Bassetlaw: Illegal waste operators must pay £120,000

Nottingham Crown Court ordered penalties for demolition firm Bloom (Plant) Limited, waste firm Worksop Waste Services Ltd and three men involved with the companies after they pleased guilty to waste crime activities.

Managing director of the companies, John Kelvin Bloom, of Town Street, Askham, was fined £13,500 and ordered to pay £20,000 in costs, plus £5,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act. His company Bloom (Plant) Ltd was also ordered to pay a total of £71,000 in fines and costs.

Richard James Morris, of Town Street, Askham, who managed Worksop Waste Services, was given penalties totalling £6,000, while landowner Michael Bowness, of Eaton, was ordered to pay £6,020.

Nottingham Crown Court heard the case concerned the commercial operation of illegal waste sites for between 2009 and 2011 as well as the illegal burning of controlled waste, which caused disruption to local residents, posed human health risks and caused pollution to the environment.

The court heard that Bloom Plant Ltd did not have an environmental permit to operate a waste transfer station and burn waste at the former Dormer Tools site just off Shireoaks Road in Worksop and at another site in Gamston. Worksop Waste Services, whose manager was Richard Morris, was also found to be undertaking similar activities on Sandy Lane.

The agency also said that crushed aggregate material at the Shireoaks Road site was contaminated, including asbestos, plastic and electric cable. Asbestos was also said to have been ‘inappropriately stored’ in a skips at both the Shireoaks site and the Sandy Lane site.

They were given full credit for the guilty pleas.

Additionally, the defence argued this was not a case involving significant or lasting damage to the environment, nor had any clean-up costs been borne by the public.