Several waste site operators have been successfully prosecuted over “multiple environmental offences”, persistent fire risks, and repeatedly ignoring advice from the Environment Agency (EA).

Six defendants were sentenced at Teesside Crown Court on 20 May 2024 following an EA investigation across three separate waste sites in Liverton, Teesside, and County Durham. Jonathan Waldron, Laura Hepburn, and Jonathan Guy Brudenell each had varying roles in the running of the sites, where issues around the storage and management of waste were identified, posing “significant” fire risks and leading to two fires in April and August 2020.

In January 2019, Selective Environmental Solutions Ltd (SESL), which first operated the Liverton site with Waldron as the director, was found to be in breach of its waste exemption storage limit of 500 tonnes. It is understood that a fallout led to Hepburn taking over the site in February 2019 as the director of Greenology (Liverton) Ltd.

The EA stated: “Waste on site continued to increase, with the Environment Agency warning about the amount of waste and the fire risk it posed, and taking subsequent enforcement action to have it cleared from the site. Whilst the site was largely cleared, by late 2019, it had quickly been refilled with waste plastic.”

A fire broke out on 5 April 2020, lasting nine days, which spread through the “baled plastic waste and the building” and destroyed the site.

Hepburn was also the director of another Greenology site in Teesside, which stored waste tyres. In June 2021, EA investigators discovered that the number of tyres at the site “exceeded the limit of the site’s waste exemption”, thus posing a “significant fire risk”. The EA stated that Hepburn had “repeatedly claimed” that a pyrolysis plant would be built to recycle the tyres that had reached their end of life; however, no plant was ever built. It is understood that Hepburn had acquired a permit from Middlesbrough Borough Council and “large sums from business partners”. Despite the claims to recycle the waste tyres, the EA reported that the site “continually handled excessive volumes of waste tyres which threatened to damage the environment”.

The second fire occurred at the County Durham site, which was found to not comply with its environmental permit and was “continually storing excessive volumes of waste”. EA investigators ordered remedial action to be taken and issued an enforcement notice, requiring the site to “remove waste and create fire breaks”. The notice was breached prior to a fire starting in August 2020 that continued burning for “many days”.

As reported by the Yorkshire Post, during the sentencing at Teesside Crown Court, the defendants were fined more than £103,000 in total. Additionally, collective custodial terms of over 6 years were handed out:

  • Brudenell was jailed for 2 years and 10 months.
  • Hepburn was sentenced to 2 years in prison, suspended for 2 years, with 150 hours of unpaid work in the community.
  • Waldron was sentenced to 20 months in prison, suspended for 2 years with requirements of probation supervision, rehabilitation, and 150 hours of unpaid work in the community. He was also ordered to pay £9,000 in costs.
  • Greenology (Liverton) was fined £69,000.
  • Greenology (Teesside) was fined £20,000.
  • SESL was fined £14,666.66.

In response to the sentencing, councillor Tim Gray told Teesside Live that residents in Loftus (near the Liverton site) had been living next to a “toxic waste dump”.

"Residents in the area have suffered massively and still have on their doorstep a fire-ravaged, fly-infested site. What about compensation for the residents and the damage that was done to them? The smoke was in people's homes, it was everywhere.

"They [the defendants] have managed to play the system and have got off lightly. I am still very bitter about this,” he added.

Area Environment Manager for the EA in the North East, Gary Wallace said: “All of those sentenced have shown a complete disregard for environmental laws, which are there to protect people and the environment.

“They could have been in no doubt that the sites were operating illegally and posed a significant fire risk, but repeatedly ignored our officers’ warnings about bringing the sites back into compliance and making them safe.

“The walls of waste resulted in two major fires, impacting on the environment and causing misery for local residents.

“Waste criminals cause distress to our communities and can destroy the environment, and this case demonstrates that we’ll do everything in our power to ensure they are brought to justice for their crimes.”

Full details about the EA investigation can be found here.

 

(Photograph by the Environment Agency)