ‘there’s nothing to see here’ – and that’s wrong.”

NRW has stated odour reports have shown a decreasing trend as of May 2025, and a permit can only be revoked if there is a “serious risk” and all other measures have been exhausted.

Wrexham Council concluded “no statutory nuisance exists” after a summer assessment while Huw Irranca-Davies – Wales’ Deputy First Minister – has resisted calls to intervene.

But Mr Gittins raised concerns about the robustness of monitoring arrangements, suggesting Enovert was “marking its own homework” as he called for an independent review.

“Even… with their own figures, they’re not compliant… there’s no hiding from it,” he said.

Mr Gittins added: “I’m getting increasing problems getting an answer from anybody. One member of Wrexham Council has written to me to say he refuses to communicate with me any more and advised me to go to the public ombudsman which I’ve done.”

He told the committee: “On behalf of local residents, I know the strength of feeling, they won’t accept anything other than the site being closed because they cannot manage it.

“It hasn’t been managed efficiently for 20 years… and 20 years is enough. We’ve got another 35 years’ licence on that landfill site. My children, my grandchildren are all going to suffer from this place. I just don’t understand why we should put up with that.

“It’s not even our rubbish.”

In 2024, 54% of the waste came from England – primarily Merseyside and Cheshire – and 46% from Wales, of which 25% was from Wrexham.

Asked about the effectiveness of community engagement, Mr Gittins said: “If you spoke to the vast majority of our community, I don’t think I could repeat the answer.”

He dismissed claims of an “open forum” at a liaison group which he was not allowed to join.  “All it is is a promise of jam tomorrow…,” he told the committee. “In terms of the transparency and engagement, I feel it is extremely poor.”

Dorothy Tunnah, a member of the Hafod liaison group who lives nearby, criticised Enovert executives who suggested the rain makes no difference to the level of odour.

“Absolutely untrue, just ask anyone who lives in Johnstown,” she wrote in evidence.

She pleaded with the petitions committee: “Enovert has had enough time to get it right and we hope you agree that Hafod landfill should be closed down. Please do not let us down as former members of the Senedd have over the past 18 years.”

TOURISM leaders have urged Wales not to follow Scotland’s lead by replicating a “failed” licensing scheme that has “harmed” the industry and created a “thriving black market”.

Last week, the Welsh Government unveiled a tourism bill in the Senedd which, if passed, will create a mandatory licensing scheme for short-term Airbnb-style rentals.

But industry representatives gave a damning account of a similar policy in Scotland, describing the experience since its introduction in 2022 as a “real horror story”.

Marc Crothall, chief executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance, warned the policy has created “far greater harm than good” as he gave evidence in the Senedd.

He told the economy committee: “When policy is developed without a clear objective and without reliable data, it fails, and Scotland… is that case study.”

Fiona Campbell, chief executive of the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers, pointed to two successful judicial reviews brought against Edinburgh Council. She warned the entire Scottish scheme is “in breach” of the Human Rights Act.

She said: “I would just urge the Welsh Government and policy makers to really take heed of these warnings… don’t do it as Scotland has done it – or you may well end up in court.”

Ms Campbell argued that rather than solving housing problems, the policy was “harming the wrong people and regulating the wrong thing”.

Calling for extreme caution, she criticised the Welsh Government’s projected £75 annual fee for the new licence, labelling it “entirely uncredible” based on Scotland’s experience.

Ms Campbell – who has run a self-catering property for 23 years – told Senedd Members while low fees were promised in Scotland, the reality is they range from £205 to £5,698.

She also dismissed assurances that artificial intelligence and automation would keep administrative costs down as “entirely unrealistic”. “Unless Wales has come up with amazing AI that I’m not aware of, I just don’t think it’s credible,” she said.

She argued the Scottish policy was flawed from the outset because it wrongly tried to solve a housing crisis by regulating tourism, similar to the rationale in Wales.

Ms Campbell warned of the impact on small operators, with 70% of the Scottish self-catering sector made up of women aged over 55 – a figure she wagered was similar in Wales.

“These are the people you’re harming,” she said.

She told the committee the “horror story” in Scotland has seen operators “leaving in droves”.

Mr Crothall added this has led to empty homes, pointing to 230 properties on the Isle of Skye that “remain purely second homes” after their owners opted not to apply for a licence.

Both witnesses stressed they were not against regulation but they argued a separate licensing scheme was disproportionate.

Ms Campbell said the industry supports a national register that includes mandatory health and safety checks but she questioned the need for a second, more costly licensing layer.

“My question is: why do you need licensing on top?” she asked the committee. “If I were a policy maker in Wales, I would wait until I had all the data… it feels premature.”

Giving evidence during an earlier session on November 5, finance secretary Mark Drakeford defended the tourism bill as “good for the industry”. The former First Minister argued the bill would create a level-playing field and reassure visitors.

Prof Drakeford said Wales had learned from Scotland’s “locally based scheme” – which he said had caused confusion – by opting for a simpler, national model.

WELSH councils have warned plugging a £436m budget gap for next year would require an average council tax increase of 22% or the loss of 14,000 jobs.

The Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA), which represents Wales’ 22 councils, said local authorities face £560m of pressures in 2026/27 – £100m more than expected.

Councils warned a 2% settlement in the Welsh Government’s “roll-over” draft budget would be “extremely damaging” for services and leave a £436m shortfall. Ministers have proposed an average 2.5% increase, with a funding floor to ensure no council receives less than 2.3%.

Bridging the £436m gap would require “unconscionably high” council tax rises of about 22% or the equivalent of around 14,000 job cuts across Wales, according to the WLGA.

The stark warning was echoed by Wales’ outgoing auditor general who said some councils are “very close” to having to issue a formal section 114 (effective bankruptcy) notice.

Adrian Crompton told the Senedd’s finance committee that councils – which are forecasting a £184m overspend in 2025/26 – are struggling to balance their books.

He said: “There are undoubtedly a few authorities that are very close to having to issue a section 114. Our assessment at the time of publishing our report was that none were about to, so they all had sufficient grip on their in-year position, so it wasn’t imminent.

“But some are right at the edge and they are all facing some very significant demand-led pressures in areas like children’s services, additional learning needs, temporary accommodation, which are very hard to predict.”

Mr Crompton, whose eight-year term as auditor general ends in July, added: “When you’re right at the edge of financial sustainability, if you get hit with a couple of significant cases that you have to deliver against, that could be sufficient to tip authorities over the edge.”

He warned their fragile financial state means councils would be the “most immediately and severely hit” sector if the Welsh Government’s budget fails to pass.

The financial pressures facing councils were detailed in the WLGA’s written evidence on the draft budget which showed how demand-led services are spiralling.

For example, the net cost of homelessness and temporary accommodation has exploded nearly eight-fold in a decade – from £12.8m in 2016/17 to £100.8m budgeted for this year.

The WLGA also warned of “unsustainable” pressures on school finances, with children’s care and education accounting for the majority of the forecasted £184m overspend.

One council said 33 primary and six secondary schools – nearly 70% of all schools in its area – were projecting a deficit budget.

Another reported its schools had “completely eroded a £15m surplus balance into a £2m deficit” and projected a £9m in-year overspend. Others warned of job losses, reserves running dry and class sizes rising above legal limits.

The financial strain is so severe councils are failing at their basic accounting duties, with many missing deadlines to file their accounts – a situation Mr Crompton described as a “slippery slope” for bodies “so close to financial sustainability”.

He argued spiralling demands are a symptom of a wider failure to shift spending to prevention. The auditor general said his recommendation for the Welsh Government to “embed prevention into the budget-setting process” had been rejected.

“It’s disappointing that it’s been rejected because it seems so fundamental,” said the auditor general, who added: “I don’t fully understand why.”

Councils’ evidence echoed this, stating while policy “increasingly references the importance of prevention, this is not often reflected” in funding. The WLGA said this has forced councils to cut non-statutory services such as leisure, transport and community facilities.

Mr Crompton’s warning about councils was part of a wider assessment that Wales’ entire model of public service delivery is “unsustainable on its current trajectory”.

Giving evidence on November 5, he told Senedd Members demand is “outstripping” funding and critical areas have been “hollowed out” after two decades of tight budgets.

Mr Crompton warned this “unsustainable” model was not unique to local government, with all seven health boards in Wales breaching their statutory duty to break even over three years. The finance committee heard the NHS is forecasting a £191m deficit this year.