Removal firm fined for railway dump

Breaching the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010 has cost a removal company and one of its directors more than £19,000

Martells of Sutton, in Greater London, and company director Charles Martell pleaded guilty after an Environment Agency investigation revealed a disused railway cutting was being illegally filled with waste from a construction project at the company’s Charlwoods Road site at East Grinstead.

Having secured planning permission for a new warehouse and registering two U1 waste exemptions, which allow certain waste to be used in construction, Martells acquired a former railway cutting behind the site.

It deposited large quantities of waste soil in the cutting to support the new building in contravention of its U1 waste exemptions. Such exemptions permit the use of suitable waste products in small-scale projects only, and it is not possible to register multiple exemptions to increase the volume of waste used.

Martells was fined £15,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,315, while Charles Martell was fined £2,000.