Waste operators who repeatedly ignored Atmosphere Company recommendation that their websites posed a persistent fireplace threat – earlier than fires broke out that burned for days – have been sentenced, in keeping with a 21 Might press launch.
Sentencing included jail sentences spanning 6.5 years and fines totalling greater than £103,000.
Six defendants appeared in court docket for sentencing at Teesside Crown Court docket on Monday 20 Might for a number of environmental offences spanning throughout three websites:
- Greenology (Liverton) Ltd at Liverton, close to Loftus: involving its director Laura Hepburn, 44, of Stonebridgegate, Ripon, and supervisor Jonathan Man Brudenell, 54, of no fastened deal with. Waste storage points at this web site culminated in a fireplace which occurred in April 2020. Selective Environmental Options Ltd (SESL) and its director Jonathan Waldron, 42, of Winton in Northallerton, operated on this web site with Brudenell previous to Greenology taking on, and in addition illegally deposited waste at a farm close to Whitby.
- Previous Eldon Brickworks in Eldon, Bishop Auckland: involving Waldron – as a director of Falcons Two Ltd – who did not adjust to an enforcement discover and stored waste in a way prone to trigger air pollution. This led to a significant fireplace on the web site in August 2020.
- Greenology (Teesside) Ltd at Sotheby Street, Skippers Lane Industrial Property in Middlesbrough: Hepburn, as director of this separate firm, was sentenced for offences in 2021 and 2022 referring to the unlawful storage of waste tyres.
The court docket heard the defendants repeatedly ignored Atmosphere Company recommendation in regards to the storage and administration of waste and the numerous fireplace threat posed by all three websites.
Additionally, in an obvious try and protect the popularity of the Greenology identify, when notified in 2021 of the prosecution for the Liverton web site, Laura Hepburn modified the corporate identify to LM South Yorkshire Ltd.
Gary Wallace, Space Atmosphere supervisor for the Atmosphere Company within the North East, mentioned:
“All of these sentenced have proven a whole disregard for environmental legal guidelines, that are there to guard individuals and the setting.
“They may have been in little question that the websites had been working illegally and posed a major fireplace threat, however repeatedly ignored our officers’ warnings about bringing the websites again into compliance and making them secure.
“The partitions of waste resulted in two main fires, impacting on the setting and inflicting distress for native residents.
“Waste criminals trigger misery to our communities and might destroy the setting and this case demonstrates that we’ll do every thing in our energy to make sure they’re dropped at justice for his or her crimes.”
The defendants had been sentenced as follows:
- Brudenell was jailed for 2 years and 10 months.
- Hepburn was sentenced to 2 years in jail, suspended for 2 years, with 150 hours of unpaid work locally.
- Waldron was sentenced to twenty months in jail, suspended for 2 years with necessities of probation supervision, rehabilitation and 150 hours of unpaid work locally. He was additionally ordered to pay £9,000 in prices.
- Greenology (Liverton) was fined £69,000.
- Greenology (Teesside) was fined £20,000.
- SESL was fined £14,666.66.
The court docket was informed that SESL first operated on the Liverton web site between December 2018 and February 2019 with Waldron as director, Brudenell in a managerial function and Hepburn additionally concerned. SESL registered a number of waste exemptions – which permit low stage waste exercise which doesn’t require an environmental allow.
In January 2019, the Atmosphere Company began investigating SESL because it was instantly in breach of its waste exemption storage restrict of 500 tonnes.
However after a fall out between the defendants, Hepburn arrange Greenology (Liverton) Ltd, which took over the location in February 2019. All through this era Brudenell continued in a administration function, on a regular basis utilizing the false identify Man Barker, a reality recognized by Hepburn.
Waste on web site continued to extend, with the Atmosphere Company warning in regards to the quantity of waste and the hearth threat it posed, and taking subsequent enforcement motion to have waste cleared from the location. While the location was largely cleared, by late 2019 it had shortly been refilled with waste plastic.
On 5 April 2020, a significant fireplace broke out which shortly unfold by way of the baled plastic waste and the constructing and destroyed the location. The hearth burned for 9 days, massively impacting native residents who couldn’t be evacuated due to the Covid-19 nationwide lockdown.
By serving to to run each SESL and Greenology (Liverton), Brudenell was breaching a chapter restriction order which prohibited him from working an organization and had been imposed because of a number of fraud offences.
Hepburn was additionally director of Greenology (Teesside) Ltd which she arrange in February 2020, and dealt primarily with waste tyres. An Atmosphere Company inspection in June 2021 revealed the variety of tyres exceeded the restrict of the location’s waste exemption and posed a major fireplace threat.
She repeatedly claimed that the enterprise was going to construct a pyrolysis plant – for recycling finish of life tyres – and had obtained a allow from Middlesbrough Borough Council for this. However regardless of acquiring giant sums from enterprise companions no pyrolysis plant was ever constructed, and the location regularly dealt with extreme volumes of waste tyres which threatened to break the setting.
In a separate case, in February 2020 Falcons Two Ltd took over the operation of the Previous Brickworks at Eldon, Bishop Auckland, with Waldron as one among its administrators and the individual with waste administration data.
However the web site was by no means in compliance with its environmental allow and was regularly storing extreme volumes of waste inflicting a significant fireplace threat.
Following inspections of the location the Atmosphere Company informed Waldron to take remedial motion to convey the location again into compliance given the chance of a major environmental incident attributable to a number of failures of the location’s fireplace prevention plan.
It additionally issued an enforcement discover requiring the location to take away waste and create fireplace breaks, which was breached on 17 August, simply earlier than the foremost fireplace broke out in August 2020. This fireplace additionally burned for a lot of days and was difficult for the hearth service as a result of sheer quantity of waste concerned.
