The Environment Agency is to spend millions of pounds to clear an enormous illegal rubbish dump in Oxfordshire, saying the waste is at risk of catching fire.

But the decision announced on Thursday to clear up the thousands of tonnes of waste illegally dumped outside Kidlington has drawn an angry response from a Labour MP in Greater Manchester whose constituents have been living alongside 25,000 tonnes of toxic rubbish for nearly a year.

In Bickershaw, Wigan, criminals dumped the waste in a residential street adjacent to a primary school. During the summer heatwave the rubbish caught fire and burned for nine days, forcing the school to close and residents to stay indoors.

Josh Simons, the MP forMakerfield, said: “This decision throws mud in the face of my working-class constituents i

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