Waste company fined for skip offences (From News Shopper)

Waste company Sitec fined for skip offences

3:39pm Thursday 16th February 2012 in News By David Mills

A WASTE company previously in charge of the site where a fire burned for three days causing the closure of a busy road has been prosecuted again.

Sitec Limited, formerly of Cornwall Drive, Orpington, was found guilty in its absence at Bromley Magistrates' Court on three counts of placing unlicensed skips on the highway.

The company was fined a total of £3,000 for the three offences and has been placed on a six-month suspension from Bromley Council's skip registration scheme.

During this time, applications for licences will not be considered.

Magistrates were told that skips without a licence belonging to Sitec had been found in Whippendell Way, St Paul's Cray; Court Road, Orpington; and Village Way, Beckenham.

Speaking after the case, the council's portfolio holder for environment, Councillor Colin Smith, said: "Rather depressingly and despite repeated warnings, this company continued to blatantly flout licensing conditions bringing prosecution on themselves.

"It really would be good to see them ‘get with the programme’ in future to prevent such a needless process and waste of time for everyone involved."

Last month News Shopper reported how the Environment Agency had revoked Sitec's permit and is no longer authorised to operate a waste business at the Cornwall Drive site.

This came after Sitec was convicted of a series of waste offences in April last year.

It stored quantities of household skip waste at levels significantly higher than the permit allowed and repeatedly failed to act on warnings and enforcement notices.

Around a month after Waste 4 Fuel took over the site under a new stricter environmental permit, a fire involving more than 1,000 tonnes of rubbish broke out on December 3 last year.

Sevenoaks Way was shut for three days following the blaze, which police are treating as suspicious.

Sitec was also ordered to pay £300 court costs in relation to the unlicensed skips case.