Today (11 Sep 13), Christopher Whilock of Little Blakeley, Stoke on Trent, pleaded guilty at Cannock Magistrates’ Court to charges concerned with the illegal depositing of waste and failure to remove that waste.
Mr Whilock was fined 2,500GBP and ordered to pay 7,500GBP in costs, along with a 250GBP victim surcharge. The Magistrates said that had he not been bankrupt, the fine would have been higher. In addition to the financial penalty imposed, a court order was issued to remove all visible controlled waste to a legal site, within six months.
The charges were brought by the Environment Agency under Regulations 38(1)(b) and 12(1) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010, and Section 59(5) Environmental Protection Act 1990.
In April 2011, the Environment Agency was informed about the illegal disposal of waste on farmland at Little Blakeley Lane Farm, where Mr Whilock is a tenant farmer. By the end of June 2011, Mr Whilock had tipped and disposed of controlled waste in four separate areas of the farm, estimated to be over 800 tonnes.
The tipping stopped for a period of time until spring 2012, when the Environment Agency received further reports of tipping on the land. Since then, the Environment Agency has continually instructed Mr Whilock to stop tipping waste and to remove the waste from the farm. He was also sent a permit application to complete.
To date, Mr Whilock has failed to comply with all of these requests and it is estimated that he has tipped around 3,000 tonnes of waste in total on the farmland.
Speaking after the case, an Environment Agency officer in charge of the investigation said: “Illegal waste sites have the potential to cause serious pollution incidents or harm human health. This prosecution demonstrates that we take waste crime very seriously and will not hesitate to prosecute if necessary, to protect the environment and local communities.”
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/news/149785.aspx
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