An Essex based landlord has been fined thousands of pounds for failing to sort out properties in a clean streets clamp down.
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Since May 2012, Leeds City Council has been working with residents, businesses and property owners in a number of hotspots – known as environmental improvement zones – in east and north Leeds to ensure they know how to keep on the right side of law when it comes to managing and disposing of their waste.
HRSK Ltd repeatedly ignored warnings and two separate legal notices giving them up to four weeks to remove the piles of waste and cut back overgrown hedges from two properties on Nowell Mount. As a result the magistrates handed down maximum fines earlier this month.
HRKS Ltd’s company secretary and director Kulwinder Kaur Parmar now has to pay two £1,000 penalties, a victim surcharge of £100 and costs totalling £1,227.79.
Councillor Mark Dobson, executive member for the environment, said:
“This is not a trivial matter. Communities don’t want to be blighted with litter and gardens full of waste, so these zones are proving very effective at offering the right balance of education and enforcement where people fail to take their responsibilities seriously.
“These cases highlight just how important it is for landlords to ensure their properties are maintained to high environmental standards. Anyone who lets uncontained waste accumulate on their properties like this, need to know that a lack of co-operation on their part can have severe consequences. Residents want the council to help improve standards and behaviours and we will continue to take decisive action like this on their behalf.”
The first of two properties on Nowell Mount was identified when the environmental improvement zones were launched last year with huge amounts of rubbish lying loose in the garden.
Having identified the owner of the empty home as HRKS Ltd, they were service a legal notice under the Prevention of Damage by pests Act 1948, section 4 in October 2012.
The notice required all waste to be removed and further steps to be taken to prevent it happening again within 21 days. With no response and no action taken, the council cleaned up the property and started court proceedings.
In August 2012 another HRKS Ltd property on Nowell Mount was earmarked for action with uncontained waste in the garden. A severely overgrown hedge also meant the street looked untidy and was causing an obstruction. A warning letter was sent to HRKS Ltd to let them know that the rubbish needed to be moved and the vegetation cut back.
Another warning letter in September was ignored so they were service a legal notice under Section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requiring all litter and waste to be removed and the vegetation cut back within 28 days. Again, they failed to do so, so the council stepped in.
