CaRT's £1.4m waste bill

THE Canal & River Trust has had to pay a staggering £1.4 millions to clear its Knostrop Wharf warehouse of waste after its predecessor, British Waterways legal department let out the premises without first securing any type of bond.

The two floors of the massive warehouse had been used by two brothers for storing suspect waste without environmental permits, with the people concerned appearing in Court as Mick Fitzgibbons explains:

Unauthorised waste operation

Two brothers who were formerly directors of Leeds Paper Recycling have been handed suspended jail terms for running unauthorised waste operations in the Yorkshire area. Jamie Michael Todd of Morley, and Thomas Todd of Pudsey must also carry out unpaid work after they each admitted nine waste management offences. Their father Michael Todd who was also formerly a director at the company but pleaded not guilty to all counts will have his charges left on file.

The pair were sentenced yesterday (Tuesday) at Leeds Crown Court after an Environment Agency investigation revealed that their company, Leeds Paper Recycling Ltd, was storing waste at two sites without any environmental permits. The brothers' illegal operations were discovered in January 2012, when investigating officers found the firm storing waste at the Knostrop Wharf in property owned by the Canal & River Trust. As a result, this waste caused a terrible nuisance to people who lived and worked nearby, and affected the lives of many people.

11,500 bales on site

According to evidence given by the Environment Agency, it warned the company that no more waste should be brought onto the site. However subsequent visits saw the waste pile grow from 209 bales in January 2012 to 1,100 bales in February 2012. At that point, Leeds Paper Recycling was served with a legal notice requiring that it remove the waste by March 2012. But the pile continued to grow and by May 2012. There were an estimated 11,500 bales on the site.

Prosecuting council Christopher Stables told the Court that further investigations revealed that Leeds Paper Recycling was also storing waste at Goole Docks where a further 4,000 bales of waste were found. As a result of the firm's liquidation, responsibility for the removal of the waste at Knostrop fell to the landowner, Canal & River Trust, which subsequently spent £1.4 million cleaning up the site.