A business owner from Colchester has been fined £10,000 for operating an unauthorised waste operation.
Overview
The Environment Agency visited Chippetts Farm, Daisy Green, Lexden Heath after receiving reports of an illegal scrap storage. Officers visited the site on 14 April 2010 and found piles of assorted car waste, cable and hardcore and there were signs that some waste had been burned.
Waste was stored in various containers and on the ground, some of it unmade. Included was an estimated 1,000 wheel rims in a huge pile in a field.
Environment Agency officers found that the land was used to illegally store scrap metal from the family business.
Graham Watchorn who helped run the family business at the Hythe in Colchester admitted taking scrap to Chippetts Farm, Daisy Green, Lexden Heath for about eight years.
He said that he took material there for safe keeping as the family business had been broken into several times.
Watchorn told investigating officers he did not think he needed waste transfer notes to take scrap from the yard to the farm, which he did about once a week.
Outcome
The Environment Agency prosecuted Graham Watchorn. He pleaded guilty to operating a regulated facility, (i.e. waste operation for the storage of waste) without being authorised by an environmental permit granted under Regulation 13 of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.
He was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay full Environment Agency costs of £2,740.
Read full story here.
Source: Environment Agency
