A gravel company which deposited waste soils illegally at the Cotswold Water Park site in Gloucestershire has today been fined £10,000. The company director was also given a 12 month conditional discharge.

Moreton C Cullimore (Gravels) Limited, and its company director, Roger Neville Cullimore, pleaded guilty to charges of depositing waste without a waste management licence or exemption certificate.

The company was also ordered to pay £5,500 prosecution costs to the Environment Agency.

Gloucester Magistrates’ Court heard that Environment Agency staff visited land owned by the company at Manor Farm, Cotswold Water Park in 2006, where they found a large amount of waste including soil, bricks ceramics and stones dumped in and around a number of lakes.

The company and the director claimed that the waste was to be used in the environmental repair of locations around the lakes in the park. The types of wastes stored on site could have been used in the environmental repair of similar locations, provided that the business had applied for and been granted exemptions from a waste management licence for the deposits. However, no exemptions were in place between June 2006 and March 2007, the period which officers visited the site and found the waste dumped. The company had applied for exemptions for some of the affected locations in December 2005, but these were not acceptable as they lacked essential information and the correct planning permissions were not in place at the time.

Following investigations by the Environment Agency, in August 2007 Mr Cullimore and the company secretary Mr Arthur Ransom submitted written statements under caution. Mr Cullimore stated that he had consented to the deposit and keeping of waste materials. He also provided a summary of the transfer notes on the waste loads deposited on the land at Manor Farm between 6 June 2006 and 15 July 2006.

Environment officer Jack Knight said: “This is a classic reminder to businesses of the need to ensure all the necessary permissions are in place before carrying out works involving waste materials. In this case the company knew of the need for permissions, but they broke the law by dumping the waste without first getting consent.

“We would encourage all businesses to thoroughly check what legislation applies to them and to follow correct procedures. We are happy to give advice to companies, and we urge anyone with queries to contact us on 08708 506 506 or look at our website for more information.”