Offences this month:
Waste operator breaches planning and environmental rules
A waste operator has been sentencds to 15 months imprisonment for running an illegal waste site in Norfolk. He ran the site for more than a year without planning permission and without an environmental permit to deposit, store, dispose and treat waste.
Norfolk County Council served an enforcement notice on Fuller requiring him to stop taking waste onto the land and processing the waste. This was ignored and Mark Edward Fuller (the waste operator) failed to respond to advice and continued to operate illegally.
County Council officer Mike Adams said:
‘This is a case that has stretched the powers of planning enforcement to the limit. The defendant refused to engage with the planning system; appeals, including High Court challenges with very little merit were designed to frustrate the enforcement procedure and have lengthened and increased the cost of this process’
Fuller pleaded guilty to:
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Failure to comply with an enforcement notice on two accounts requiring the discontinuance of a use of land which breached section 179(4) and (5) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
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Operating a regulated facility for the deposit, storage, treatment and disposal of waste without there being in force, and without being authorised by, an environmental permit. This breached regulation 12(1)(a) and 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
Brewery fined £100,000 after water polluting incident
Molson Coors Brewery (UK) Limited (MCB Ltd) have been fined £100,000 and ordered to pay costs of £31,586.49 at Basingstoke Magistrates Court for polluting the River Wey.
There had been gutters on the building known as the “boiler room” located next to a trade effluent chamber that ran directly to the Lasham Drain. The gutters had been removed when the building had been extended. When the alterations were made the contractors had used a liner which did not seal the chamber to divert the trade effluent, resulting in not completely blocking the existing pipe and pathway to the Lasham Drain.
The brewery failed to respond to the regular monitoring and visual inspections that they were obliged to carry out as a requirement of their permit issued by the Environment Agency. This monitoring clearly indicated that there was a serious problem in the Lasham Drain but MCB Ltd failed to act upon this information.
MCB Ltd pleaded guilty to 2 offences: causing a water discharge activity and breaching the condition of its environmental permit with respect to monitoring the Lasham Drain for fungus.
£8800 penalty for operation of an illegal waste site
Sam Phelps, who ran two si‘XP Wood Recycling’, pleaded guilty to 2 charges of deliberately operating illegal waste sites. He was fined £400 for each offence, ordered to pay a contribution to the prosecution costs of £8,000, along with the victim surcharge of £40.
He ran the sites without environmental permits, avoiding permitting fees of £13,489 and also received an estimated profit from his illegal operations in excess of £40,000.
Environment Agency officers estimated the waste wood pile found on the site was between 3500-4000 tonnes; 3000 tonnes more than the amount allowed under the registered exemption.
The waste had not been turned or separated to create fire breaks, despite Mr Phelps being asked to do so to reduce the risk of fire. No measures were in place to prevent water run-off from the storage areas impacting upon nearby watercourses.
Mr Phelps admitted that he knew he needed an environmental permit. He was aware that the exemptions he held had limits on the amounts of wood allowed to be stored but couldn’t remember what they were.
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