Haulage and plant hire company Rory J Holbrook Limited has been ordered to pay £247,278 for illegally handling waste on land in Blofield, Norfolk.

Yesterday (27 Jan), Norwich Crown Court ordered the company to pay £247,278 proceeds of crime along with a £30,000 fine and prosecution costs of £20,000, after the company admitted to illegally depositing waste on the company’s land on Yarmouth Road.

Company was illegally handling waste

Visiting the site in 2011, Environment Agency (EA) officers recorded large piles of waste including soil, rubble, asphalt, and aggregate fines – which can only be handled and stored with a relevant environmental permit – despite the Rory J Holbrook claiming to operate as a haulage company.

EA officers also found evidence that the company had taken waste from a groundworks company, some of which required remediation due to historic soil contamination. The company had reportedly been treating and selling excess waste off-site, and using the remainder as aggregate for the basis of a golf course.

As such, the court heard that the company was ‘in essence’ running a waste transfer site, despite not holding the proper permits. The EA argued that although the company was permitted to handle 5,000 tonnes of small-scale construction aggregates under its waste exemption, the company records showed that 94,000 tonnes of assorted construction wastes had been taken to the site.

Representing the EA in court yesterday, Mark Watson argued that the company turnover from the site was in excess of £500,000, and it had also gained financially by not paying for permit applications and subsistence fees.

However, Andrew McGee, for the defence, said that the company had not deliberately breached the law, but had been negligent. He added that the company kept consistent records and co-operated with the investigation.

Rory J Holbrook Ltd had been ‘significantly reckless’

After hearing evidence, Judge Katherine Moore found the culpability of the company to be ‘significantly reckless’. She made a confiscation order to include the avoided tipping fees, avoided permit fees and money made from selling aggregates from the treatment of waste.

Rory J Holbrook Ltd was fined £18,000 for operating a waste operation without an environmental permit, and £12,000 for treating controlled waste without an environmental permit.

The company also had to pay £247,278 proceeds of crime along with £20,000 of prosecution costs.

After the hearing, EA Investigating Officer Louise Howard said: “Abuse of low-risk exemptions to operate waste sites which require full environmental permits is not something the Environment Agency tolerates.

“Illegal waste sites of this sort impact on the legitimate waste trade by undercutting and have the potential to adversely impact the environment.

“Along with investigating and taking enforcement action against these crimes, we are also making greater use of the Proceeds of Crime Act to further deter repeat offending.”

Fly-tipping in England on the rise

According to a recent report the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), local authorities in England spent £45.2 million clearing up 852,000 incidents of fly-tipping in the year 2013/14, marking a 20 per cent increase in incidents in one year.

Indeed, the statistics show that this was the first time fly-tipping incidents increased in recent years, with incidents at a higher rate than those reported in 2010/11.

According to Defra, the rise could be attributed to the fact that some local authorities have introduced new technologies to identify fly-tipping, such as on-line reporting and electronic applications, as well increased training for staff for dealing with fly-tipping cases.

The data shows that nearly two-thirds of all incidents (563,000 cases) of illegal dumping involved household waste in 2013/14. However, there was a drastic rise in incidents of commercial waste being dumped, rising by 62 per cent to 65,000 cases (around eight per cent of all reported incidents of fly-tipping), and a 20 per cent rise in the amount of construction and demolition waste being dumped (around 50,000 cases).

Find out more about fly-tipping in England.